Talk:Dover Beach

message: This sentence from the first item in the "References to the Poem" section seems to me to be not entirely correct:
:However, the speaker in "Dover Beach" is of unknown gender, and a common practice among Victorian poets was to write dramatic monologues from the perspective of someone else (e.g., Robert Browning's "Fra Lippo Lippi").
1) Most critics have taken the speaker to be Arnold himself; in those few instances where Arnold worded his poems as coming from a distinct character, he usually, as in "Strayed Reveller," assigned the speech explicitley to the speaker. 2) Browning and Arnold were close friends.  To my knowledge Arnold does not attempt the sort of character pieces that Browning did, although he seems to have admired them. 3) Nothing here suggests that the sex of the speaker is particularly in question. 4) The comment seems to me to rather miss the irony of Hecht's poem.  I should like to see a more extended comment on this poem, i.e. "Dover Bitch," in the main portion of the article.  Hecht's response to the poem is not unimportant and counterpoints the poem in a very refreshing way.  Arnold loved a good joke,-- I think he would have thought this quite funny.  One parody of his writing during his life time, he actually went out of his way to promote to his readers. Mddietz 19:12, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: References

message: I sought (from the English lecturers at the very college Arnold himself was a Fellow of) advice about whether the sources chosen represented the corpus of thought or not. Whilst the work of Profs Tinker and Lowry are now considered somewhat "elderly", they are still respected and accepted. Allott is the most respected work, and Honan's being considered an essential supplement. I also asked if there were any works that were omitted for a novice to the subject and it was thought not, the current sources would be comprehensive enough for any 'new reader'. I am still awaiting a response from another lecturer, but doubt it will vary from the first opinion. Thanks for the work that has been put into this article.--Alf melmac 12:12, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Alf, thanks for taking the time to do this extra leg work.  I had hoped I was on target with this. Thanks, Mddietz 14:23, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Feedback 

message: Might I suggest that now (Or soon) would be a good time to maybe archive some of this pages' contents? Anything that is now considered archaeic (old/closed discussion's etc.) could be archived in order free up space... the notice at the top of the edit box advises this also. Thoughts? ScarianTalk 21:06, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hooah, I will archive these on your recommendations. It is better to move on now - there is so much junk from the 'caveat' writer, I don't know which of his personalities are in charge of writing... Hmmph... Keep an eye on me whilst I archive just in case I screw up and remove something you want/need on here. ScarianTalk 22:06, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I removed a fair bit... The archive link is at the top of the page. Someone tell me, is it me or is the page still slow to load? (I have a download going on so that could be it, but it's bandwidth usage isn't that high) Also, the article archival link doesn't look too pretty at the moment. If I have made a mistake in archiving don't hesitate to tell me off for it and correct it. Also, I may have archived some material that could've been kept such as Alf's mediation (I don't know if it was resolved or not... that's why I was a little bit worried about archiving it) - but fortunatly we have Wikipedia history pages so nothing is lost forever. Hooah. ScarianTalk 22:26, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks, it looks fine to me but let us see what anon says.  I'm not having any trouble loading, but I'm at work and we have a pretty high-speed connect. Mddietz 18:11, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Archived (into Archive1) the last of the caveat related discussion material.  What is left now should be only the material relevant to editing the page.  Mddietz 17:36, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Archiving article's discussion page

message: First, why is the full text in the article itself? All it serves to do is make the Analysis section longer than it already is (and it's pretty long). Besides, that's what Wikisource is for. Secondly, are people really getting agitated over a little ol' article on a little ol' poem? Spread some WikiPeace! :) --Midnightdreary 23:54, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There was just some aggravation... I think WP:OWN played a part... But, as Alf has pointed out, it's an important little ol' poem ;-) ScarianTalk 00:11, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: So short poems don't get the text in wiki-articles? (well you learn something every day...), does that apply to nursery rhymes like :This Little Piggy, I've never read any style guidance on poetry, never having edited any of those articles before.--Alf melmac 00:17, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think "This Little Piggy" is a tad shorter than "Dover Beach," so I think four lines is a bit more excusable (what would really cause a discussion though is which of the two has more importance? :) I'll stop!). Other than that, check out WP:NOT#TEXT. I would suggest that the placement of the Wikisource box is perfect for people that are just looking for the text. Really, it just breaks apart a great analysis section (I'm assuming; I merely skimmed!). --Midnightdreary 01:17, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

text: After some further research, I found WP:L&P which suggests that for short copyright-free poems, full text inclusion is acceptable. There are no guidelines as far as what they mean by "short." In that case, I'd suggest it's up to the interested editors. As the unofficial personal caretaker of Edgar Allan Poe's poems, I never include full text within the article but leave a visible Wikisource box (as you folks already have here). If you choose to include it, though, I would at least recommend a separate header for it so that it doesn't cut into anything and it's easy to find. So, yeah, hope that helps. :)  --Midnightdreary 01:27, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Very many thanks for a comprehensive answer. Somehow, I'm not tempted to discuss the relevant importance between This Little Piggy and Dover Beach :D I'm guessing that both Mddientz and the anon would prefer to have the text in so your idea about giving it its own section should be considered. Thanks again.--Alf melmac 10:37, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I frankly wondered about this when I included the text of the poem.  Guess I should have done a bit of research on that.  I rather like having the poem in and would vote to keep it in.  Quoting extensive passages from a poem as part of the analysis of that poem has been a common practice since the about the mid-nineteenth century when Arnold was writing; he actually makes a comment on that somewhere.  The New Critics in dismissing summary statements tended continue this practice as the poem itself was foremost and by quoting from it, they could avoid having to summarize it.  Printing the entire poem is, however, not a standard of the analytical process.  I originally had the analysis interspersed within the poem, but moved it out of the poem as an act of appeasement.  The way it is now it is more like an annotated poem. The earlier version, even though the poem was quoted in whole, had, to my mind, much more the feel of an article than a mere reprinting of the poem. Perhaps anon might have some constructive thoughts on this issue. But if I do not hear differently I think I'll change it back to the way it was. Mddietz 18:07, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Not having heard anything to the contrary, I have gone ahead and returned the interelaving of the comments with the poem.  I added a few words to make the connection with the Sophocles section a little more clear, & provided dates for Sophocles to help clarify the historical relationship.  I separated the caveat into its own section as it really is not continuous in matter with the analysis. I have not heard from anon, so I assume he is now pleased as punch with the results we have achieved.  For now I plan to do nothing more of any significance with this page, but hope to revisit it in a month or two (after I have finished another major project I have started and which really should take priority. Mddietz 16:27, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Two questions 

message: I noticed when reading the poem that if one reads just the lines that are perfect squares, it makes a mini-poem that maintains a rhyme scheme and keeps the same theme of the original poem:
:1   The sea is calm to-night.
:4   Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand
:9   Listen! You hear the grating roar
:16 Heard it on the AEgan, and it brought
:25 It's melancholy, long, withdrawing roar
:36 Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight.
--Ye Olde Luke (talk) 03:05, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Perfect Square microcosm 

message: This poem sounds like Arnold was an inadvertent early entrant into the crafting of raw existentialism where metaphor seeks to convey impression rather than object. Accordingly, Arnold's use of the word "faith" must be understood as "trust" where an "in" as in "trust in" isn't allowed(no object). For example, "darkling" can't be defined and Arnold makes sure that the reader shouldn't try by preceding its usage with the qualifier "as". What sense or impression is Arnold trying to convey across this poem? Hopelessness. Ahhaha (talk) 17:03, 18 September 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Interesting comments.  First, I'm not sure "inadvertent" is quite the right term here; Arnold was fairly worldly wise, so he was not much outside of the movement of ideas coming from across the channel.  Second, I think there is little doubt that Arnold's reference to a "sea of faith" is a reference to Christian religion -- he wrote so much on that topic (Christianity) and used the term "sea of Faith" elsewhere in ways that make the reference to religion quite apparent.  Third, I would agree a note of "hopelessness" is certainly here.  Georges Santayana says somewhere that his own reading of poetry was very impacted by Arnold in that, as an undergrad, he would read only poetry that was as pessimistic as Arnold's.  Finally, I would urge at least a touch of historicism -- this is a poem that gets reinterpretted by every age, but few take the time to find Arnold in the poem -- the route of existentialism does not seem to me to be the best route to find Arnold, but a good route to follow if you are a fan of reader response theory and want only to find what you want to find. Mddietz (talk) 23:06, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Presaging Existentialism 

message: Cupitt wrote 'The Sea of Faith' in 1984. It was followed by a TV series. The title was subsequently used for the Sea of Faith Network.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Cupitt
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_of_Faith_(TV_series)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_of_Faith Simon Kidd (talk) 13:21, 16 April 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Influence section should include Don Cupitt's book