#8
The tone of "Dover Beach" is quite hopeless. Diction conveys the hopelessness. The poem starts out on a calming note describing the essence of the sea, yet the first stanza is concluded with the tide bringing the "eternal note of sadness in." Faith of the modern world has been lost as it is compared to a sea once full and surrounding earth, but the faith and religion of the world has since retreated, like low tide. "Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar" signifies the loss of faith in a world that was once full of it. I still see this in today's world. Some faith and tradition has been lost, but just as the sea always remains so too does faith.
Next comes the parallelism between dreams "so various, so beautiful, so new" linked to the despair in the next line as the speaker says in reality these dreams are "neither joy, nor love, light, nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain." Talk about a downer! The speaker throws "neithers" and "nors" around like there's not much to look forward to, thus accentuating the hopeless tone.
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