Composition
According to Tinker and Lowry, "a draft of the first twenty-eight lines of the poem" was written in pencil "on the back of a folded sheet of paper containing notes on the career of Empedocles". Allott concludes that the notes are probably from around 1849-50. "Empedocles on Etna", again according to Allott, was probably written 1849-52; the notes on Empedocles are likely to be contemporary with the writing of that poem.
The final line of this draft is:
-
-
- And naked shingles of the world. Ah love &c
-
Tinker and Lowry conclude that this "seem to indicate that the last nine lines of the poem as we know it were already in existence when the portion regarding the ebb and flow of the sea at Dover was composed." This would make the manuscript "a prelude to the concluding paragraph" of the poem in which "there is no reference to the sea or tides".
-
-
- Ah, love, let us be true
- To one another! for the world, which seems
- To lie before us like a land of dreams,
- So various, so beautiful, so new,
- Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
- Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help from pain;
- And we are here as on a darkling plain
- Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
- Where ignorant armies clash by night.
-
Arnold's visits to Dover may also provide some clue to the date of composition. Allott has Arnold in Dover in June 1851 and again in October of that year "on his return from his delayed continental honeymoon". To critics who conclude that ll. 1-28 were written at Dover and ll. 29-37 "were rescued from some discarded poem" Allott suggests the contrary, i.e., that the final lines "were written at Dover in late June," while "ll. 29-37 were written in London shortly afterwards".
Read more about this topic: Dover Beach
Famous quotes containing the word composition:
“There was not a grain of poetry in the whole composition of Lord Fawn, and poetry was what her very soul craved;Mpoetry, together with houses, champagne, jewels, and admiration.”
—Anthony Trollope (18151882)
“Vices enter into the composition of virtues as poisons into the composition of certain medicines. Prudence and common sense mix them together, and make excellent use of them against the misfortunes that attend human life.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (16131680)
“Since body and soul are radically different from one another and belong to different worlds, the destruction of the body cannot mean the destruction of the soul, any more than a musical composition can be destroyed when the instrument is destroyed.”
—Oscar Cullman. Immortality of the Soul or Resurrection of the Dead? The Witness of the New Testament, ch. 1, Epworth Press (1958)