To which of the following does the speaker’s mention of the “melancholy, long, withdrawing roar” of “The Sea of Faith” refer in Matthew Arnold’s “Dover Beach” ?
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Answer: C. The decline of religion’s importance in the modern West
Explanation
Matthew Arnold uses the retreating roar of the sea to symbolize the widespread loss of religious belief. The Sea of Faith once surrounded the world with certainty, but modern intellectual shifts caused it to recede. The poem captures Victorian anxiety over the waning influence of Christianity in the face of science. Dover Beach is a famous meditative poem written by the Victorian poet and cultural critic Matthew Arnold. The nineteenth century witnessed major scientific challenges to traditional religious dogma, including geology. Victorian literature frequently reflected a deep sense of cultural isolation and spiritual melancholy.
The Protestant Reformation was an earlier historical religious schism rather than the modern doubt here. Religious interpretations of ocean changes miss the metaphorical literary function of the sea in verse. His lover betrayal is a personal emotional element, whereas the Sea of Faith represents grand cultural loss.
- Subject
- English
- Category
- English Literature
- Topic
- —
- Difficulty
- medium
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