Dover Beach and Other Poems

by Matthew Arnold

Book Overview

This superb selection of the poetry of Matthew Arnold (1822-1888) offers rich evidence of the poetic gifts that made him famous in his day, and that continue to rank him among the most loved and admired of Victorian poets. In addition to the title poem, it includes such masterpieces as The Scholar Gipsy, Thyrsis, The Forsaken Merman, Memorial Verses, and Rugby Chapel.
Although as a literary critic, Arnold championed the serene poise and impersonal...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0486280373
• ISBN13: 9780486280370
• Release Date: May 2012
• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Length: 112 Pages
• Weight: 0.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 5.2" x 8.2"
• Age Range: 14 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 9 and higher

Customer Reviews

A few lines are enough

A poet may live for us through a single poem, or even a few lines. For me the poet Arnold is 'Dover Beach'. " Ah Love, let us be true to one another, for the world which seems to lie before us, like a land of dreams, hath really neither joy nor light nor love nor certitude, nor peace nor help from pain, and we are here , as on a darkling plain, swept with confused alarums, of struggle and flight, where Ignorant armies clash by night." This great poem written at the threshhold between an Age Dying and another yet to be born is Arnold's signature piece. I also however recommend, and have some knowledge of his long poem 'Sohrab and Rustum'. Arnold is a poet whose music sometimes fades, but whose quest for moral meaning is regularly present. He is one of those rare human beings who has written a single poem, a few lines which should be remembered for as long as poetry is read and enjoyed.