Dove

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Dover Beach
This document combines your writing from the Response Writer with the information from Meaning. To continue your work online, copy and paste this document into a Word file. To work away from the computer, print Response Writer.
Response Writer
Follow these three steps to write ten interpretive sentences.
1. Review your responses from Sound and Images.
Sound
RESPONSE WRITER: Why are irregular lines, enjambment, and pauses within a line appropriate for a poem with a seaside setting?
Images
RESPONSE WRITER: Describe the pictures you saw in your mind as you read and listened to the poem.
RESPONSE WRITER: Compare the video images to your own mental pictures and ideas about the poem. Has your understanding of the poem changed?
2. Review the structure of an effective interpretive sentence.
Example 1
Consider the following question from Sound and a sample sentence like the kind you might construct. Remember that the structural elements of an interpretive sentence include: the context, a literary device, text examples, interpretation, and connecting words that create coherence.
Question: Why are irregular lines, enjambment, and pauses within a line appropriate for a poem with a seaside setting?
In "Dover Beach" complex rhythmic patterns capture the motion of waves rolling onto a seashore and withdrawing: short and long lines visually imitate the waves' movement; enjambment and internal pauses echo the simultaneous but opposing forces of incoming waves and the underlying outward pull of the sea.
Example 2
Consider the information in the first multiple-choice question from Meaning and a sample sentence like the kind you might construct.
QUESTION 1: Each stanza of "Dover Beach" has a specific setting—suggested through literal description, allusion, or metaphor. Choose the most accurate answer about setting and mood in the poem:
A window view of the English Channel, evoking both peaceful and sad feelings
Allusions to the glory of ancient Greece and the recurring tragedy of human misery
The past glory of a metaphorical "Sea of Faith" and the present reality of melancholy
The speaker's wish for fulfillment and the despair of a metaphorical battle scene
All of the above
Sample Sentence: In all the stanzas of "Dover Beach," language describing setting suggests positive and negative moods, a part of the larger motif of contrast conveyed by setting—sea and land, present and past, real and metaphorical places, the individual and society, national and universal identity.
3. Construct at least ten interpretive sentences. As resources, use the questions and answers from Meaning along with your writing. Consult the poem and the Glossary as needed. Many items may yield more than one sentence.
QUESTION 2: In the style of the dramatic monologue, the speaker addresses a listener. Stanza 3 best illustrates this listener's absence from the speaker's mind; the speaker seems lost in his melancholy thoughts, completely forgetting his lover's presence.
RESPONSE WRITER: What is ironic about the speaker's attitude (given the romantic setting) and his lyric voice (given the definition of a dramatic monologue)?
QUESTION 3: Analyze the language of the poem. The "s" sound occurs repeatedly as initial, medial, and end sounds in words throughout "Dover Beach. " The sibilants in the first stanza are sea, lies, straits, coast, Gleams, cliffs, stand, vast, sweet, spray, sea, meets, Listen, pebbles, waves, strand, cease, tremulous, cadence, slow, sadness
RESPONSE WRITER: Observe the use of "s" sounds in the remainder of the poem as well. With specific examples, explain why the repetition of this sound is appropriate, given the setting and mood.
QUESTION 4: In the first stanza of "Dover Beach," the "sea"/"land" words and the words that refer to sound and visual images are
Sea: sea, tide, straits, bay, spray, waves
Land: coast, cliffs, land, pebbles, strand
Sound: Listen, hear, grating roar, waves, cadence, note
Visual Images: moon, light/Gleams, Glimmering, tranquil bay, moon-blanch'd
RESPONSE WRITER: Observe the general locations of each of these four groups of words in the stanza. What do these examples of diction and imagery contribute to the poem's motif of contrast and connected opposites?
QUESTION 5: Diction conveys both positive and negative moods. The words in the first stanza that have positive connotations and those with negative connotations are
Positive: calm, full, fair, gleams, glimmering, tranquil, sweet
Negative: grating, roar, draw back, fling, tremulous, sadness
RESPONSE WRITER: Think about the ideas and moods communicated through these contrasting patterns of words. Does "moon-blanch'd land" belong with the list of positive or negative connotations? Support your answer by commenting on the meaning and locations of words with positive and negative connotations in this and the remaining stanzas of the poem.
QUESTION 6: In the first stanza of "Dover Beach," the motif of contrast and connected opposites is reinforced by all of these devices:
1. Geographical details: Opposite shores of England and France are connected by water and the speaker's viewpoint
2. Spatial details: Narrow window, close at hand, frames the distant sea and land
3. Reflective observation and direct address: Inward self-reflection merges with social interaction
4. Parataxis: Opposing movements of waves are connected by repeated coordinate conjunctions
QUESTION 7: Despite its irregularity, the rhyme scheme of "Dover Beach" has meaningful patterns. The end rhymes for words in the first stanza and their patterns are aba: to-night, fair, light c:stand, land, strand dbd:bay, night-air, spray e:roar (rhymes with shore and roar in stanza 3) fgfg:fling, begin, bring, in
RESPONSE WRITER: How do these rhymes support the motif of contrast and connected opposites in "Dover Beach"?
QUESTION 8: The following language choices and literary devices in the second stanza are parallel to an element of the first stanza:
Allusions: Sophocles and the Ægean parallel the speaker by the English Channel
The pronoun "it": "Heard it" refers to the "grating roar"; "brought it" parallels "bring/The eternal note of sadness in"
The pronoun "we": The pronoun "we" refers to the speaker and the listener in the first stanza
Repetition: Repetition of "Begin, and cease, and then again begin" parallels "ebb and flow"
QUESTION 9: Clarify the metaphor in the first three lines of the third stanza. Both the sea and the "bright girdle furl'd" are part of the vehicle. The best description of its tenor is "a universal faith once unified and enhanced human existence."
The tenor of the metaphor is its abstract meaning. The phrase "round earth's shore" suggests all humanity. "Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl'd" implies that humanity was once defined and unified by faith. The imagery and diction of the third line convey beauty and harmony, creating a positive image of a faith that enhanced human life.
QUESTION 10:In the third stanza, the dark, negative words and phrases that are the corresponding opposites of the positive terms are
Positive: Sea of Faith, Was ... full, round earth's shore, bright girdle, furl'd
Negative: melancholy ... roar, Retreating, vast edges drear, naked shingles, breath/Of the night-wind
RESPONSE WRITER: Consider the thoughts and emotions these dark images suggest to you. Explain their meaning, showing how these examples of concrete language are even darker than the "eternal note of sadness" and "turbid ebb and flow of human misery" in the preceding stanzas.
QUESTION 11: Throughout "Dover Beach" the speaker uses nature as a reflection of his emotions, creating the overall effect of the pathetic fallacy. The best illustration of the precise meaning of this literary term is the sea's "melancholy, long, withdrawing roar," which implies that the ocean itself feels the emotions of melancholy.
QUESTION 12: The speaker refers to present and past time. Words that imply these different times are
Present: to-night, is, hear, But now, we are here
Past: long ago, heard, was once
RESPONSE WRITER: Notice that both "eternal" (l. 14) and "let us be" (l. 29) suggest continual time, just as nature's cycles are continual. Consider the relationship and importance of both nature and time in "Dover Beach." What do references to nature and time contribute to the structure and meaning of the poem?
QUESTION 13: Along with end rhyme, other rhyming devices and syntax contribute to the musical quality of "Dover Beach." Devices and examples are
Alliteration, lines 4 and 7: Gleams ... gone, long line and lines 23, 25, 31: Lay like ... folds ... furl'd; melancholy, long; lie ... like ... land
Internal rhyme, line 13: begin ... then ... begin
Inverted modifier, line 13: tremulous cadence slow
Parenthesis, lines 11-13: At their return, up the high strand/ .../... and bring
RESPONSE WRITER: Using specific examples, explain how sound and syntax contribute to meaning and poetic effect in any of these lines from "Dover Beach."
QUESTION 14: In stanzas 2, 3, and 4, the end rhymes in clustered patterns include each of the following. "Faith" and "breath" in stanza 3 are examples of slant rhyme.
Stanza 2, aba cbc: ago, brought, flow, we, thought, sea
Stanza 3, abcd badc: Faith, shore, furl'd, hear, roar, breath, drear, world
Stanza 4, abba cddcc: true, seems, dreams, new, light, pain, plain, flight, night
RESPONSE WRITER: The first stanza of "Dover Beach" and stanzas two and three together are each the length of a sonnet. Two quatrains and a kind of couplet, occur in the last stanza. What does the mixture of rhyme with irregular meter, along with enjambment and varied line lengths, contribute to the meaning of the poem?
QUESTION 15: In the last stanza, the words and phrases that best illustrate each of the following devices are
Direct address: Ah, love
Positive connotations: true, dreams, various, beautiful, new
Repetition: so, so, so; nor, nor, nor ...
Metaphor: like a land of dreams, as on a darkling plain
Rhyming contrasts: light, night
Negative connotations: confused alarms, struggle, flight, ignorant, clash
RESPONSE WRITER: These examples recapitulate literary devices used in preceding stanzas. Do they show a change or reinforce the speaker's attitude and the poem's meaning? Defend your response with comments on specific examples.