An Analysis of Dover BeachDover Beach intrigued me as soon as I read the title. I really love beaches, so I feel a connection to the speaker as he stands on the cliffs of Dover, looking out to sea and reflecting on life. Arnold successfully captures the mystical beauty of the ocean while echoing human existence and life's struggles. The speaker's moods throughout the poem change radically as do the moods of the sea. The irregular and disordered rhyme is representative of these disharmonious moods and struggles. In this case, the speaker seems to be struggling with their relationship with their partner. At first, there is a peaceful and blissful atmosphere in the poem. The image of light in the darkness of night is created by the use of words such as “glow,” “twinkle,” and “moon-bleached.” The speaker seems excited by the sweet night air and the lively waves that hurl pebbles onto the shore, as evidenced by the exclamation marks in the sixth and ninth lines. Waves “begin, cease, and then begin again,” just as life is a continuous process of cessation and rebirth. The first verse is quite happy until the last two lines when “the tremulous cadence slows and brings/ the eternal note of sadness.” This phrase causes the tone of the poem to change to a darker one. This change in tone continues in the second stanza where Arnold makes an allusion to Sophocles, a Greek playwright whose works dwell on tragic ironies and the role of fate in human existence. The speaker feels connected to Sophocles as he too heard the "eternal note of sadness" over the Aegean (a sea on the eastern coast of Greece). It is suggested that Sophocles was inspired by... the center of the card... there is resolution in the rhyme. It becomes more orderly towards the end, because the speaker's love can counteract the chaos of the world. The various moods of "Dover Beach" reflect the many feelings and struggles that life holds for all of us. This is the experience of one individual, but it is nevertheless true for all of us, because each of us has felt disillusioned and betrayed by the world, at one time or another. We have all known beauty and joy, but also misery and sadness. Arnold expresses these experiences by relating them to the nature of the ocean. The experience that surpasses all others is that of love, which is the only true thing in a deceptive world. Everything the speaker is trying to express is tied together by the form of the poem. Irregular rhyming is a perfect way to express the confusion the speaker feels about the world.