Dramatic Monologue – a

single person speaking, who

isn’t the poet.

Reflection of the moon in Dover Beach

the water.
Narrator is calm and It’s the narrator. Sitting by the sea..
peaceful and was able to see something
Strait – Channel
The sea is calm tonight. beyond the superficial.

Light fades away.

The tide is full, the moon lies fair
The power of
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light England that stands
France is fading.
tall and mighty.

Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand, If there is any hope
Visual to be found, it is in
Imagery Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay. England.

He is calling
his fiancé, Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
his wife/
Wide sea.. and sea
companion. Only, from the long line of spray shore.. where the sand
is shining white in the
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land, moonlight.

Sound of the pebbles,

Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
Auditory
Imagery
Tremulous – trembling /
Shaky
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
Cadence – tempo /
rhythm.
Greek tragedy writer.
Metaphorical – Motion of
the tide is related to the
ups & downs of human
life.
Allusion – reference to.
Here the narrator has
taken the reference of
Greek tragedy writer
Sophocles.
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Strand – beach / shore.
At their return, up the high strand,
Monotony of human life
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
It brings sadness because
the narrator is reflecting on
his thoughts.
The eternal note of sadness in.
Sophocles long ago
Cloudy / muddy / not
Heard it on the Aegean, and it brought clear
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow Motion of the tide – the
high tide / low tide
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought, The waves are conveying a
Hearing it by this distant northern sea. message to the narrator the
way they conveyed a message
to Sophocles.. many years
ago.. and the message is of –
ups and downs in human life /
human misery.
 Metaphor – persons faith in something
Overwhelming / full
The Sea of Faith / God / devotion / religion.
– people had a lot
of faith Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore Something that wraps
around / belt.
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
Faith is retreating The way the sea covers /
Industrialization setting But now I only hear wraps the earth, faith was
in – science Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, that intense. Faith used to
questioning religion / bind / hold people together
everything that people
Faith Retreating, to the breath . Night-wind - A new
believed in.
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear direction
Metaphor – faith being And naked shingles of the world. Shingles - pebbles
melancholic because it
is retreating.
Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
Like a fairytale
Appearance vs To lie before us like a land of dreams,
deception.
So various, so beautiful, so new, Contrast – life is no
fairytale but rather it’s
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, dark and pale.
Certainty / freedom
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
dark
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
Signifies chaos. People are turning against each other
with trust / faith and humanity is missing
/ we are turning into enemies because of
Figures of speech – difference in opinion due to the onset of
industrialization (scientific discoveries)
1. Enjambment

2. Alliteration 1. Science and religion

3. Metaphor 2. Loss of faith in God
4. Anaphora 3. Appearance vs reality
5. Simile 4. Trust in love / love as our saviour.
6. Pathetic fallacy