Dover Beach

This article is about the poem. For the novel by Richard Bowker, see Dover Beach (novel).

"Dover Beach" is a lyric poem by the English poet Matthew Arnold.[1] It was first published in 1867 in the collection New Poems; however, surviving notes indicate its composition may have begun as early as 1849. The most likely date is 1851.[2]

The title, locale and subject of the poem's descriptive opening lines is the shore of the English ferry port of Dover, in Kent, facing Calais, in France, at the Strait of Dover, the narrowest part (21 miles (34 km)) of the English Channel, where Arnold spent his honeymoon in 1851.[2] Many of the beaches in this part of England are made up of small stones or pebbles rather than sand, and Arnold describes the sea ebbing over the stones as a "grating roar".[3]

  1. ^ Rosenblatt, Roger (14 January 1985). "Where Is Our Dover Beach?". Time article. Archived from the original on 30 September 2007. Retrieved 2 August 2007. a brief poem that eventually would be remembered by many more people than would remember the Great Exhibition, indeed would become the most anthologized poem in English
  2. ^ a b Allott, 1965, p. 240.
  3. ^ Holt Literature and Language Arts, Sixth Course. Houston, Texas: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. 2003. p. 721. ISBN 0030573742.