Comparing Matthew Arnolds Dover Beach and Gerard Manley HopkinsGods

Comparing Matthew Arnolds D everywhere bank and Gerard Manley HopkinsGods Grandeur Matthew Arnolds Dover Beach, and Gerard Manley Hopkins Gods Grandeur are similar in that both poems praise the beauty of the natural world and deplore mans role in that world. The style and tone of each poem is quite different, however. Arnold writes in an easy, menstruation style and as the poem develops, reveals a deeply melancholy read of view. Hopkins writes in a rattling compressed, somewhat jerky style, using sentences intemperate with alliteration and metaphors. His tone, though touched with sadness and perhaps even offense at man, unlike Arnolds poem, reveals an abiding sense of hope. Basically, each poet is presenting a very different view of Faith, and consequently of mans ultimate condition. Matthew Arnold begins his poem by describing a calm, beautiful scene. Dover Beach is lying fair in the moonlight. It is high gear tide and he teachs the coast of France and the cliffs of Englan d... / Gleaming and vast, out in the self-possessed bay. All seems cacoethesly and quiet. According to Baums research on the date and component part of the poem, Arnold is probably speaking to his new bride (86) as he says, Come to the window, seraphic is the night-air. But gradually the reader senses a shifting of mood and tone. straight he describes the line of spray... / Where the sea meets the land as moon-blanched. And the tide, tossing pebbles as it comes, is a grating roar with a tremulous cadence slow that brings / The endless none of sadness in. This melancholy mood grows deeper as he thinks of mans bulky span of history-- The turbid ebb and flow / of valet de chambre misery. In the next stanza beginning with line twenty-one, Arnold gets to the reason ... ... in a sky that is brown, not completely black because Gods Spirit is hovering in love over the lowering world still, like a mother dove brooding over her nest. Obviously, both poets recognize the darknes s in the world and both see love as a light in the darkness. Arnolds love is human love from one individual to another and even that seems uncertain. The redeeming love Hopkins speaks of is Gods love for man and His creation. That love is unchanging and indestructible--an abiding hope in the darkness. What a difference faith can make. Works Cited Baum, Paull F. Ten Studies in the Poetry of Matthew Arnold. Durham Duke UP, 1961. Boyle, Robert S.J. Metaphor in Hopkins. Chapel Hill U of North Carolina P, 1961. Kirszner, Laurie G. and Stephen R. Mandell. Literature Reading Reacting Writing. 3rd ed. Fort Worth Harcourt, 1991.