“Dover Beach” & “Churchgoing”

We’ve been taking poems two at a time with a comparative essay in mind—each pair thematically linked. How about Matthew Arnold’s poem and Philip Larkin’s poem? Do they reflect the same outlook? What are they “about”? What do you think the tone of each poem is, and how does it influence interpretation?

And since we are listening especially for musical sounds (not all music is “beautiful”) and rhythm, consider those things as well as you answer these questions.

Work is due by Tuesday’s class.

Dover Beach

The sea is calm tonight.

The tide is full, the moon lies fair

Upon the straits;—on the French coast the light

Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,

Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.

Come to the window, sweet is the night air!

Only, from the long line of spray

Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,

Listen! you hear the grating roar

Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,

At their return, up the high strand,

Begin, and cease, and then again begin,

With tremulous cadence slow, and bring

The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago

Heard it on the Aegean, and it brought

Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow

Of human misery; we

Find also in the sound a thought,

Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

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 I only hear

Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,

Retreating, to the breath

Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear

And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true

To one another! for the world, which seems

To lie before us like a land of dreams,

So various, so beautiful, so new,

Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,

Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;

And we here as on a darkling plain

Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,

Where ignorant armies clash by night.

—Matthew Arnold

Questions

1. Vocabulary: strand (11), girdle (23), darkling (35). Identify the physical locale of the cliffs of Dover and their relation to the French coast; identify the Aegean and Sophocles.

2. As precisely as possible, define the implied scene: What is the speaker’s physical location? Whom is he addressing? What is the time of day and the state of the weather?

3. Discuss the visual and auditory images of the poem and their relation to illusion and reality?

4. The speaker is lamenting the decline of religious faith in his time. Is he himself a believer? Does he see any medicine for the world’s maladies?

5. Discuss in detail the imagery in the last three lines. Are the “armies” figurative or literal? What makes these lines so effective?

6. What term or terms would you choose to describe the overall tone of the poem?

Philip Larkin - Church Going

Once I am sure there's nothing going on

I step inside, letting the door thud shut.

Another church: matting, seats, and stone,

And little books; sprawlings of flowers, cut

For Sunday, brownish now; some brass and stuff

Up at the holy end; the small neat organ;

And a tense, musty, unignorable silence,

Brewed God knows how long. Hatless, I take off

My cycle-clips in awkward reverence.

Move forward, run my hand around the font.

From where I stand, the roof looks almost new -

Cleaned, or restored? Someone would know: I don't.

Mounting the lectern, I peruse a few

Hectoring large-scale verses, and pronounce

'Here endeth' much more loudly than I'd meant.

The echoes snigger briefly. Back at the door

I sign the book, donate an Irish sixpence,

Reflect the place was not worth stopping for.

Yet stop I did: in fact I often do,

And always end much at a loss like this,

Wondering what to look for; wondering, too,

When churches will fall completely out of use

What we shall turn them into, if we shall keep

A few cathedrals chronically on show,

Their parchment, plate and pyx in locked cases,

And let the rest rent-free to rain and sheep.

Shall we avoid them as unlucky places?

Or, after dark, will dubious women come

To make their children touch a particular stone;

Pick simples for a cancer; or on some

Advised night see walking a dead one?

Power of some sort will go on

In games, in riddles, seemingly at random;

But superstition, like belief, must die,

And what remains when disbelief has gone?

Grass, weedy pavement, brambles, buttress, sky,

A shape less recognisable each week,

A purpose more obscure. I wonder who

Will be the last, the very last, to seek

This place for what it was; one of the crew

That tap and jot and know what rood-lofts were?

Some ruin-bibber, randy for antique,

Or Christmas-addict, counting on a whiff

Of gown-and-bands and organ-pipes and myrrh?

Or will he be my representative,

Bored, uninformed, knowing the ghostly silt

Dispersed, yet tending to this cross of ground

Through suburb scrub because it held unspilt

So long and equably what since is found

Only in separation - marriage, and birth,

And death, and thoughts of these - for which was built

This special shell? For, though I've no idea

What this accoutred frowsty barn is worth,

It pleases me to stand in silence here;

A serious house on serious earth it is,

In whose blent air all our compulsions meet,

Are recognized, and robed as destinies.

And that much never can be obsolete,

Since someone will forever be surprising

A hunger in himself to be more serious,

And gravitating with it to this ground,

Which, he once heard, was proper to grow wise in,

If only that so many dead lie round.

1. Vocabulary: Hectoring (14), dubious (28), simples (30), accoutered (53), frowsty (53), blent (56). Large-scale (14) indicates a print size suited to oral reading; an Irish sixpence (17) was a small coin not legal tender in England, the scene of the poem; rood-lofts (41) are architectural features found in many early Christian churches; bibber and randy (42) are figurative, literally meaning “drunkard” and “lustful”; gown-and-bands (44) are ornate robes worn by church officials in religious ceremonies.

2. Like “Dover Beach” (first published in 1867), “Church Going” (1954) is concerned with belief and disbelief. In modern England the landscape is dotted with small churches, often charming in their combination of stone and badly in need of repair, and some are well tended by parishioners who keep them dusted and provide fresh flowers for the diminishing attendance at Sunday services. These churches invariably have by the entrance a book that visitors can sign as a record of their having been there and a collection box with a sign urging them to drop in a few coins for upkeep, repair, or restoration. In small towns and villages the church is often the chief or only building of architectural or historical interest, and tourist visitors may outnumber parishioners. To which of the three categories of churches mentioned here does Larkin’s poem refer?

3. What different denotations does the title contain?

4. IN what activity has the speaker been engaging when he stops to see the church? How is it revealed? Why does he stop? Is he a believer? How involved is he in inspecting this church building?

5. Compare the language used by the speakers in “Dover Beach” and Church Going”. Which speaker is more eloquent? Which is more informal and conversational? Without looking back at the texts, try to assign the following words to one poem or the other: moon-blanched, cycle-clips, darkling, hath, snigger, whiff, drear, brownish, tremulous, glimmering, frowsty, stuff. Then go back and check your success.

6. Define the tone of “Church Going” as precisely as possible. Compare this tone to that of “Dover Beach”.