Being Human in Dover Beach, and Africa Poems - Research Paper Example

Dover Beach is a clear expression of concern during the Victorian Age when intellectuals were questioning and turning away from traditional beliefs.  Most importantly, the poem carries powerful images that still speak to humanity today, given that many people find their doubts eased by their faith in religion, while some do not. In the poem, Dover Beach, Mathew Arnold laments at the individual’s indifference towards religion and faith, but Arnold believes that all the confusion and cruelty can only disappear if love reigns supreme (Malan, 20). Although the world appears beautiful, it has come to be overtaken by pains and perils as a battlefield typified by strife and struggle. In Dover Beach, Arnold contends that this battlefield can be transformed into an earthly paradise if people learn to love one another.
Maya Angelou’s poem "Africa" personifies Africa to create vivid images while the rhythmic patterns of the poems contribute to the changing tone of the poem from pleasant, to unpleasant, and contemplative. In the poem, Africa is personified to generate vivid imagery and to award human emotions to a continent. The whole poem is a metaphor of Africa as a beautiful woman as highlighted by the use of phrases such as “deserts her hair.” This description generates vivid images of the continent. In line 21, the poem details “Africa screams loud and vain,” a personification and onomatopoeia that implies that Africa was devastated when its sons and daughters were taken from their homeland. Angelou utilizes the words “her” and “she” repeatedly throughout the poem to emphasize the continent as a woman (Aviram, 3). The stanzas of the poem feature three diverse tones via the rhythms of the meters.
The phrase, “white seas,” induces an unpleasant mood that also creates the second movement of tone. The repetition of words such as “remember” implies the resurrection of Africa; while at the same time emphasizing the significance of remembering the past. Dover Beach is symbolic in which the sea stands for fate, or the deafening voice of the creator accompanied by an “eternal note of sadness” over mankind's flaws. The first three lines of the poem generate feelings of hope while the last three lines create feelings of sadness and hopelessness (Hanks, 241). There is a connection between the images of the sea used in the first three stanzas within the imagery of darkness featured in the last stanza. The retreating of the sea demonstrates the lessening of people’s interest in religion. The personification and rhythm in both films play a big role in enhancing the imagery and tone of the poems.
The rhyme scheme in both poems is very irregular in which the personification and expressions used in the poems create a mystic atmosphere. Mathew Arnold’s poem epitomizes the recurring themes of the alienating nature of the contemporary, industrialized life, his loneliness and seclusion as a lover, and the sorrow suffered at the passing of his youth. The use of nature, especially the sea, draws a comparison between human misery and the fights of nature. In the poem Africa, the continent of Africa is personified to generate vivid images while the rhythmical patterns contribute to changing the tones of the poem in which the tones shift from joyful to distressing, to reflective (Sickels, 19).