Question

When was Dover Beach published?

• A. 1855
• B. 1872
• C. 1867
• D. 1880

Answer 1

Answer:

C. 1867

• Dover Beach was published in 1867 as part of Matthew Arnold’s collection New Poems.

• However, scholars believe that the poem was likely written in the early 1850s, possibly around 1851, during Arnold’s honeymoon with his wife, Frances Lucy Wightman, at Dover, a coastal town in England.

• The poem reflects the Victorian crisis of faith, a period when religious beliefs were being challenged by scientific discoveries, such as Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution.

• The imagery of the retreating tide in the poem serves as a powerful metaphor for the decline of religious faith in an age of increasing skepticism.