Dover Beach
Encyclopedia
"Dover Beach" is a short lyric poem
by the English
poet Matthew Arnold
. It was first published in 1867 in the collection New Poems, but surviving notes indicate its composition may have begun as early as 1849. The most likely date is 1851.
The title, locale and subject of the poem's descriptive opening lines is the shore of the English ferry port of Dover
, Kent
, facing Calais
, France, at the Strait of Dover
, the narrowest part (21 miles) of the English Channel
, where Arnold honeymooned in 1851.
Arnold looks at two aspects of this naturalistic scene, its soundscape (in the first and second stanza) and the retreating action of the tide (in the third stanza). He hears the sound of the sea as "the eternal note of sadness". Sophocles
, a 5th century BC Greek playwright who wrote tragedies on fate and the will of the gods, also heard this same sound as he stood upon the shore of the Aegean Sea
. Critics differ widely on how to interpret this image of the Greek Classical age. One critic sees a difference between Sophocles in the classical age of Greece interpreting the "note of sadness" humanistically, while Arnold in the industrial nineteenth century hears in this sound the retreat of religion and faith. A more recent critic connects the two as artists, Sophocles the tragedian, Arnold the lyric poet, each attempting through words to transform this note of sadness into "a higher order of experience".
Having examined the soundscape, Arnold turns to the action of the tide itself and sees in its retreat a metaphor for the loss of faith in the modern age, once again expressed in an auditory image ("But now I only hear/Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar"). This third stanza begins with an image not of sadness, but of "joyous fulness" similar in beauty to the image with which the poem opens.
The final stanza begins with an appeal to love, then moves on to the famous ending metaphor. Critics have varied in their interpretation of the first two lines of this stanza; one calls them a "perfunctory gesture...swallowed up by the poem's powerfully dark picture", while another sees in them "a stand against a world of broken faith". Midway between these is the interpretation of one of Arnold's biographers who describes being "true/To one another" as "a precarious notion" in a world that has become "a maze of confusion".
The metaphor with which the poem ends is most likely an allusion to a passage in Thucydides
' account of the Peloponnesian War
. Thucydides describes an ancient battle which occurred on a similar beach during the invasion of Sicily by the Athenians. The battle took place at night; the attacking army became disoriented while fighting in the darkness and many of their soldiers inadvertently killed each other. This final image has also been variously interpreted by the critics. The "darkling plain" of the final line has been described as Arnold's "central statement" of the human condition. A more recent critic has seen the final line as "only metaphor" and thus susceptible to the "uncertainty" of poetic language.
"The poem's discourse", Honan tells us, "shifts literally and symbolically from the present, to Sophocles on the Aegean, from Medieval Europe back to the present—and the auditory and visual images are dramatic and mimetic and didactic. Exploring the dark terror that lies beneath his happiness in love, the speaker resolves to love—and exigencies of history and the nexus between lovers are the poem's real issues. That lovers may be 'true/To one another' is a precarious notion: love in the modern city momentarily gives peace, but nothing else in a post-medieval society reflects or confirms the faithfulness of lovers. Devoid of love and light the world is a maze of confusion left by 'retreating' faith."
Critics have questioned the unity of the poem, noting that the sea of the opening stanza does not appear in the final stanza, while the "darkling plain" of the final line is not apparent in the opening. Various solutions to this problem have been proffered. One critic saw the "darkling plain" with which the poem ends as comparable to the "naked shingles of the world". "Shingles" here means flat beach cobbles, characteristic of some wave-swept coasts. Another found the poem "emotionally convincing" even if its logic may be questionable. The same critic notes that "the poem upends our expectations of metaphor" and sees in this the central power of the poem. The poem's historicism creates another complicating dynamic. Beginning in the present it shifts to the classical age of Greece, then (with its concerns for the sea of faith) it turns to Medieval Europe, before finally returning to the present. The form of the poem itself has drawn considerable comment. Critics have noted the careful diction in the opening description, the overall, spell-binding rhythm and cadence of the poem and its dramatic character. One commentator sees the strophe-antistrophe of the ode at work in the poem, with an ending that contains something of the "cata-strophe" of tragedy. Finally, one critic sees the complexity of the poem's structure resulting in "the first major 'free-verse' poem in the language".
The final line of this draft is:
Tinker and Lowry conclude that this "seem[s] to indicate that the last nine lines of the poem as we know it were already in existence when the portion regarding the ebb and flow of the sea at Dover was composed." This would make the manuscript "a prelude to the concluding paragraph" of the poem in which "there is no reference to the sea or tides".
Arnold's visits to Dover may also provide some clue to the date of composition. Allott has Arnold in Dover in June 1851 and again in October of that year "on his return from his delayed continental honeymoon". To critics who conclude that ll. 1-28 were written at Dover and ll. 29-37 "were rescued from some discarded poem" Allott suggests the contrary, i.e., that the final lines "were written at Dover in late June," while "ll. 29-37 were written in London shortly afterwards".
responds directly to Arnold's pessimism in his four-line poem, "The Nineteenth Century and After" (1929):
Anthony Hecht
, U.S. Poet Laureate, replied to "Dover Beach" in his poem "The Dover Bitch".
The anonymous figure to whom Arnold addresses his poem becomes the subject of Hecht's poem. In Hecht's poem she "caught the bitter allusion to the sea", imagined "what his whiskers would feel like / On the back of her neck", and felt sad as she looked out across the channel. "And then she got really angry" at the thought that she had become "a sort of mournful cosmic last resort". After which she says "one or two unprintable things".
Kenneth and Miriam Allott, referring to "Dover Bitch" as "an irreverent jeu d'esprit", nonetheless see, particularly in the line "a sort of mournful cosmic last resort", an extension of the original poem's main theme.
"Dover Beach" has been mentioned in a number of novels, plays, poems, and films:
The poem is mentioned in:
The poem has also provided a ready source for titles:
Even in the U. S. Supreme Court the poem has had its influence: Justice William Rehnquist
, in his concurring opinion in Northern Pipeline Co. v. Marathon Pipe Line Co.
, 458 U.S. 50 (1982), called judicial decisions regarding Congress's power to create legislative courts "landmarks on a judicial 'darkling plain' where ignorant armies have clashed by night."
Lyric poetry
Lyric poetry is a genre of poetry that expresses personal and emotional feelings. In the ancient world, lyric poems were those which were sung to the lyre. Lyric poems do not have to rhyme, and today do not need to be set to music or a beat...
by the English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
poet Matthew Arnold
Matthew Arnold
Matthew Arnold was a British poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools. He was the son of Thomas Arnold, the famed headmaster of Rugby School, and brother to both Tom Arnold, literary professor, and William Delafield Arnold, novelist and colonial administrator...
. It was first published in 1867 in the collection New Poems, but surviving notes indicate its composition may have begun as early as 1849. The most likely date is 1851.
The title, locale and subject of the poem's descriptive opening lines is the shore of the English ferry port of Dover
Dover
Dover is a town and major ferry port in the home county of Kent, in South East England. It faces France across the narrowest part of the English Channel, and lies south-east of Canterbury; east of Kent's administrative capital Maidstone; and north-east along the coastline from Dungeness and Hastings...
, Kent
Kent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...
, facing Calais
Calais
Calais is a town in Northern France in the department of Pas-de-Calais, of which it is a sub-prefecture. Although Calais is by far the largest city in Pas-de-Calais, the department's capital is its third-largest city of Arras....
, France, at the Strait of Dover
Strait of Dover
The Strait of Dover or Dover Strait is the strait at the narrowest part of the English Channel. The shortest distance across the strait is from the South Foreland, 6 kilometres northeast of Dover in the county of Kent, England, to Cap Gris Nez, a cape near to Calais in the French of...
, the narrowest part (21 miles) of the English Channel
English Channel
The English Channel , often referred to simply as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates southern England from northern France, and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic. It is about long and varies in width from at its widest to in the Strait of Dover...
, where Arnold honeymooned in 1851.
Analysis
In Collini's opinion, "Dover Beach" is a difficult poem to analyse, and some of its passages and metaphors have become so well-known that they are hard to see with "fresh eyes". Arnold begins with a naturalistic and detailed nightscape of the beach at Dover in which auditory imagery plays a significant role ("Listen! you hear the grating roar"). The beach, however, is bare, with only a hint of humanity in a light that "gleams and is gone". Reflecting the traditional notion that the poem was written during Arnold's honeymoon (see composition section), one critic notes that "the speaker might be talking to his bride".-
-
- The sea is calm to-night.
- 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-blanch'd 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.
-
Arnold looks at two aspects of this naturalistic scene, its soundscape (in the first and second stanza) and the retreating action of the tide (in the third stanza). He hears the sound of the sea as "the eternal note of sadness". Sophocles
Sophocles
Sophocles is one of three ancient Greek tragedians whose plays have survived. His first plays were written later than those of Aeschylus, and earlier than or contemporary with those of Euripides...
, a 5th century BC Greek playwright who wrote tragedies on fate and the will of the gods, also heard this same sound as he stood upon the shore of the Aegean Sea
Aegean Sea
The Aegean Sea[p] is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea located between the southern Balkan and Anatolian peninsulas, i.e., between the mainlands of Greece and Turkey. In the north, it is connected to the Marmara Sea and Black Sea by the Dardanelles and Bosporus...
. Critics differ widely on how to interpret this image of the Greek Classical age. One critic sees a difference between Sophocles in the classical age of Greece interpreting the "note of sadness" humanistically, while Arnold in the industrial nineteenth century hears in this sound the retreat of religion and faith. A more recent critic connects the two as artists, Sophocles the tragedian, Arnold the lyric poet, each attempting through words to transform this note of sadness into "a higher order of experience".
-
-
- Sophocles long ago
- Heard it on the Ægæan, 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.
-
Having examined the soundscape, Arnold turns to the action of the tide itself and sees in its retreat a metaphor for the loss of faith in the modern age, once again expressed in an auditory image ("But now I only hear/Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar"). This third stanza begins with an image not of sadness, but of "joyous fulness" similar in beauty to the image with which the poem opens.
-
-
- The Sea of Faith
- Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
- Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl'd.
- 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.
-
The final stanza begins with an appeal to love, then moves on to the famous ending metaphor. Critics have varied in their interpretation of the first two lines of this stanza; one calls them a "perfunctory gesture...swallowed up by the poem's powerfully dark picture", while another sees in them "a stand against a world of broken faith". Midway between these is the interpretation of one of Arnold's biographers who describes being "true/To one another" as "a precarious notion" in a world that has become "a maze of confusion".
The metaphor with which the poem ends is most likely an allusion to a passage in Thucydides
Thucydides
Thucydides was a Greek historian and author from Alimos. His History of the Peloponnesian War recounts the 5th century BC war between Sparta and Athens to the year 411 BC...
' account of the Peloponnesian War
Peloponnesian War
The Peloponnesian War, 431 to 404 BC, was an ancient Greek war fought by Athens and its empire against the Peloponnesian League led by Sparta. Historians have traditionally divided the war into three phases...
. Thucydides describes an ancient battle which occurred on a similar beach during the invasion of Sicily by the Athenians. The battle took place at night; the attacking army became disoriented while fighting in the darkness and many of their soldiers inadvertently killed each other. This final image has also been variously interpreted by the critics. The "darkling plain" of the final line has been described as Arnold's "central statement" of the human condition. A more recent critic has seen the final line as "only metaphor" and thus susceptible to the "uncertainty" of poetic language.
-
-
- 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 are here as on a darkling plain
- Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
- Where ignorant armies clash by night.
-
"The poem's discourse", Honan tells us, "shifts literally and symbolically from the present, to Sophocles on the Aegean, from Medieval Europe back to the present—and the auditory and visual images are dramatic and mimetic and didactic. Exploring the dark terror that lies beneath his happiness in love, the speaker resolves to love—and exigencies of history and the nexus between lovers are the poem's real issues. That lovers may be 'true/To one another' is a precarious notion: love in the modern city momentarily gives peace, but nothing else in a post-medieval society reflects or confirms the faithfulness of lovers. Devoid of love and light the world is a maze of confusion left by 'retreating' faith."
Critics have questioned the unity of the poem, noting that the sea of the opening stanza does not appear in the final stanza, while the "darkling plain" of the final line is not apparent in the opening. Various solutions to this problem have been proffered. One critic saw the "darkling plain" with which the poem ends as comparable to the "naked shingles of the world". "Shingles" here means flat beach cobbles, characteristic of some wave-swept coasts. Another found the poem "emotionally convincing" even if its logic may be questionable. The same critic notes that "the poem upends our expectations of metaphor" and sees in this the central power of the poem. The poem's historicism creates another complicating dynamic. Beginning in the present it shifts to the classical age of Greece, then (with its concerns for the sea of faith) it turns to Medieval Europe, before finally returning to the present. The form of the poem itself has drawn considerable comment. Critics have noted the careful diction in the opening description, the overall, spell-binding rhythm and cadence of the poem and its dramatic character. One commentator sees the strophe-antistrophe of the ode at work in the poem, with an ending that contains something of the "cata-strophe" of tragedy. Finally, one critic sees the complexity of the poem's structure resulting in "the first major 'free-verse' poem in the language".
Composition
According to Tinker and Lowry, "a draft of the first twenty-eight lines of the poem" was written in pencil "on the back of a folded sheet of paper containing notes on the career of Empedocles". Allott concludes that the notes are probably from around 1849-50. "Empedocles on Etna", again according to Allott, was probably written 1849-52; the notes on Empedocles are likely to be contemporary with the writing of that poem.The final line of this draft is:
-
-
- And naked shingles of the world. Ah love &c
-
Tinker and Lowry conclude that this "seem[s] to indicate that the last nine lines of the poem as we know it were already in existence when the portion regarding the ebb and flow of the sea at Dover was composed." This would make the manuscript "a prelude to the concluding paragraph" of the poem in which "there is no reference to the sea or tides".
-
-
- 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 from pain;
- And we are here as on a darkling plain
- Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
- Where ignorant armies clash by night.
-
Arnold's visits to Dover may also provide some clue to the date of composition. Allott has Arnold in Dover in June 1851 and again in October of that year "on his return from his delayed continental honeymoon". To critics who conclude that ll. 1-28 were written at Dover and ll. 29-37 "were rescued from some discarded poem" Allott suggests the contrary, i.e., that the final lines "were written at Dover in late June," while "ll. 29-37 were written in London shortly afterwards".
Influence
William Butler YeatsWilliam Butler Yeats
William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet and playwright, and one of the foremost figures of 20th century literature. A pillar of both the Irish and British literary establishments, in his later years he served as an Irish Senator for two terms...
responds directly to Arnold's pessimism in his four-line poem, "The Nineteenth Century and After" (1929):
-
-
- Though the great song return no more
- There's keen delight in what we have:
- The rattle of pebbles on the shore
- Under the receding wave.
-
Anthony Hecht
Anthony Hecht
Anthony Evan Hecht was an American poet. His work combined a deep interest in form with a passionate desire to confront the horrors of 20th century history, with the Second World War, in which he fought, and the Holocaust being recurrent themes in his work.-Early years:Hecht was born in New York...
, U.S. Poet Laureate, replied to "Dover Beach" in his poem "The Dover Bitch".
-
-
- So there stood Matthew Arnold and this girl
- With the cliffs of England crumbling away behind them,
- And he said to her, "Try to be true to me,
- And I'll do the same for you, for things are bad
- All over, etc. etc."
-
The anonymous figure to whom Arnold addresses his poem becomes the subject of Hecht's poem. In Hecht's poem she "caught the bitter allusion to the sea", imagined "what his whiskers would feel like / On the back of her neck", and felt sad as she looked out across the channel. "And then she got really angry" at the thought that she had become "a sort of mournful cosmic last resort". After which she says "one or two unprintable things".
-
-
- But you mustn't judge her by that. What I mean to say is,
- She's really all right. I still see her once in a while
- And she always treats me right.
-
Kenneth and Miriam Allott, referring to "Dover Bitch" as "an irreverent jeu d'esprit", nonetheless see, particularly in the line "a sort of mournful cosmic last resort", an extension of the original poem's main theme.
"Dover Beach" has been mentioned in a number of novels, plays, poems, and films:
- In Dodie SmithDodie SmithDorothy Gladys "Dodie" Smith was an English novelist and playwright. Smith is best known for her novel The Hundred and One Dalmatians. Her other works include I Capture the Castle and The Starlight Barking....
's novel, I Capture the CastleI Capture the CastleI Capture the Castle is Dodie Smith's first novel, written in the 1940s during a sojourn in America. Smith was already an established playwright and later became famous for authoring the children's classic The Hundred and One Dalmatians....
(1940), the book's protagonist remarks that Debussy's Clair de LuneClair de Lune"Clair de Lune" is French for "moonlight". It may refer to:Music:* Clair de lune ", third movement of Suite bergamasque by Claude Debussy, a piano depiction of a Paul Verlaine poem* Clair de lune , from Op...
reminds her of "Dover Beach" (in the film adaptation of the novel, the character quotes (or, rather, misquotes) a line from the poem). - In Fahrenheit 451Fahrenheit 451Fahrenheit 451 is a 1953 dystopian novel by Ray Bradbury. The novel presents a future American society where reading is outlawed and firemen start fires to burn books...
(1951), author Ray BradburyRay BradburyRay Douglas Bradbury is an American fantasy, horror, science fiction, and mystery writer. Best known for his dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 and for the science fiction stories gathered together as The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man , Bradbury is one of the most celebrated among 20th...
has his protagonistProtagonistA protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to most identify...
Guy MontagGuy MontagGuy Montag is the protagonist in Ray Bradbury's dystopian 1953 novel Fahrenheit 451. He is depicted living in a futuristic town where he works as a fireman whose job is to burn books.-Montag's role in the storyline:...
read part of "Dover Beach" to his wife Mildred and her friends in order to show them what literature is about and why books should not be burnt. - Joseph HellerJoseph HellerJoseph Heller was a US satirical novelist, short story writer, and playwright. His best known work is Catch-22, a novel about US servicemen during World War II...
's novel Catch-22Catch-22Catch-22 is a satirical, historical novel by the American author Joseph Heller. He began writing it in 1953, and the novel was first published in 1961. It is set during World War II in 1943 and is frequently cited as one of the great literary works of the twentieth century...
(1961) alludes to the poem in the chapter "Havermyer": "the open-air movie theater in which—for the daily amusement of the dying—ignorant armies clashed by night on a collapsible screen." - Ian McEwanIan McEwanIan Russell McEwan CBE, FRSA, FRSL is a British novelist and screenwriter, and one of Britain's most highly regarded writers. In 2008, The Times named him among their list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945"....
quotes part of the poem in his novel SaturdaySaturday (novel)Saturday is a novel by Ian McEwan set in Fitzrovia, London, on Saturday, 15 February 2003, during a large demonstration against the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The protagonist, Henry Perowne, a 48-year-old neurosurgeon, has planned a series of chores and pleasures culminating in a family dinner in the...
(2005), where the effects of its beauty and language are so strong and impressive that it moves a brutal criminal to tears and remorse. He also seems to have borrowed the main setting of his novella On Chesil BeachOn Chesil BeachOn Chesil Beach is a 2007 novel by the Booker Prize-winning British writer Ian McEwan. The novel was selected for the 2007 Booker Prize shortlist....
(2005) from Dover Beach, additionally playing with the fact that Arnold's poem was composed on his honeymoon (see above).
The poem is mentioned in:
- Jakarta by Alice Munro,
- The Last Gentleman by Walker PercyWalker PercyWalker Percy was an American Southern author whose interests included philosophy and semiotics. Percy is best known for his philosophical novels set in and around New Orleans, Louisiana, the first of which, The Moviegoer, won the National Book Award for Fiction in 1962...
, - A Song For Lya by George R.R. Martin,
- Rush'sRush (band)Rush is a Canadian rock band formed in August 1968, in the Willowdale neighbourhood of Toronto, Ontario. The band is composed of bassist, keyboardist, and lead vocalist Geddy Lee, guitarist Alex Lifeson, and drummer and lyricist Neil Peart...
song "Armour and Sword", from the album Snakes and Arrows (lyrics by Neil PeartNeil PeartNeil Ellwood Peart , OC, is a Canadian musician and author. He is the drummer for the rock band Rush.Peart grew up in Port Dalhousie, Ontario . During adolescence, he floated from regional band to regional band in pursuit of a career as a full-time drummer...
), - Nora's Lost, a short drama by Alan Haehnel,
- Daljit NagraDaljit NagraDaljit Nagra is a British poet whose debut collection, Look We Have Coming to Dover! — a title alluding to W. H. Auden's Look, Stranger!, D. H. Lawrence's Look! We have come through! and by epigraph also to Matthew Arnold's 'Dover Beach' — was published by Faber in February 2007...
's prize-winning poem "Look We Have Coming to Dover!" which quotes the line, "So various, so beautiful, so new" as its epigraph, - the poem "Moon" by Billy CollinsBilly CollinsBilly Collins is an American poet, appointed as Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001 to 2003. He is a Distinguished Professor at Lehman College of the City University of New York and is the Senior Distinguished Fellow of the Winter Park Institute, Florida...
, - the travel narrative A Summer in Gascony (2008) by Martin Calder.
- The Flying Dutchman character quotes the last 12 lines as he looks towards the sea in the movie, Pandora and the Flying DutchmanPandora and the Flying DutchmanPandora and the Flying Dutchman is a 1951 British drama film made by Romulus Films and released by MGM in the United States. It was directed by Albert Lewin and produced by Joe Kaufmann and Albert Lewin from his own screenplay, based on the legend of The Flying Dutchman.It starred Ava Gardner and...
. - Kevin KlineKevin KlineKevin Delaney Kline is an American theatre, voice, film actor and comedian. He has won an Academy Award and two Tony Awards, and has been nominated for five Golden Globe Awards, two BAFTA Awards and an Emmy Award.- Early life :...
's character, Cal Gold, in the film The Anniversary PartyThe Anniversary PartyThe Anniversary Party is a 2001 American comedy-drama film written, directed, produced by, and starring Jennifer Jason Leigh and Alan Cumming.-Plot:...
recites part of "Dover Beach" as a toast. - Samuel BarberSamuel BarberSamuel Osborne Barber II was an American composer of orchestral, opera, choral, and piano music. His Adagio for Strings is his most popular composition and widely considered a masterpiece of modern classical music...
composed a setting of "Dover Beach" for string quartetString quartetA string quartet is a musical ensemble of four string players – usually two violin players, a violist and a cellist – or a piece written to be performed by such a group...
and baritoneBaritoneBaritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...
. - Jeffrey Eugenides "The Marriage Plot", p.201 (bottom), Farrar Straus and Giroux paperback ed. 2011
The poem has also provided a ready source for titles:
- On a Darkling Plain by Clifford IrvingClifford IrvingClifford Michael Irving is an American author of novels and works of nonfiction, but best known for using forged handwritten letters to convince his publisher into accepting a fake "autobiography" of reclusive businessman Howard Hughes in the early 1970s...
, A Darkling PlainA Darkling PlainA Darkling Plain is the fourth and final novel in the Mortal Engines Quartet series written by author Philip Reeve.The novel won the 2006 Guardian Award and the 2007 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Young Adult Fiction.-Setting:...
by Philip ReevePhilip ReevePhilip Reeve is a British author and illustrator. He presently lives on Dartmoor with his wife Sarah and their son Samuel.-Biography:...
, As On a Darkling Plain by Ben BovaBen BovaBenjamin William Bova is an American science-fiction author and editor. He is the recipient of six Hugo Awards for Best Professional Editor for his work at Analog Science Fiction in the 1970's.-Personal life:...
(the title refers to a Martian plain covered with strange unexplained artifacts), Clash by NightClash by Night (Odets drama)Clash by Night is a romantic triangle drama by Clifford Odets which premiered on Broadway in 1941 and was later adapted to film and television...
, a play by Clifford OdetsClifford OdetsClifford Odets was an American playwright, screenwriter, socialist, and social protester.-Early life:Odets was born in Philadelphia to Romanian- and Russian-Jewish immigrant parents, Louis Odets and Esther Geisinger, and raised in Philadelphia and the Bronx, New York. He dropped out of high...
(later made into a film noir by Fritz LangFritz LangFriedrich Christian Anton "Fritz" Lang was an Austrian-American filmmaker, screenwriter, and occasional film producer and actor. One of the best known émigrés from Germany's school of Expressionism, he was dubbed the "Master of Darkness" by the British Film Institute...
), and Norman MailerNorman MailerNorman Kingsley Mailer was an American novelist, journalist, essayist, poet, playwright, screenwriter, and film director.Along with Truman Capote, Joan Didion, Hunter S...
's National Book AwardNational Book AwardThe National Book Awards are a set of American literary awards. Started in 1950, the Awards are presented annually to American authors for literature published in the current year. In 1989 the National Book Foundation, a nonprofit organization which now oversees and manages the National Book...
winner The Armies of the Night about the 1967 March on the Pentagon. - The Sea of FaithSea of FaithThe Sea of Faith Network aims to explore and promote religious faith as a human creation.-History:The SoF movement started in 1984 as a response to Don Cupitt's book and television series, both titled Sea of Faith...
movement is so called as the name is taken from this poem, as the poet expresses regret that belief in a supernatural world is slowly slipping away; the "sea of faith" is withdrawing like the ebbing tide.
Even in the U. S. Supreme Court the poem has had its influence: Justice William Rehnquist
William Rehnquist
William Hubbs Rehnquist was an American lawyer, jurist, and political figure who served as an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court of the United States and later as the 16th Chief Justice of the United States...
, in his concurring opinion in Northern Pipeline Co. v. Marathon Pipe Line Co.
Northern Pipeline Co. v. Marathon Pipe Line Co.
Northern Pipeline Co. v. Marathon Pipe Line Co., 458 U.S. 50 , was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that Article III jurisdiction could not be conferred on non-Article III courts Northern Pipeline Co. v. Marathon Pipe Line Co., 458 U.S. 50 (1982), was a case in which the...
, 458 U.S. 50 (1982), called judicial decisions regarding Congress's power to create legislative courts "landmarks on a judicial 'darkling plain' where ignorant armies have clashed by night."
External links
- Text of the poem, at The Wondering Minstrels website