Dover Beach When I Saw Term Paper

Total Length: 431 words ( 1 double-spaced pages)

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" The thought is that faith is diminishing. Perhaps he is referring to the change that was occurring during the 19th century as a result of science and its influence. Many people questioned their religious faith in the light of geological discoveries and ideas about evolution. Once everybody believed: "The Sea of Faith / was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore / lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled." But now faith has greatly diminished and people are more worldly.

In the final stanza the narrator calls to his beloved. "...let us be true/to one another!" Then he points out that although the world promises pleasures and a variety of things to do and see, it cannot provide true joy. Only love can promise joy. And he names all the spiritual things the world and worldly knowledge can never give: ".
..neither joy, nor love, nor light,/nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;" This is when we learn there is a war going on. The two lovers are "here," perhaps in each other's arms, experiencing love and each other, while "ignorant armies clash by night." War seems all the more tragic when it threatens people who love each other......

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"Dover Beach When I Saw" (2007, April 30) Retrieved May 30, 2025, from
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