Dover Beach: An Explication The speaker in Dover Beach is talking to his lover. Arnold wrote this poem while he was on his honeymoon, therefore this was obviously a very important and special place for him. Let’s begin with the title. The Oxford English Dictionary defines dover as an unsettled sleep. But in the context of this poem, Dover refers not to an unsettled sleep, but to a setting. At the narrowest point on …showed first 75 words of 717 total…

…showed last 75 words of 717 total…New York University Press, 1982. Culler, A. Dwight. Poetry and Criticism of Matthew Arnold. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1961. “Dover.” The Oxford English Dictionary. Ed. J.A. Simpson & E.S.C. Weiner. 2nd ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989. OED <http://oed.com/cgi/entry> Madden, William A. Arnold the Poet. Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1976. “Shingles.” The Oxford English Dictionary. Ed. J.A. Simpson & E.S.C. Weiner. 2nd ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989. OED <http://oed.com/cgi/entry>