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A short class with Sarah and her students. The other ways are under More.
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What is the difference between tone and mood?
Tone is the speaker's attitude, and mood is how the poem makes the reader feel.
Good. What words would you use for the tone of the first few lines?
Calm and gentle, maybe even romantic. He calls his companion to the window to enjoy the sweet night air.
Which words create that calm?
Calm, full, fair, tranquil and sweet.
Exactly. Arnold chooses soft, peaceful words before he changes the tone.
Where does the tone first change?
When he says 'Listen!' and describes the grating roar of the pebbles.
How does the line about the waves beginning, ceasing and beginning again add to that?
Its rhythm stops and starts like the waves, so we feel the restless movement.
What happens to the tone in the Sea of Faith stanza?
It looks back fondly at faith being full, then turns mournful with the melancholy, long, withdrawing roar.
Yes, and all those long vowels slow the line down, as if the sea itself were sighing.
How does the tone change when the speaker says 'Ah, love'?
It becomes tender and personal. He is speaking directly to his beloved.
Does it stay tender?
No. When he lists everything the world lacks, joy, love, light and the rest, it becomes bitter and hopeless.
And the final image?
Ignorant armies clashing by night. It ends bleak and dark.
So the last stanza holds two tones at once: tenderness towards the beloved and despair about the world.
tone is the speaker's attitude, mood is the reader's feeling, and in this poem they darken together.
serene, gentle and romantic, created by soft words such as calm, tranquil and sweet.
the command to listen and the grating roar of the pebbles bring in sadness.
reflective with Sophocles, then nostalgic and mournful with the Sea of Faith.
tender towards the beloved but bleak and pessimistic about the world.
diction, sound, rhythm and punctuation create each shift in tone.
Serene: the opening statement that the sea is calm tonight, with the moon lying fair upon the straits.
Mournful: the slow, long-vowelled phrase "melancholy, long, withdrawing roar" sounds like a sigh.
Bleak: the closing image "Where ignorant armies clash by night" ends the poem in confusion and darkness.
It starts out sweet and calm and bright, then sighs, then pleads, then ends in night.
A musician plays a quiet lullaby by the sea. Halfway through, one string snaps and the tune turns sad; she ends by singing softly to the person beside her while thunder rolls in.
Calm, Cry, Care, Crash: the tone moves from calm, to a cry of sadness, to tender care, to the crash of armies.
S.W.R.N.T.B. - Serene, Wistful, Reflective, Nostalgic, Tender, Bleak: the tone in order.
Term
Difference between tone and mood
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Tone of the opening lines
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Word that marks the first change in tone
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How the phrase "melancholy, long, withdrawing roar" creates tone
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The two tones of the final stanza
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The speaker's or writer's attitude towards the subject or listener.
The atmosphere or feeling a poem creates in the reader.
Mournful, like an elegy or lament for something lost.
A deep, thoughtful sadness.
The choice of words in a piece of writing.
The rise and fall of a rhythm or sound.
Expecting the worst; seeing the world as bleak.
The tone of "Dover Beach" moves from calm and tender, through melancholy and reflective, to urgent and bleak. This lesson traces how the tone changes stanza by stanza and how Arnold creates it through word choice, sound, rhythm and punctuation.
Tone is the speaker's attitude towards his subject, and mood is the feeling the poem creates in the reader. In "Dover Beach", the opening is serene and gentle, but the sound of the pebbles introduces a sad, wistful note. The reference to Sophocles makes the tone reflective and universal, the Sea of Faith stanza is nostalgic and mournful, and the final stanza is tender and pleading towards the beloved yet dark and despairing about the world. Arnold builds these shifts through his diction, through harsh and soft sounds, through a rhythm that imitates the waves, and through exclamations, pauses and long lists of negatives.
The tone of "Dover Beach" carries the reader from a peaceful moonlit night to a dark battlefield. Tracking these shifts, and the techniques behind them, shows how Arnold makes the reader feel the speaker's journey from calm to sorrow and from sorrow to a fragile, loving hope.