New Poems (1867) is a collection by Matthew Arnold, his last important book of verse. It contains Dover Beach, one of the most famous English poems of the nineteenth century, as well as Thyrsis and Rugby Chapel.
The collection
Published by Macmillan in 1867, New Poems gathered work written over many years. By then Arnold was known mainly as a critic, and the volume marked the end of his career as a poet.
It includes Thyrsis, an elegy for his friend the poet Arthur Hugh Clough, set in the countryside around Oxford, and Rugby Chapel, a tribute to his father.
Dover Beach
Dover Beach was probably written around 1851, during Arnold's honeymoon, but first published in this collection. A man at a window overlooking the Channel at night calls his beloved to listen to the sound of the pebbles drawn back by the waves.
The poem turns this sound into an image of the 'Sea of Faith' retreating, and ends with an appeal to love in a world of confusion and conflict.
Influence
Dover Beach anticipates the doubts of the modern age and has been widely anthologised. It has been quoted and answered by many later writers, from Thomas Hardy to Ray Bradbury.
Its irregular line lengths and free pattern of rhymes are often seen as pointing towards modern free verse.
Anecdotes
A honeymoon poem
Arnold married Frances Lucy Wightman in June 1851 and passed through Dover on their honeymoon journey to the Continent; scholars date the poem to that time.
Fahrenheit 451
In Ray Bradbury's novel Fahrenheit 451 (1953), the fireman Montag reads Dover Beach aloud to his wife's friends, who are shaken by it.
Frequently asked questions
When was Dover Beach published?
In New Poems, in 1867, although it was probably written around 1851.
What is Thyrsis?
An elegy for Arnold's friend Arthur Hugh Clough, who died in 1861.
What is the 'Sea of Faith'?
Arnold's image, in Dover Beach, of religious belief withdrawing from the world like the tide.