![]() One of Mildred's friends cries over the poem while the other chastises Montag for exposing them to something she deems obscene and the two break off their friendship with Mildred in disgust as they leave the house. In Fahrenheit 451 (1951), author Ray Bradbury has his protagonistGuy Montag read part of 'Dover Beach' to his wife Mildred and her friends after attempts at intellectual conversation fail and Montag discovers just how shallow and uncaring they are about their families and the world around them.In Dodie Smith's novel, I Capture the Castle (1940), the book's protagonist remarks that Debussy's Clair de Lune reminds her of 'Dover Beach' (in the film adaptation of the novel, the character quotes (or, rather, misquotes) a line from the poem).'Dover Beach' has been mentioned in a number of novels, plays, poems, and films: Finally, one critic sees the complexity of the poem's structure resulting in 'the first major 'free-verse' poem in the language'. One commentator sees the strophe-antistrophe of the ode at work in the poem, with an ending that contains something of the 'cata-strophe' of tragedy. ![]() Critics have noted the careful diction in the opening description, the overall, spell-binding rhythm and cadence of the poem and its dramatic character. The form of the poem itself has drawn considerable comment. ![]() Beginning in the present it shifts to the classical age of Greece, then (with its concerns for the sea of faith) it turns to Medieval Europe, before finally returning to the present. The poem's historicism creates another complicating dynamic. The same critic notes that 'the poem upends our expectations of metaphor' and sees in this the central power of the poem. Another found the poem 'emotionally convincing' even if its logic may be questionable. 'Shingles' here means flat beach cobbles, characteristic of some wave-swept coasts. One critic saw the 'darkling plain' with which the poem ends as comparable to the 'naked shingles of the world'. Various solutions to this problem have been proffered. Critics have questioned the unity of the poem, noting that the sea of the opening stanza does not appear in the final stanza, while the 'darkling plain' of the final line is not apparent in the opening. ![]()
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