Jeff Mason
Comparative Essay English 200 C
Dover Beach and The Lady Of Shallot
Comparing and contrasting “Dover Beach” by Matthew Arnold and
“The Lady of Shalott” by Alfred Lord Tennyson reveals two very different
approaches to poetry, and sums up the Victorian era in literature as being
transitional between the Romantic period and the Modern period. Arnold
looks forward to the 20th Century and Tennyson looks back toward the
Arthurian legends of the 13th. In the 19th Century there was much upheaval
socially and culturally, and the future was uncertain as the Industrial
Revolution which began in 1785 had brought sweeping changes in
technology and society. Examining these two poets sheds light on the
Victorian self as being dual-faceted: reflecting and honouring the past while
both anticipating and fearing the future as technological and scientific
knowledge accelerate. Tennyson’s “The Lady of Shalott” relies on the
popular medieval legend of King Arthur for effectiveness, while “Dover
Beach” boldly forges ahead into new territory, using the metaphor of the
Beach and the Atlantic for the chaotic state of current affairs. Tennyson’s
poem is intended as stirring fantasy, while Arnold’s expresses fear and
alarm, a warning against the world which “hath really . . . [no] certitude, nor
peace, nor help from pain” (l.34). Tennyson’s tone is informal, and his goal
merely to entertain, while Arnold’s ambition is far reaching: to comment
upon the hostile, and intrinsically joyless and loveless world that he and his
wife are living in. The opposition of idealism and cynicism is apparent in
juxtaposing these poems, a crucial aspect of the transitional century in which
they were written.
“The Lady Of Shalott” employs archaic rhyme structure and Old
English phrases immediately evoking medieval legend, while “Dover
Beach” uses a ‘modern’ style replete with metaphor. Tennyson’s chosen
rhyme scheme is
A
A
B
B
C
D
D
D
C
which is impressively adhered to throughout the poem. This seems strikingly
formal and a great achievement poetically, reminiscent of Chaucer or
Shakespeare. Tennyson speaks with great authority, aligning himself with
older traditions and overall reaching back into the past in a poignant way to
describe the curse that dooms the helpless Lady. A fatalistic tale, which
echoes the earliest English literature such as Beowulf and vaguely
reminiscent of a Norse cosmology in presenting a universe controlled by
unsympathetic gods and magical forces such as the curse, which seems to
have no logical reason to exist except to torment and finally kill The Lady.
In “Dover Beach” Matthew Arnold addresses only his new bride on their
honeymoon night, speaking about the sea; the waves near their home, the
Aegean that Sophocles contemplated, and the “Sea of Faith” (l.21), a
metaphor of Arnold’s invention for the “faith” or “hopes” of the world.
To Arnold, it “[brings] the eternal note of sadness in” (l.14) as it casts its
waves and pebbles against the shore and from this idea springs the rest of the
poem. The Beach is likened to the beach Sophocles stood on when the
“turbid ebb and flow/Of human misery” (Arnold l.17) was brought to his
mind by the ebb and flow of the waters. The central image of the “Sea of
Faith” is derived from this, the “thought” we “find” in the sound of the
waves is that the “melancholy, long, withdrawing roar” (Arnold l.25)
replaces the Faith that “once . . . round earth’s shore Lay like the folds of a
bright girdle furled” (Arnold l.22) These similes, metaphors and
personifications are Arnold’s inventions and amount to his own observation
of waves crashing on a shore. The rhyme scheme is much less ambitious,
and not rigidly adhered to. Some of the lines rhyme and each stanza has its
own internal symmetry, creating a much less consistently organized
presentation and simply evoking a train of thought.
This is a much more direct statement from Arnold to the reader than
Tennyson’s reliance on ancient traditions.
The Lady of Shalott presents a familiar reassuring theme, a Fairy
Tale, while Dover Beach talks about current events in 1851 like the
Napoleonic wars and, read in 2007 is darkly ominous, with its famous line
about “ignorant armies clashing by night”. This prefigures the catastrophic
modern conflicts of the 20th Century (The World Wars) and in retrospect
Matthew Arnold was prescient in his premonition of ill omen when worrying
about the kind of world he and his wife would live in. He warns his wife
against the world which “hath really . . . [no] certitude, nor peace, nor help
from pain” (Arnold l.34). Comparing this with The Lady of Shalott,
Tennyson’s poem is harmless, decorative entertainment, modeled on older
traditions and ornamented in a florid way, overall meant to be easily
digestible. There is no historical or social relevance. Arnold’s poem by
contrast bewails the state of the modern world, comparing it to “a darkling
plain/Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight” (l.35). His
intimation lasts only four short stanzas. I think this kind of bold, direct
statement in poetry, with an attention grabbing idea presented in a shorter
format, is characteristically modern. The modern poets of the 20th Century
may owe a debt of some kind to Arnold, as most poetry from this time is
marked by anti-religious and atheist statements, disillusioned Howls (see
Allen Ginsberg) about mankind’s lost innocence, and screams of “God is
dead”. I think this makes Tennyson a much less relevant poet to today’s
readers, his idealistic, naïve and fanciful tale about Sir Lancelot and The
Lady a very distant cousin to the work of the modernists.
Arnold is much more serious, referencing the High Classicism of the
Romantics such as Pope in using a classical allusion to Sophocles, speaking
about “human misery” and his reach is much more ambitious. Tennyson by
contrast uses Old English phrases, which are reminiscent of Chaucer’s The
Canterbury Tales, which were informal in tone and also, coincidentally,
about knights and ladies etc. There is a curse, The Lady of Shalott is
described as a ‘fairy lady’, and of course Camelot, the legendary castle of
King Arthur and his Round table of Knights including the most famous, Sir
Lancelot, and this makes the poem definitely part of the Arthurian legend
and moreover a ‘fairy tale’. Arnold warns that the world “hath really neither
joy, nor love, nor light” (Arnold l.32) and this is definitely in an opposing
category to Tennyson’s fantasy.
Dover Beach and The Lady of Shalott are very different poems. Dover
Beach seeks to comment directly on current affairs, speaking ominously
about “ignorant armies (Arnold 35)” which of course has direct relevance to
the 20th Century, as conflicts greater than Arnold could have imagined took a
massive toll on human life in World Wars 1 and 2. The Lady Of Shalott
looks backward to a simpler universe of magic and fate in weaving an
authoritative poetic exercise that suspends the cynicism of the modern
world. In the 19th Century both of these ideas were vitally important to the
Victorian character or Victorian self, an identity seemingly torn between the
traditional values and ideals referenced by Tennyson and uncertainty about
the future with its foreboding acceleration of technology and military
conflict on an unprecedented scale in the form of the Napoleonic Wars that
Arnold warns his wife, and us, about.
Works Cited
Matthew, Arnold : Dover Beach. Retrieved 11/06/2007 from
http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/arnold/writings/doverbeach.html