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Dover Beach


            How can a person's faith be measured? Faith cannot be seen, but it can be felt by others. People feel love everyday, but love like faith cannot be seen. Everyone needs to have faith in at least one thing because faith is our source of hope. In the poem "Dover Beach" by Matthew Arnold he writes that with belief we need hope to survive in this dark world in which we live. The speaker in the poem is standing on the cliffs of Dover at night over looking the sea. He is talking to his love with his concerns about keeping his faith. Mr. Arnold uses a variety of poetic devices to emphasize his theme that all of mankind must keep their faith alive in order to deal with the curve balls that life may throw. .
             Mr. Arnold uses the first stanza of the poem to create visual, auditory, and olfactory images that will allow the reader to picture the sea of which the speaker is viewing. The poet begins immediately with visual and auditory imagery when describing the sea as "calm"(1). In more detail the speaker describes the "tide [as] full"(2) in the "moon"(2) light(4). This image suggests that there is life out there, but that it is smothered by the darkness. The "cliffs of England"(4) are "glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay"(5). The poet uses visual imagery to describe in detail the cliffs sparkling in the moonlight. At this point he has someone to "come to the window"(6) and enjoy the "sweet night air"(6). The speaker tells his companion that one can see "where the sea meets the moon-blanched land"(8) through a "long line of spray"(7). The words, "long line"(7) and "meets moon"(8) are more examples of alliteration. The poet uses assonance when he uses the words "sea meets"(8) and consonance when he uses the words "blanched land"(8). Also in the following lines, the poet uses auditory imagery so the reader can "hear the grating roar/of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling"(9-10).


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