Talk:Dover Beach/Archive 1

Minor comments from an unregistered person:

- I disagree that DB is an 'un-Victorian' poem. Whilst structurally you may be correct, thematically it is a classic piece of late nineteenth centry melancholic doubt. Possibly worth making this distinction.

- The phrase 'apostle of high seriousness' is only partly a C20 invention. Arnold himself used the words as a criticism of Chaucer, saying that the poet, lacked 'high seriousness.' So in a way Arnold is responsible for his own epithet. Anyway, shouldn't that be on the poet's page, rather than that of this individual poem? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 129.67.114.225 (talk • contribs).


 * This entire paragraph has to go, and the article needs to have the praise removed:
 * Arnold's economy is extraordinary, in this most un-Victorian Victorian poem: not a single purely decorative image, not an adjective that distracts from the cumulative thought and effect. Arnold in the 20th century has been mocked as the "Apostle of High Seriousness."
 * User:Zoe|(talk) 04:05, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
 * For what it's worth, I agree. -pd

I think that this poem was hard to say if it was victorian or not, because the use of "the sea of faith" in the third stanza makes it sound like having faith is the only way to peace, but during the Victorian Era, religion was leaving and science was taking its place. So, if poets were focusing more on science during this time, why does Matthew Arnold focus more on religion? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.228.59.108 (talk • contribs).


 * The paragraph describing the poem as it travels through the lines is incorrect. The "tremulous cadence" seems to more accurately refer to the slow, shaky movements of the pebbles (people) down the shore towards the bay (dreams). Also, the "eternal note of sadness" seems to refer to the "grating roar" of the pebbles thrown up the shore, not the waves themselves. At least, that's how I interpreted those passages after closely analyzing the poem. Although it may seem a minor difference in focus, I believe that shift is critical to the central theme of the human condition since the pebbles (people) then become the key symbol in that passage. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 65.24.118.70 (talk • contribs).

Caveat
Is there a way we can say this that is not so disruptive to the flow of the article and more directly relevant to the poem we are discussing here? Again I'd like to suggest that we turn to Arnold's own writings on criticism. His concept of a "free play of mind" may help us here. At the same time, Arnold expressed his own sense of the hermeneutic when he said of St. Paul that although we could not get to his thought directly, we could come "near". If the comments in the analysis section approach that "nearness" then they are at least in the tradition of Arnoldian literary criticism. Mddietz 15:48, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Caveat: Poetry, by its very nature, is subject to manifold interpretations of which the below is only one. If poetry were subject to only one view, it would not, by definition, be poetry, but rather Draco's law. It is recommended that a reader simply read the poem and analyze it for one's self, for as Virginia Woolf stated through one of her last character's in her last book, Between the Acts, "books are the mirrors of the soul." So, with even greater force, is poetry, especially that of an age where popular culture did not intrude on the poetic muse so much as today. Spoliation of that immanent, intangible thing begins, tearing it from its moorings and impaling it to the icy depths, when too much analysis of the poetic occurs, as if the poem were a quarterly report on a financial ledger, finally stripping the very soul from the poem until it is as irritating to read as the sound of fingernails instead of chalk on the board--
 * I must admit it's goes against the wikipedia's usual style. We are not here to advise the reader, just to inform. Provided that analysis is not original and cites are provided, a systhesis of what critics have said about the poem is acceptable. The advisory nature of the paragraph I'm afraid is too non standard.--Alf melmac 06:58, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

We must admit it goes against Wikipedia's enunciated policy, not to mention the Constitution of the United States to which it is subject as a tax-exempt organization, to censor, especially where there is a simple warning to readers regarding someone's very limited interpretation of a poem published 140 years ago.

Well, gosh, Alf, we have Marshall McLuhan sitting right here with us, and--wait, what was that, Mac? (as we call him)--oh, okay. Mac wants to let you know that he actually wrote the poem himself, old Matty, as Mac called him when they were college roommates back in the teens, having plagiarized it from him--, and that everything you are saying, messires, is utter hogwash.

The caveat stays in.

And if you cannot tell the difference between light humor and obscurantism and "vandalism", if your self-congratulating right-wing think, mutual back rub, won't allow for that, then perhaps it is time to stop bothering others with your obscurantist dogma.

Incidentally, Mr. Dietz, your moderation in politics as you indicated? Is that "moderate" as compared to, say, David Duke's self-proclaimed moderation in politics? It certainly seems so to us, that you would go to such great lengths to censor everything we say at Wikipedia, this article representing only one of about three or four equally innocuous references in other articles.

Who are you really, Mr. Dietz? Why don't you tell us who you represent in fact with your sloganeering and branding: "vandal", "elitist", "lacking morals", etc. How does anyone know that there really is a Mark David Dietz or an "Alf"? Hmmmm? You talk of "masks"; you wear the mask, sir. We stand here before you quite naked.

You miss the point, and we think, quite deliberately, as with all of your right-wing, right-think ilk. You are bent on totalitarian-think, obscurantism. As is, apparently, your little pal there, Alf. Again, we are not going to tolerate censorship at Our Wikipedia. (It is no more YOurs than Ours, now is it, Mr. Dietz and What's It All About, Alfie? You got any sprouts, Alf? You ken to the Landons?

We reiterate: the point is simple. Stop censoring appropriate language. When we start cussing at you and calling you by your rightful names, then you may censor. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.245.18.106 (talk • contribs).


 * The caveat you wish for is wrong in a number of ways. The only persons with enough cells to make sense would have heeded the warning anyways. It is your personal point of view (I see not a single cite in it to say otherwise) and does not conform to one of the key policies that people who edit must abide by (or else... yes) that is the Non-negotiable policy that all Wikipedia articles and other encyclopedic content must be written from a neutral point of view, representing views fairly, proportionately and without bias.. The article without it appears, to me at least (and the English lecturer of Mac's old haunt, t'Oriel) a good start on rounding up the accepted scholarship on the subject. Talk of "censorship" is nonsense, if not trollish. I am not censoring your post, I removed as it adds nothing to the subject (and as my comment on the first line) ip is as much a mask as anything (not that that is relative to anything to do with improving the article, which is what this talk page is about). It is also against policy to make personal attacks on others, should you be the same person as railed against Scarian. The caveat stays in? - Only if you cite the view as expressed there, specific to Dover Beach. Thanks.--Alf melmac 18:24, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

The citation, Alf, is common sense. Get a life. The caveat will stay.

"The only persons with enough cells to make sense would have heeded the warning anyways"? What, pray tell is that supposed to mean, Alf? Seems your cellphone's battery may be dying on you. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.245.18.106 (talk • contribs).
 * The only people who will be able to understand what you are saying are those who have enough brain cells not to need that warning as they will do so for themselves. I notice you reverted me. If I saw this paragraph in a generic article about poetry (as in "Victorian Poetry" or "Poetry that changed the World"), I may not balk, I might moan that it isn't cited (Any material that is challenged and remains uncited, may be removed on that reason alone), but I would move on, caring little. On this article about this specific poem, I see no bend in the text specific to the subject of the article. Is it not the case that this paragraph could equally be said of all 'respected/acknowledged/revered/whatever' poems? It's need in this particular article is nil. You are advising a particular approach which has not been cited as relevant to the text, Virginia Woolf, as always, is pertinent, but to poetry and writing per se, no particuarly to this poem.--Alf melmac 18:49, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Also, Alfie, boy, go read below what your good friend, shall we say, your Shadowcaster? Markie, boy, had to say regarding "vandals" and "elitists" and even "lacking the morals of Matthew Arnold". That is not personal invective? Why are you so defensive, Alfie, boy? I thought you went to the same college as the Tinkerers. I thought you didn't know Markie, boy, there. Relax, dude. Nobody's going to bite you with words. Hey, maybe get that cellphone fixed by going out and getting a little exercise for a change. You sound a little stressed, Alfie--and over a simple caveat. Wouldn't be the case that what you are about is censorship and oneupsmanship, caring not a whit in Hades about this poem or its content? Have you even taken the time to read it? Seems unlikely to us. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.245.18.106 (talk • contribs).


 * Let's see I've now been called a nazi, and I've been compared to David Dukes. I supsect something in there is against wikipedia policy.  And I suppose I ought to take offense, but, my dear friend, I cannot bring myself to feel offended at what seems to me more intended to amuse than to promulgate anything than any sane person could accept as truthful.  I think at this point your argument is with Alf and wikipedia, and not with me.  While I appreciate your continued concern for my welfare, I think it better that you focus your attention on others.  I can only wish you the best and invite you once again, as has Alf, to participate in this process.  I would welcome your help in improving this article. Mddietz 19:03, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
 * One more comment: I did, indeed, speak rather too ill of this individual in some of the things I said relative to an earlier posting in the article; the list above is quite an honest and correct one. I apolgize again for making those statments. I have removed them from this page, although, of course, they can be found in the page's archives.  Again I wish to apologize and retract those comments, and to reiterate my respect for this individual's obvious intelligence and his ideas, no matter how they may differ from my own. My sole concern here is, and will be, the producing of the best article we can for wikipedia. If there is any punitive action warranted by my inapproriate comments, I will abide by them.  To not be responsible for my own actions would be to vacate the principles that are most dear to me. Mddietz 19:19, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't feel too bad about this ip does make edits such as this and is now overtly trolling.--Alf melmac 08:49, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Indeed! But can I use his behavior to justify my own? I say that now and yet I have clearly baited him below by mimicking his own curious style of language, but I rather thought the fracas was over.  Yet it seems to keep going...  It must take quite a lot of administrators to keep this sort of behavior in check. I supsect that an anthropologist could create a fascinating study based solely upon wikipedian social behavior. Mddietz 20:27, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
 * [In reply to the unsigned post above the post above] This talk page is difficult to read when editors don't sign their posts, please do so by using four tildes or the signature button. Your comments about me being stressed make me wonder what tone of voice you attribute me (mentally speaking). I, unfortunately, did not have enough 'cells to rub together to get into Oriel, the connection is different. As I said I would not balk if I found this text in other locations, so it is not about censorship as for oneupmanship, why would involve myself in argument I could be persuaded by, if you point out why it is specifically relevant to Dover Beach by providing some cites, that's another matter, didn't I say that already? I have requested another respected editor to give a second opinion here.--Alf melmac 19:10, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Alternatives to Caveat
I don't know if these will help any, but here are a few passages from Arnold that speak to issues similar to those raised in the Caveat paragraph:


 * ...perfectly to seize another man's meaning, as it stood in his own mind, is not easy; especially when the man is separated from us by such differences of race, training, time, and circumstances as St. Paul. But there are degrees of nearness in getting at a man's meaning; and though we cannot arrive quite at what St. Paul had in his mind, yet we may come near it. Arnold: Culture and Anarchy, 1916, CPW, 5:182 (for CPW see the Bibliography on the Matthew Arnold page)


 * …the method of historical criticism, that great and famous power in the present day … The advice to study the character of an author and the circumstances in which he has lived, in order to account to oneself for his work, is excellent. But it is a perilous doctrine that from such a study the right understanding of this work will “spontaneously issue.” Arnold: “A French Critic on Milton,” 1877, CPW, 8:175.  (The French Critic in question is Edmond Schérer.)


 * We should conceive of poetry worthily, and more highly than it has been the custom to conceive of it. We should conceive of it as capable of higher uses, and called to higher destinies, than those which in general men have assigned to it hitherto. More and more mankind will discover that we have to turn to poetry to interpret life for us, to console us, to sustain us.  Without poetry, our science will appear incomplete; and most of what now passes with us for religion and philosophy will be replaced by poetry. Arnold: “The Study of Poetry,” 1880, CPW, 9:161-2. (This is a highly controversial passage from Arnold and taken out of context much has been made of it which may not truly reflect Arnold's beliefs.  It is not clear, for example, that he means by this that poetry should replace religion, rather it seems to mean that poetry may need to take up some of the functions that religion had once performed.  Moreover, it is, no doubt, important to understand that Arnold, as he says later, in his intro to "Byron" if I remember correctly, that here he meant poetry to stand for literature in general.)


 * It is noticeable that the word curiosity, which in other languages is used in a good sense, to mean, as a high and fine quality of man's nature, just this disinterested love of a free play of the mind on all subjects, for its own sake,— it is noticeable, I say, that this word has in our language no sense of the kind, no sense but a rather bad and disparaging one. But criticism, real criticism, is essentially the exercise of this very quality.  It obeys an instinct prompting it to try to know the best that is known and thought in the world, irrespectively of practice, politics, and everything of the kind; and to value knowledge and thought as they approach this best, without the intrusion of any other considerations whatever. Arnold: “The Function of Criticism at the Present Time,” 1864, CPW, 3:268.

While these present a somewhat different position than that currently presented in the caveat passage (the last is probably closest, but I do not read it as entirely equitable with the sentiment of the caveat passage), they do represent Arnold's feelings about literary criticism. Being a critic himself he could not come out entirely against criticism. Indeed, arguably, his life's work (at least as a prose writer) was the promotion of critical thinking. All in all, however, I am not so sure that these comments belong in this article. I had intended to add them eventually to the Matthew Arnold article where I think they fit better. Perhaps, and here I think may be our best compromise, we should add them to the Matthew Arnold article and then direct the reader to them from this page. Mddietz 19:38, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Criticism
I'm looking at the comments above which are careful and deliberate. Some I agree with, some I do not. I suppose they are tame in their way, but constructive. A little old. I suspect their small debate is over and done now. Then I look at the rather blithe act of vandalism that recently infected this page.
 * You wish everything in life to be nice, structured, linear, logical and perfect; life is not like that, never has been or will be. That is the whole purpose of poetry, any good poetry, to make that point, not to explain one answer or be subject to one person's or group of persons' interpretation.

An interesting thing to write on a page about Dover Beach which is, perhaps, at least in its sense and meaning, as non-linear a poem as Arnold ever wrote [Actually, it is not so much non-linear as it is open to varied interpretation; in this the vandal and I, I think, would agree]. Our vandal's suggestion is not amiss. Dover Beach needs a broad interpretation that allows both for a layered reading and a sense of multiple authorial intentions. Arnold, after all, had a habit of being more ironic and truly paradoxical than your average post-modernist.

I was the one who took out the little "prose poem" our vandal added on "Elias Howe." I suppose it was a prose poem; I can think of no other way to describe it,-- except to say that it was rather amusing. A shame to take it out, but sometimes we have to follow rules. Nonetheless, I have to own that some of our vandals spleen must have been directed at me. I can only say I wish him (I assume it is a him, if not mea cupla) no harm.
 * Stop your censorship, whoever you are. You might learn a thing or two from your elders... Or have you never read Fahrenheit 451? Of what, we might query, are you afraid? Censor again, you dope, and we'll put it in the NY Times. ... Nazis found that profound lesson out, right? Or haven't you understood that about your enforced linearity, ducky?

Does following rules make one a Nazi? Perhaps today, for some, it does. Arnold had a habit of breaking some rules, but standing staunchly behind many another. His comments on the Hyde Park incident, if nothing else, tell us that much.

Arnold, as we all know, was a literary critic. In his time, some thought that his comments were a kind of vandalism, particularly his attack upon the Newman translation of Homer which were thought to be much too personal. Arnold blithely pretended they were not and talked and talked in the hope that he would have the final word. He did not,-- history makes certain of that.
 * ...if you cannot accept criticism in places, such as on a poem's plainly biased and unschooled, callow linear interpretation, where plainly the subject has oped itself to criticism, and instead enforce polarity, you should go away as an entity. For much of what is here generally at this website is undocumented anyway and full of lousy research and plain error driven by cloaked political and historical agendas from various special interest groups seeking to dominate--something you regularly let pass. So why not then allow at least honest criticims of that unless you are actively particpating in that agenda?

The "undocumented" and the "agendas" are here, yes, but "much" is too strong a word. Then, again, vandals without strong words are rather ineffectual as vandals, are they not? Nonetheless, our vandal has raised some legitimate criticism. But is his own criticism not, in a way, a censorious act? The fear of being dominated by another is a common one today. The Nazis, and others throughout history, have made it all too real a fear. But when we raise it to a sort of inverted idolatry, we unkowingly make children of ourselves all over again.
 * Stop your censorship. It is quite unbecoming any entity which aspires to anything but more of the rabble-inspiring nonsense which haunts our culture today (cf. Harry Potter book sales) to its probable and eventual grave very soon, unless checked by honorable and honest and regular higher criticism.

But the angry tone, the threats, is this really an "honorable" and "honest" criticism? Is this a true "higher criticsm"? What's odd to me is that our vandal is in the tradition of Arnold, he certainly has the elitism down pat, but, uncolored by any of Arnold's sense of morality, he seems to miss the point of higher criticism altogether. Is being non-linear an essential value, so essential that it displaces civility? This is too common a mistake; our vandal is, I suspect, more conventional than he realizes. I stumbled into editing here only just recently. Where I think I may differ from our friend, and this is only speculation on my part, is in having the courage to belong. Arnold, I am quite certain, had such courage. I hope our friend can find the courage it takes to be a part of something.

But I shall let him have the last word, in the voice of the royal "we".
 * Perpend. Learn. Got it, ducky? We mean it now: censor us again and we shall proceed with this to the NY Times to find out what is driving the engine at Wikipedia. We find ourselves regularly quite concerned about it.

Mddietz 15:42, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Response from someone who doesn't understand what Wikipedia is and who is "our vandal" and "lacks morality" and is an "elitist" and, We might add, proud as punch to be those things to you right-winger:

First no one except you is "blogging" nor does this writer blog at all as we regard it as a ridiculous exercise in which people such as yourself seek to suck people in to try to make a one-upsmanship point. So we now make an exception to prove Our rule.

Nor do We fail to understand at least the stated purpose of Wikipedia, one it is not living up to these days, primarily because of censors such as yourself who have nothing better to do all day except police an encyclopedia for too liberal viewpoints, meant to be open to all.

It would appear, more likely, that you have no idea what poetry is.
 * Interesting. Very likely, but then to say that I truly understood poetry would be to say that I have come to treat it as an absolute.  Poetry is and should be a difficult thing to fully grasp.  By the way, did you know that Arnold defined poetry as a criticism of life?  I suspect you may want to dig a little deeper into Arnold.  He was himself a literary critic and would not have agreed with you on most of what you say in the next paragraph.  That does not make you wrong, but out of some respect for him as the author we may want at least to balance his thoughts on criticism in our assessment of his poems.  I am not of the current school which tends to deny the virtue of authorial intention.  I think we must, and inevitably do, take it into account. Mddietz 15:35, 2 August 2007 (UTC) 15:29, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

It is not to be found within the realm of anyone's one-off single interpretation. Poetry which captures one's imagination and thoughts as a reader is, by definition, then of one's own soul, one's own experiences, one's own eyes and mind--no one else's. The reader is at one with the author in some manner at that point, whether that belief is illusory or not. Any poem begins with the author's expression and ends with the reader's impression perhaps, something very different sometimes from the author's initial thoughts on writing it. Does that make the reader's impression erroneous? Every true poet who ever lived regularly railed against and mocked ruefully such attempts to analyze their work. (See for example Poe's rueful parody of the contemporary interpretation of "The Raven" in his self-critique of same.) Everyone who has ever written poetry understands that it is not entirely a conscious process; if it were, it would be merely a technical report for some jargon manual, not a poem. More and more modern poetry appears as nothing but stratified prose, not very good prose at that, without soul or even dignity. That "true poetry" is entirely from some other realm, not subject to rational analysis, unless it is simply kitsch. You are placing in a public encyclopedia, supposed to be free to all, one interpretation of a poem and labeling it "analysis" without any disclaimer, as if God and the angels alighted on the shoulders of these particular persons, and you for rendering it, to provide the immaculate and eminent exegesis such that all must bow and do obsequies at the shrine beneath their luminiscent words on the subject. It is silly.

This is a simple poem of a few lines, quite accessible to anyone to read and understand subjectively for their own amusement. It is not within the sole shelf of some high and mighty Eleusinian Mysterian's castle-keep to interpret for all the others of the world who are not, as you so self-effacingly say, with ironic conceit bubbling behind it, one of the "poor drudges".

Hint: Get your own website and interpret all you wish. Stop impressing your beliefs on the world through the guise of "objectivity" and others' supposed violations of the "rules" you lay down by which you try to mark your territory like a dog in the Bushes, merely your own subjectively edited poetry corner to the exclusion of all who disagree, reporting to mommy any "abuses" or "threats" to poor little Drudge, claiming the mean ol' bad "vandals" came to get me, mommy. They're liberal Democrats, too, mommy. Oh, help! Help! They won't let me have My Way--and I Know what My Way is 'cause I Know 'cause the Little People told Me and it is Objective and no one's gonna tell Me different--those bad ol' Vandals Threatening Me.

Analyze history or law or other fit subjects all you wish; analyze literature and poetry for a dissertation or at your own website or some newspaper book page all you wish.

But is the dissertation fit for the encyclopedia to the exclusion of all other opinions, to the exclusion even of a caveat as you have repeatedly censored? And then with a flourish of invective, seeking to label a total stranger horrendous things such as "immoral" for merely offering up a simple comment on a poem's "analysis"?

The first gripe is that you insist on providing interpretation of a beautiful poem at all; but you note there is no attempt, unlike you, at censorship. It is your right. But, if you are going to start down the road of analysis, be prepared to allow others their say as well without attempt by cute-speak to cut off the dialogue by accusing them of "blogging" or "vandalism" should they reply or warn of the limited subjective nature of any such analysis, or even "immorality" because they disagree with Your Highness, the Poetaster, (and that disagreement registered in a mere two simple, appropriate sentences initially) or then writing condescendingly that the "vandal" does not "understand" what an encyclopedia or particularly what Wikipedia is.

Wikipedia is becoming more and more a right-wing, right-minded soup of misinformation. You do that tendency no favor. So, perhaps We don't understand it, wee, wee, wee.

It is suggested that you actually read a little poetry before offering up these silly critiques and diatribes on anyone daring to intrude on your Royal Territory at Wikipedia.

It appears more and more that in fact you are the Vandal who insists on marking your territory culled from public space and then defending it to the hilt, should anyone offer a liberal viewpoint which you then characterize assininely as "elitist" and "immoral". That's what vandals do, you know? We have one solace: at least you didn't call us "Murphy Brown".

Hint: Suggesting that whoever the anonymous person was who wrote the original "analysis" of the poem was a "scoliaster" was meant to be an educational joke (ever see "To Sir, With Love"?) as anyone with 2 cents in between their ears ought recognize by our other usages which you "poor drudge" had to take so seriously as an insult. (We know "Help!" is not out on DVD yet and thus is rarely seen these days but when it is, have a look-see under that rock, Dobbs, and you will understand better what We meant.)

And, like all of your sophomoric ilk, you have managed to turn, by censorship and eradication and outrageous commentary then afterward to try to chill further input, a beautiful poem into a political discussion regarding your assinine right-wing Republican Moral Majority pathetic numb-brain "think". Like all do, bent on engaging their totalitarian will on the rest of us. That's what Hitler did in Germany with regard to what he considered to be Art. Right? Winger?

You think all that's a "Threat"? It's a Threat only to your right-wing think. Which is why you waste so much of your time carefully trying to outdo two sentences we wrote for your and others' enjoyment, hopefully, and finally ours in responding to your stupidity.

We'll say our original sentences again, the ones you quickly edited and reported to mommy as "vandalism", this time angrily to your stupidity, not light-hearted at all, because you are an obvious idiot:

"That's the most absurd inditement re poetry ever writ; read it. Then start the first grade, ye grave-robbin' scoliaster. There wasn't anything in the least prophetic going on a'tall; the Austro-Prussian War was on in full force already, ducky.

White cliffs of Dover?"

After your first deletion, we subsequently made mention of the American Civil War as well, then Napoleon, Justinian, Caesar, Hannibal, etc., just simply to make the point that poems are not "prophetic". We as a collective body of humanity read them and then make the "prophecy" come true or not, and then hail it all as prophecy. And that thinking often gets people killed, for it was all "destiny" in the eyes of the killers--or don't you read the newspapers either? That isn't the prophecy of the poet. It is a statement of a point in time, taken up by analytical scoliasters, actually only analyzing their own subjective impressions of the poem, not the poet or the poem objectively, who want to run things by the "rules" they make up and the "numbers" they favor and the Ray-gun stars in their war-charts, calling it all "prophecy" of the poet.

Did the poem predict the collapse of the bridge on I-35 today in Minneapolis-St. Paul because it talks of the lapse of the former girdle of the Sea of Faith 'roundbout the earth? Or was it you who caused it, Drudge, for your picayunish silliness? Or was it an harmonic chord set up in Berlin by Nazis, just awaiting the wind thou art gave bounding round the earth a few hours on its Axis, just as with Tacoma-Narrows snakily slipping into the river bed in November, 1940?

Go to bed, Drudge. Stop censoring people merely because you disagree culturally and politically with their point of view. That is our only point now.

Incidentally, since We are Elitists, unlike yourself, we shall correct your improper English, something you got, no doubt, from reading too much in that Right-Wing Republican Moral Majority Handbook, perhaps: Don't say, ducky, "I corrected it as best I could."

Say, instead: "Being a scoliaster, I prefer to sound like a drudge, rather than a scholar, or even sometimes Elmer Fudd, in order to hide my pre-eminent understanding of the world at large, of which I know the most, more than even Madame DeFarge, nay, e'en her guillotine's ghost; far more than those elitists, broom dusting sweeps as they are, and so, let me impart my truest and most objective analysis of your disfavour: I did my best to disabuse you of your abuse, Immoral Raver; Now, I shall cock my beaver and take leave of your Goose, and with Balmoral Savour. Adieu, Mon Capitan."

Also, next time, don't steel the Handel.

(And, quote the whole thing as it was written, not as you choose to try to make it sound by tearing it apart in your favorite game of seeking to divine objective meaning from particles dancing in the afternoon sun's glare, just as with the poetry you despise: "Stop your censorship, whoever you are. You might learn a thing or two from your elders... Or have you never read Fahrenheit 451? Of what, we might query, are you afraid? Censor again, you dope, and we'll put it in the NY Times. You wish everything in life to be nice, structured, linear, logical and perfect; life is not like that, never has been or will be. That is the whole purpose of poetry, any good poetry, to make that point, not to explain one answer or be subject to one person's or group of persons' interpretation. Nazis found that profound lesson out, right? Or haven't you understood that about your enforced linearity, ducky? We can find linearity, if we wish it, in the Columbia Encyclopedia or Britannica, or others, fine for their purposes. But what would be the difference here, or the utility of this instrument, if that is the way of it, if the type of censorship you regularly impose here is to continue to be enforced? If so, if you cannot accept criticism in places, such as on a poem's plainly biased and unschooled, callow linear interpretation, where plainly the subject has oped itself to criticism, and instead enforce polarity, you should go away as an entity. For much of what is here generally at this website is undocumented anyway and full of lousy research and plain error driven by cloaked political and historical agendas from various special interest groups seeking to dominate--something you regularly let pass. So why not then allow at least honest criticism of that unless you are actively participating in that agenda? What, pray tell, is the added significance, for instance, of the "Dover Bitch", mentioned below, if the above comment and the last one at bottom re Elias Howe is "unacceptable" to your heretofore rather limited view of things? Perpend. Learn. Stop your censorship. It is quite unbecoming any entity which aspires to anything but more of the rabble-inspiring nonsense which haunts our culture today (cf. Harry Potter book sales) to its probable and eventual grave very soon, unless checked by honorable and honest and regular higher criticism. Got it, ducky? We mean it now: censor us again and we shall proceed with this to the NY Times to find out what is driving the engine at Wikipedia. We find ourselves regularly quite concerned about it.)

Welcome to the Overlook Hotel, Mr. Grady. Can a blind man see how it goes? Or would ye like to take your Ride over the Cliff? What'll it be, Mr. Grady? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.245.18.106 (talk • contribs).

For the sake of completeness here are the interpolated lines that the caveat writer thought were an unwelcome addition to his comments above. Mddietz 22:25, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Response from someone who doesn't understand what Wikipedia is and who is "our vandal" and "lacks morality" and is an "elitist" and, We might add, proud as punch to be those things to you right-winger:


 * Sorry about the "our vandal" but you don't give your name. I post under my real name: mddietz: Mark David Dietz. I don't like using a mask, too impersonal. By the way I'm not right-wing; I'm very centrist in my politics. I find both the right and the left are too extreme for me. I prefer to find the middle ground; it is harder to get to,-- the extremes are too easy; they require no real thought. Mddietz 15:35, 2 August 2007 (UTC) 15:29, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

First no one except you is "blogging" nor does this writer blog at all as we regard it as a ridiculous exercise in which people such as yourself seek to suck people in to try to make a one-upsmanship point. So we now make an exception to prove Our rule.


 * Guilty as charged. Mea culpa. Although I hope I did not post the above simply to one-up. But it was rather unfair of me, and I apologize to you, my friend. Can I replace at this late point, "our vandal" with "my friend"? I should really rather that that were the case, wouldn't you? Mddietz 15:35, 2 August 2007 (UTC) 15:29, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Nor do We fail to understand at least the stated purpose of Wikipedia, one it is not living up to these days, primarily because of censors such as yourself who have nothing better to do all day except police an encyclopedia for too liberal viewpoints, meant to be open to all.


 * I'm still not sure I would agree with your interpretation of wikipedia. I have to say I myself have little problem with policing, but then most centrists would not,-- that does not make me a Nazi does it, just someone with a pragmatic outlook. Mddietz 15:35, 2 August 2007 (UTC) 15:29, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

It would appear, more likely, that you have no idea what poetry is.


 * Interesting. Very likely, but then to say that I truly understood poetry would be to say that I have come to treat it as an absolute. Poetry is and should be a difficult thing to fully grasp. By the way, did you know that Arnold defined poetry as a criticism of life? I suspect you may want to dig a little deeper into Arnold. He was himself a literary critic and would not have agreed with you on most of what you say in the next paragraph. That does not make you wrong, but out of some respect for him as the author we may want at least to balance his thoughts on criticism in our assessment of his poems. I am not of the current school which tends to deny the virtue of authorial intention. I think we must, and inevitably do, take it into account. Mddietz 15:35, 2 August 2007 (UTC) 15:29, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

It is not to be found within the realm of anyone's one-off single interpretation. Poetry which captures one's imagination and thoughts as a reader is, by definition, then of one's own soul, one's own experiences, one's own eyes and mind--no one else's. The reader is at one with the author in some manner at that point, whether that belief is illusory or not. Any poem begins with the author's expression and ends with the reader's impression perhaps, something very different sometimes from the author's initial thoughts on writing it. Does that make the reader's impression erroneous? Every true poet who ever lived regularly railed against and mocked ruefully such attempts to analyze their work. (See for example Poe's rueful parody of the contemporary interpretation of "The Raven" in his self-critique of same.) Everyone who has ever written poetry understands that it is not entirely a conscious process; if it were, it would be merely a technical report for some jargon manual, not a poem. More and more modern poetry appears as nothing but stratified prose, not very good prose at that, without soul or even dignity. That "true poetry" is entirely from some other realm, not subject to rational analysis, unless it is simply kitsch.


 * Here again I take a middle course. Like you I tend toward a hermeneutic view of literature. Essentially, I believe that intention, textual meaning and inference are all important, but none can entirely supercede the other. For my taste you place too high a value on inference. You also seem to have concluded that all analysis is subjective, I do not, I tend to regard it as always a combination of subjectivity and objectivity. But then I do not regard subjectivity and objectivity as opposites. At the same time I respect your position,-- I just disagree with it. I mean to make no points here. I don't need the points; I long ago gave up collecting intellectual bottle caps,-- there's not much you can spend them on; like money they don't buy friends or love. Mddietz 15:35, 2 August 2007 (UTC) 15:29, 2 August 2007 (UTC)


 * By the way, Arnold did not react the way you have suggested to criticism of his poetry. His response was much more complex than that. He actually self-censored a poem because of criticism of it, and published his own analysis of it, stating why he felt it should be censored. Mddietz 15:35, 2 August 2007 (UTC) 15:29, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

You are placing in a public encyclopedia, supposed to be free to all, one interpretation of a poem and labeling it "analysis" without any disclaimer, as if God and the angels alighted on the shoulders of these particular persons, and you for rendering it, to provide the immaculate and eminent exegesis such that all must bow and do obsequies at the shrine beneath their luminiscent words on the subject. It is silly.


 * No actually there are several interpretations in the analysis. All are clearly labelled and assigned to the approriate source. Some of the comments I don't fully agree with. I'd like to get more comments from established sources in here and willprobably add Riede whose commetary I am less sure I completely buy, and it is quite different from those I have already posted. Mddietz 15:35, 2 August 2007 (UTC) 15:29, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

This is a simple poem of a few lines, quite accessible to anyone to read and understand subjectively for their own amusement. It is not within the sole shelf of some high and mighty Eleusinian Mysterian's castle-keep to interpret for all the others of the world who are not, as you so self-effacingly say, with ironic conceit bubbling behind it, one of the "poor drudges".


 * I must point out, these are not MY interpretations of the poem. They are the interpretations of noted scholars. My job here, as I understand it, low drudge that I am, is to provide the information as it comes to me, not to express my own opinion. I don't even use my own poetry as a pure vehicle for self-expression (you should look at T. S. Eliot's cirticism), why would I use an encyclopedia for something I do not use my own poetry for. (By the way, yes, I meant low drudge to be somewhat ironic, but not wholly. Did you get the Johnson allusion? Are you a Johnsonian? I like Johnson, he wrote some of the finest literary criticism.) Mddietz 15:35, 2 August 2007 (UTC) 15:29, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Hint: Get your own website and interpret all you wish. Stop impressing your beliefs on the world through the guise of "objectivity" and others' supposed violations of the "rules" you lay down by which you try to mark your territory like a dog in the Bushes, merely your own subjectively edited poetry corner to the exclusion of all who disagree, reporting to mommy any "abuses" or "threats" to poor little Drudge, claiming the mean ol' bad "vandals" came to get me, mommy. They're liberal Democrats, too, mommy. Oh, help! Help! They won't let me have My Way--and I Know what My Way is 'cause I Know 'cause the Little People told Me and it is Objective and no one's gonna tell Me different--those bad ol' Vandals Threatening Me.


 * Okay this is funny. You have a keen sense of humor. That is what I have liked about the pieces you have posted so far. But seriously, if I have not been as objective as I should be, please lets discuss that. Which comments do you think specifically are too subjective? What comments from accepted scholars would you add? I'd be happy to work with you to improve the page. Mddietz 15:35, 2 August 2007 (UTC) 15:29, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Analyze history or law or other fit subjects all you wish; analyze literature and poetry for a dissertation or at your own website or some newspaper book page all you wish.

But is the dissertation fit for the encyclopedia to the exclusion of all other opinions, to the exclusion even of a caveat as you have repeatedly censored? And then with a flourish of invective, seeking to label a total stranger horrendous things such as "immoral" for merely offering up a simple comment on a poem's "analysis"?


 * I don't think I did this. I don't think you are immoral. No, I think you misread me. If I implied such, again, mea culpa. I did, frankly, call you "conventional." I apologize for that, too. Mddietz 15:35, 2 August 2007 (UTC) 15:29, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

The first gripe is that you insist on providing interpretation of a beautiful poem at all; but you note there is no attempt, unlike you, at censorship. It is your right. But, if you are going to start down the road of analysis, be prepared to allow others their say as well without attempt by cute-speak to cut off the dialogue by accusing them of "blogging" or "vandalism" should they reply or warn of the limited subjective nature of any such analysis, or even "immorality" because they disagree with Your Highness, the Poetaster, (and that disagreement registered in a mere two simple, appropriate sentences initially) or then writing condescendingly that the "vandal" does not "understand" what an encyclopedia or particularly what Wikipedia is.


 * No condescension meant. I respect your intelligence. But have you read the requirements that wikipedia places on articles like this? I haven't them all, but I have read the basic requirements. I'm not posting my opinion here. None of the statements here are directly mine. I have no problem with analysis. You do. Good. But the analysis was here when I first arrived only a week or so ago. I shifted it from someone's open-ended, unverified analysis, to a well-researched fully cited analysis. I'm not sure what your complaint is. I have no desire to cut off the dialog. I'm enjoying this discussion with you (on the discussion page where it belongs). Mddietz 15:35, 2 August 2007 (UTC) 15:29, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is becoming more and more a right-wing, right-minded soup of misinformation. You do that tendency no favor. So, perhaps We don't understand it, wee, wee, wee.


 * I try not to jump to such conclusions myself. Wikipedia is surely not perfect, but I can only follow my own conscience and match my efforts to my best understanding of the rules. Mddietz 15:35, 2 August 2007 (UTC) 15:29, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

It is suggested that you actually read a little poetry before offering up these silly critiques and diatribes on anyone daring to intrude on your Royal Territory at Wikipedia.


 * I should point out, I suppose, that I have read all of Arnold's poems and his literary criticism. I like reading poetry, and, if I must say so myself, I've read quite a bit of poetry. And a fair amount of poetry criticism. And I've even written some poetry. Not sure it is any good, but I have enjoyed writing it. By the way, why the passive voice? Mddietz 15:35, 2 August 2007 (UTC) 15:29, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

It appears more and more that in fact you are the Vandal who insists on marking your territory culled from public space and then defending it to the hilt, should anyone offer a liberal viewpoint which you then characterize assininely as "elitist" and "immoral". That's what vandals do, you know? We have one solace: at least you didn't call us "Murphy Brown".


 * Oh, I liked Murphy Brown, what a great show. Did I really say "immoral"? I'm certain I did not. As for elitist, I thought you'd already owned that. By the way, touche on turning around the vandal thing, but lets get past that now. Mddietz 15:35, 2 August 2007 (UTC) 15:29, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Hint: Suggesting that whoever the anonymous person was who wrote the original "analysis" of the poem was a "scoliaster" was meant to be an educational joke (ever see "To Sir, With Love"?) as anyone with 2 cents in between their ears ought recognize by our other usages which you "poor drudge" had to take so seriously as an insult. (We know "Help!" is not out on DVD yet and thus is rarely seen these days but when it is, have a look-see under that rock, Dobbs, and you will understand better what We meant.)


 * No actually I didn't take that as an insult at all. Frankly, I thought it a pretty good joke. Mddietz 15:35, 2 August 2007 (UTC) 15:29, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

And, like all of your sophomoric ilk, you have managed to turn, by censorship and eradication and outrageous commentary then afterward to try to chill further input, a beautiful poem into a political discussion regarding your assinine right-wing Republican Moral Majority pathetic numb-brain "think". Like all do, bent on engaging their totalitarian will on the rest of us. That's what Hitler did in Germany with regard to what he considered to be Art. Right? Winger?


 * You have a fertile imagination, but I'm afraid you've missed the mark: I'm not a right-winger. Mddietz 15:35, 2 August 2007 (UTC) 15:29, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

You think all that's a "Threat"? It's a Threat only to your right-wing think. Which is why you waste so much of your time carefully trying to outdo two sentences we wrote for your and others' enjoyment, hopefully, and finally ours in responding to your stupidity.


 * Others? No one else is reading this. We're in a forgotten corner of wikipedia. No one has been here in ages. Mddietz 15:35, 2 August 2007 (UTC) 15:29, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

We'll say our original sentences again, the ones you quickly edited and reported to mommy as "vandalism", this time angrily to your stupidity, not light-hearted at all, because you are an obvious idiot:


 * I never reported any vandalism. They have bots that search for it. Mddietz 15:35, 2 August 2007 (UTC) 15:29, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

"That's the most absurd inditement re poetry ever writ; read it. Then start the first grade, ye grave-robbin' scoliaster. There wasn't anything in the least prophetic going on a'tall; the Austro-Prussian War was on in full force already, ducky.


 * The Austro-Prussian war was not going on in 1850-53 when the poem was most likely written. So, help me understand what you are talking about. In any event it is a moot point, is it not, as the comment on the poem's "prophetic" character (which was not my comment but someone else's) is no longer on the page. Why are you arguing this? Mddietz 15:35, 2 August 2007 (UTC) 15:29, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

White cliffs of Dover?"

After your first deletion, we subsequently made mention of the American Civil War as well, then Napoleon, Justinian, Caesar, Hannibal, etc., just simply to make the point that poems are not "prophetic". We as a collective body of humanity read them and then make the "prophecy" come true or not, and then hail it all as prophecy. And that thinking often gets people killed, for it was all "destiny" in the eyes of the killers--or don't you read the newspapers either? That isn't the prophecy of the poet. It is a statement of a point in time, taken up by analytical scoliasters, actually only analyzing their own subjective impressions of the poem, not the poet or the poem objectively, who want to run things by the "rules" they make up and the "numbers" they favor and the Ray-gun stars in their war-charts, calling it all "prophecy" of the poet.


 * Again, moot point is it not? Prophecy is no longer on the table. Mddietz 15:35, 2 August 2007 (UTC) 15:29, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Did the poem predict the collapse of the bridge on I-35 today in Minneapolis-St. Paul because it talks of the lapse of the former girdle of the Sea of Faith 'roundbout the earth? Or was it you who caused it, Drudge, for your picayunish silliness? Or was it an harmonic chord set up in Berlin by Nazis, just awaiting the wind thou art gave bounding round the earth a few hours on its Axis, just as with Tacoma-Narrows snakily slipping into the river bed in November, 1940?

Go to bed, Drudge. Stop censoring people merely because you disagree culturally and politically with their point of view. That is our only point now.

Incidentally, since We are Elitists, unlike yourself, we shall correct your improper English, something you got, no doubt, from reading too much in that Right-Wing Republican Moral Majority Handbook, perhaps: Don't say, ducky, "I corrected it as best I could."

Say, instead: "Being a scoliaster, I prefer to sound like a drudge, rather than a scholar, or even sometimes Elmer Fudd, in order to hide my pre-eminent understanding of the world at large, of which I know the most, more than even Madame DeFarge, nay, e'en her guillotine's ghost; far more than those elitists, broom dusting sweeps as they are, and so, let me impart my truest and most objective analysis of your disfavour: I did my best to disabuse you of your abuse, Immoral Raver; Now, I shall cock my beaver and take leave of your Goose, and with Balmoral Savour. Adieu, Mon Capitan."


 * Does this mean you will not be answering my answers to you? I'm very disappointed. I had hoped you and I might work together to improve this page. Mddietz 15:35, 2 August 2007 (UTC) 15:29, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Also, next time, don't steel the Handel.

(And, quote the whole thing as it was written, not as you choose to try to make it sound by tearing it apart in your favorite game of seeking to divine objective meaning from particles dancing in the afternoon sun's glare, just as with the poetry you despise: "Stop your censorship, whoever you are. You might learn a thing or two from your elders... Or have you never read Fahrenheit 451? Of what, we might query, are you afraid? Censor again, you dope, and we'll put it in the NY Times. You wish everything in life to be nice, structured, linear, logical and perfect; life is not like that, never has been or will be. That is the whole purpose of poetry, any good poetry, to make that point, not to explain one answer or be subject to one person's or group of persons' interpretation. Nazis found that profound lesson out, right? Or haven't you understood that about your enforced linearity, ducky? We can find linearity, if we wish it, in the Columbia Encyclopedia or Britannica, or others, fine for their purposes. But what would be the difference here, or the utility of this instrument, if that is the way of it, if the type of censorship you regularly impose here is to continue to be enforced? If so, if you cannot accept criticism in places, such as on a poem's plainly biased and unschooled, callow linear interpretation, where plainly the subject has oped itself to criticism, and instead enforce polarity, you should go away as an entity. For much of what is here generally at this website is undocumented anyway and full of lousy research and plain error driven by cloaked political and historical agendas from various special interest groups seeking to dominate--something you regularly let pass. So why not then allow at least honest criticism of that unless you are actively participating in that agenda? What, pray tell, is the added significance, for instance, of the "Dover Bitch", mentioned below, if the above comment and the last one at bottom re Elias Howe is "unacceptable" to your heretofore rather limited view of things? Perpend. Learn. Stop your censorship. It is quite unbecoming any entity which aspires to anything but more of the rabble-inspiring nonsense which haunts our culture today (cf. Harry Potter book sales) to its probable and eventual grave very soon, unless checked by honorable and honest and regular higher criticism. Got it, ducky? We mean it now: censor us again and we shall proceed with this to the NY Times to find out what is driving the engine at Wikipedia. We find ourselves regularly quite concerned about it.)


 * Glad you posted it in full. I had done so earlier because I liked it very much and did not want to see it get lost in the back pages of the article. Thanks. Mddietz 15:35, 2 August 2007 (UTC) 15:29, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Welcome to the Overlook Hotel, Mr. Grady. Can a blind man see how it goes? Or would ye like to take your Ride over the Cliff? What'll it be, Mr. Grady?


 * Very good. I do like some of your writing. Very spry. My friend, please understand again I bear you no ill will. I respect your intelligence. I disagree with some of your conclusions, but that doesn't bother me, I hope it does not bother you. I wish you nothing but good will. I'm ready to work with you if you want to make this a better page. Mddietz 15:35, 2 August 2007 (UTC) 15:29, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Dover_Beach"


 * Glad you posted it in full. I had done so earlier because I liked it very much and did not want to see it get lost in the back pages of the article. Thanks. Mddietz 15:35, 2 August 2007 (UTC) 15:29, 2 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Sorry about the "our vandal" but you don't give your name. I post under my real name: mddietz: Mark David Dietz.  I don't like using a mask, too impersonal.  By the way I'm not right-wing; I'm very centrist in my politics.  I find both the right and the left are too extreme for me.  I prefer to find the middle ground; it is harder to get to,-- the extremes are too easy; they require no real thought. Mddietz 15:35, 2 August 2007 (UTC) 15:29, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Guilty as charged. Mea culpa.  Although I hope I did not post the above simply to one-up.  But it was rather unfair of me, and I apologize to you, my friend.  Can I replace at this late point, "our vandal" with "my friend"?  I should really rather that that were the case, wouldn't you? Mddietz 15:35, 2 August 2007 (UTC) 15:29, 2 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Very good. I do like some of your writing.  Very spry.  My friend, please understand again I bear you no ill will.  I respect your intelligence. I disagree with some of your conclusions, but that doesn't bother me, I hope it does not bother you. I wish you nothing but good will. I'm ready to work with you if you want to make this a better page. Mddietz 15:35, 2 August 2007 (UTC) 15:29, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

REPLY: First, don't invade our discussion with your interstitial remarks. Keep your discussion in one segment. You are deliberately attempting again to be cute. Sorry, but we got tired quickly of trying to cut and paste your dozen or so cute remarks into one whole, so we just dumped them as you invaded our text. We left the first one as is because we were not aware that you actually knew Mr. Arnold; so well in fact that you can assert his disagreement with most of what we say. Gosh. You must tell the people, O Wise One, what it is you have discovered. Is this a direct communication or done via medium? And, meanwhile, report to Guinness Stout that you, in fact, not that poseur who is 110 years old, are the world's oldest person at, must be, something like 180?

This, then, is the heart of the problem. Or, don't you understand that? You seek to substitute your understanding for that of all comers because you own this poem and Matthew Arnold, somewhere in the Enlightened "middle way", and all knowledge surrounding it and him, your protestations to the contrary notwithstanding. You will censor anyone else and call them "vandals", unless they completely agree with you.

Truth is, Neighbor, there is no middle way; only understanding of all extremities.

Second, You are not Our Friend as long as you censor people: We regard YOU as a right-winger, as you are as long as you do that. We do not work with censors. Your curtness and condescending remarks consistently imply the same, as you blithely censor everything we post in Wikipedia. Nor do we respect your intelligence, what limited amount there is, as long as you do that.

This is a tax-exempt encyclopedia, open to the public to edit, quickly becoming a psycho-pedia for nutz like yourself, against whom We bear great ill will for your insistence on censorship and your brand of "working with people" just as the Nazis worked with Austria, Czechoslovakia, etc. etc. You are a Baiter, mister, nothing else. You don't understand one whit of this poem or you would not be going down this road.

And if you keep it up--not a threat, a promise--, you are going to be responsible, ultimately, should you and your like maintain this notion, for Wikipedia losing its status as a tax-exempt organization. We will launch a citizens' lawsuit, as any citizen has standing as a taxpayer to do against any organization with tax-exempt status not adhering to its principles, to take away Wikipedia's tax-exempt status as not being true to its designated mission, but rather allowing right-wingers such as yourself to censor all comers who demonstrate any understanding of the humanities and liberal arts, and then label them "vandals". (We recommend initiating it in the Ninth Circuit, not the Fourth.)

Get a life, Nazi, and stop censoring. YOU ARE THE VANDAL: LOOK IN YOUR MIRROR.

Look to your Division, suh. Pickett. It is singularly dangerous.

We reiterate: You are not Our Friend, as long as you censor. If you really want to work with us, Vandal, simply stop censoring--and stop invading even our discussion with your interrupting remarks. Set them off as separate text like civilized people do. Or is all of that too difficult for you to understand?

This is a poem with the concluding line, to the Great Effect, "ignorant armies clashing on a darkling plain." Get it? Or is existentialism to you merely a word and a description in Wikipedia? Try thinking and understanding for a change.

Would you like wheat toast or a coffee roll, Mr. Getts? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.245.18.106 (talk • contribs).

My dear friend, I think my response to you got lost in the electrons. And I'm not going to retype, although, I will tell you all it said was, "thank you very much, but I neither want to argue with you nor get angry." I'll try to be less cute in the future. Let's get on with the real business of wikipedia shall we. Can you provide the citiations for your opening paragraph? And looking below, looks like we have been visited by someone policing the site, so I suppose we will need to see how the admins view things. Ashame I thought we might be able to work together to resolve this. Mddietz 19:21, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Moved from article
The following was moved from the article, we don't use hidden comments to that end. Please sign your posts on talk pages with four tildes, or use the signature buttton to do it for you. Thanks.--Alf melmac 19:24, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Stop removing sensible edits, please. That is really dumb for a supposedly "free" encyclopedia, supposedly "free" to all comers to edit, and will be reported to the press at large very soon if it continues.-->

From mddietz = PLEASE GO TO THE DISCUSSION PAGE!! Dover Beach was more than likely composed long before the Austro-Prussian War began (see below). I agree with you that the old article contained a rather poor analysis of the poem, but my inclination is to fix it rather than simply rail against it. Besides, unlike you I draw no absolute equation between analysis and subjectivity (be happy to discuss the philosophical relevance of that if you like, but not on the formal page of a wikipedia article). I don't want to be insulting to you, or get into any kind of squabble -- I've agreed with some of what you've said, and found other comments amusing--, but I'm not sure you quite understand what wikipedia is. It is not an open blog and is only equivocally "free" (you use the word free quite loosely -- Arnold had some interesting things to say about freedom and the cult of "doing as one likes" in Culture and Anarchy -- he regarded "doing as one likes" as a phillistine ideal). Wikipedia has a purpose and rules, and as good citizens of wikipedia, we should respect those rules; I don't know how Arnold would have reacted to the wikipedia rules; I suspect he would have thought them too loose, too free, too much "doing as one likes." I doubt he would have ever become one of the "low drudges" (cf Johnson) that a wikipedia contributor by definition must be. Frankly, I'm inclined to recommend that you consider leaving this work to us "low drudges." Post your humorous and interesting comments on a true blog where they will likely be better received than they are here. I took some time, that I can ill afford, today and reworked the page so that it better conforms to wikipedia standards. One of those standards is NPOV -- neutral point of view. Editors are not supposed to be expressing their own opinions. Instead, (low drudges that we are) we should be posting only well-researched information (something you have pointed out is not as routinely practiced as it should be). I hope the new article is more to your liking. It is, I think, more consistent with wikipedia's aims.-->

Response from someone who doesn't understand what Wikipedia is: First no one except you is "blogging" nor does this writer blog at all. It would appear, more likely, that you have no idea what poetry is. It is not to be found within the realm of anyone's one-off single interpretation. Poetry which captures one's imagination and thoughts as a reader is, by definition, then of one's own soul, one's own experiences, one's own eyes and mind--no one else's. The reader is at one with the author in some manner at that point, whether that belief is illusory or not. The peom begins with the author's expression and ends with the reader's impression perhaps, something very different sometimes from the author's initial thoughts on writing it. Does that make the reader's impression erroneous? Every true poet who ever lived regularly railed against and mocked ruefully such attempts to analyze their work. (See for example Poe's rueful parody of the contemporary interpretation of "The Raven" in his self-critique of same.) Everyone who has ever written poetry understands that it is not entirely a conscious process; if it were, it would be merely a technical report for some jargon manual, not a poem. More and more modern poetry appears as nothing but stratified prose, not very good prose at that, without soul or even dignity. That "true poetry" is entirely from some other realm, not subject to rational analysis, unless it is simply kitsch. You are placing in a public encyclopedia, supposed to be free to all, one interpretation of a poem and labeling it "analysis" without any disclaimer, as if God and the angels alighted on the shoulders of these particular persons to provide the immaculate and eminent exegesis such that all must bow and do obsequies at the shrine beneath their luminiscent words on the subject. It is silly. This is a simple poem of a few lines, quite accessible to anyone to read and understand subjectively for their own amusement. It is not within the sole shelf of some high and mighty Eleusinian Mysterian's castle-keep to interpret for all the others of the world who are not as you so self-effacingly say, with ironic conceit bubbling behind it, you "poor drudges" exclusively to interpret. Hint: Get your own website and interpret all you wish. Stop impressing your beliefs on the world through the guise of "objectivity", merely your own subjectively edited poetry corner. Analyze history or law or other fit subjects all you wish; analyze literature and poetry for a dissertation or your own website or some newspaper book page all you wish. But is the dissertation fit for the encyclopedia to the exclusion of all other opinions, to the exclusion evben of a caveat as you have repeatedly censored? The first gripe is that you insist on providing interpretation of a beautiful poem at all; but you note there is no attempt, unlike you, at censorship. It is your right. But, if you are going to start down the road of analysis, be preapred to allow others their say as well without attempt by cute-speak to cut off the dialogue by accusing them of "blogging" (in two simple sentences) or not "understanding" what an encyclopedia or particularly what wikipedia is. Wikipedia is becoming more and more a right-wing, right-minded soup of misinformation. You do that tendency no favor.-->

Problems with article
Who is Caveat? - This article needs to be readable and at a level where everyone can understand it. And, correct me if I am wrong, but is an encyclopaedia entry supposed to analyse the poem? If encyclopaedic entries can have an analysis of poem's then a distinction must be made between the analysis (Analysis must NOT be done by a user, or it will be considered POV and original research) and the content in the article. Atm, it is just "Caveat: [Analysis]" - a great distinction must be made. The opening paragraph (Which I duly stuck tags on) is a bad sign already... I will get someone to take a look at this article (Preferably an admin). Please do not forget to sign your posts with the four tildes ~. Scar ian Talk 18:52, 2 August 2007 (UTC)


 * "Caveat" means, in Latin, "beware"--simple as that. There is nothing which says we must all remain as dumb as we were yesterday, after reading something which is supposed to be educational, and then run to mommy over those bad people challenging your brain a little, is there, Peacock? Sometimes, Peacock, Peacocks lose their feathers, or so we read. Or was it something we heard somewhere? Perhaps on the Dick Caveatt Show of yestertear--where we learned the Caveatt-Habeatt. Best stay out of the water pipe, J.J., until you are properly Latinized. Emptor caveat.**** —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.245.18.106 (talk • contribs).


 * No one is being Rude to you, Peacock. You described "caveat" as a Peacock word, so referring to you as a "Peacock" was simply an ironic statement. Get it? Peacocks are colorful. "caveat" is actually not a colorful word at all. It is in fairly standard usage among educated adults--though one often misused. There is a difference, however, between trying to get your right brain to see something your left brain wants it to see but your right won't let in, just to conceptualize it a bit--which might just do you and everyone else a lot of good--, and rudeness. If you and the other person, Mr. Dietz, apparently so bent on destruction of it, would simply bother to read the poem and stop worrying about words unfamiliar to you, or worse, as with Mr. Dietz, offering one cobbled toigether interpretation of those simple lines, you could learn. Dictionaries, not encyclopedias such as this one, are a great place to start. Try Oxford's...**** —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.245.18.106 (talk • contribs).


 * What? Again... I mean, what? C'mon this is a joke right? I never tagged the 'caveat' word - I merely asked what it meant. I, actually, have a fair grasp of Latin. And, again, you referred to me as "Peacock". I have taken an offence to this and will thus tag your user talk page again with a personal attack warning. Comment on content not contributor's/editor's. - You have been warned about this before. Scar ian Talk  21:11, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Arbitary section break

 * Perhaps, Mr. Dietz, and your friend, Alf, will be so kind now as to leave our "caveat" to your cobbled together "analysis" of this short poem alone and stop censoring our limited input, being that, per your insistent demands, we have backed up our very common sense notion with a quote from--


 * Voila! None other than the master, himself, Matthew Arnold. Is that good enough for you?


 * Again, our sole points since the beginning of thius rather ridiculous exercise in childish insistence on censorship has been two-fold: 1) Poetry by its nature is an experience between author and reader and not meant to be "analyzed" word by word and line by line as the first analysis at this page attempted to do, and which your subsequently offered more professional analysis does. Criticism is fine. (Read Arnold's own criticism of literature and poetry, for instance for contrast.) 2) This particular poem, unlike a long narrative poem, needs little if any real commentary for it to be understood by the reader. Indeed Alf below said something to the effect that the person with enough "cells", could figure out our "caveat" without it; thus, why couldn;t that same person figure out this short poem itself without that analysis?


 * You both do see the point we hope. We don't tread on you; don't tread on us. And stop trying to own pages at this encyclopedia for either your ego or your insistence on your point of view. It is very unbecoming any rational scholarship and cheapens the experience for everyone, degrading the quality and authority of this encyclopedia generally.


 * You do not have a copyright on this space or on the public domain generally. Neither do we; hence we leave your analysis alone, unedited, uncensored at any point, including the first analysis which you removed. We leave it all because that makes for a learning experience for everyone, both that which is offered and is not so good as well as the better, as long as it is not patently false--and ideas on poetry are not subject to test for truth or falsity. They may be criticized, a process always subjective, or they may be explained with backgorund information to make the experience somewhat more interesting. But even that often serves as much to obscure the true meaning of the poem or song or what have you as it does to enlighten, for often even the artist and creator of it does not fully understand the poem. He or she may understand what it meant to the author when written, but as time moves on and as words, even contemporaneous with authorship, always are suceptible to varied interpretation, (see, e.g. Shakespeare), the meaning of the poem is also varied, always, inevitably. And that is what we mean by the inherent subjective nature of poetry. Read up on the Nine Muses of the poet or songwriter. They are quite real but only observable by the poet.


 * And we never meant to insult anyone, including the person honestly providing the first analysis. Our comments were meant to enliven the poetry corner, just injecting a little humor into otherwise, very, very dangerously dry pages of drudge. Poetry is meant for everyone to enjoy, not just drudges, yes?


 * And, no sooner than we added our quotes, someone removed the caveat yet again at 4:00 a.m. eastern daylight time. Okay, Mr. Drudge. Keep it up. But we shall persist also in making sure you do not own this space to the exclusion of others. And incidentally, thanks to Mr. Dietz for his loving help in supplying those quotes below from Mr. Arnold, but we had already done our own research, thank you just the same. Even elitists can research, Mr. Dietz, without the drudge's help. You would be surprised at the quantity of research we have accumulated elsewhere online.


 * Hope you enjoy the chicken salad on wheat toast


 * Thank ye very muuuuuch. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.245.18.106 (talk • contribs).
 * Re: owning pages, I was called into this page as an administrator, what else do you expect to have happen when an adminstator sees a clear breach of what is acceptable taking place? Thank you for finally answering the question I asked twice, in that the intial opening is entirely generic and can be applied to any and all pieces of poetry/literature, it serves no purpose on this page, whereas at least the words by Arnold himself have some relaeance. As time goes on (and as views change) those comments on this work which are verifable, balanced and fit the general understanding of the subject may be added, they will likely be relevant. An original piece of work stating that trying to understand poetry through others' analysis is appaling is not relevant. If Matthew Arnold was entirely unpublished and chose to write those very words himself as an named editor or unregistered ip, we'd be scrutinising it against the policies just as much.--Alf melmac 08:03, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, this is better. It probably does not belong on this page, but it does not particularely hurt the page.  Arnold's comments here are likely, I am afraid, to scare people off before they get to the poem, which is a shame.  I do love the final paragraph the caveat-writer has added: Arnold's satire on "A true allegory of the state of one's own mind."  It clearly indicates Arnold's distaste for subjectivity in poetry (although elsewhere he is more equivocal on the matter).  (I have to wonder if the caveat writer realizes he has just disproven the majority of his own argument, but that's neither here nor there.)  I hope no one will object to my trying to do what the caveat writer does so well, make an imperious statement that is so over the top its funny (this why I like him so much, he has such a wonderful sense of humor): We will not tolerate censorship!  The new caveat stays!  (Ouch, that hurt! Well, I'll not do that again.  When you inflate your ego like that it is terribly bumpy coming down...) Mddietz 19:15, 4 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Ah, I just noticed. The caveat writer had intended that the old caveat remain in place, but someone has removed that portion. It was not me.  I no longer touch the said caveat writers postings.  Somehow I think we may go back to square one when he realizes that the current version (which I find relatively unobjectionable) has been purchased at the expense of his Carlylean apostrophe on the blessed muse. Mddietz 19:25, 4 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm going to make another attempt at a compromise. I'm going to move the commentary on the poem to the end of the poem so that it is not so intrusive.  I think that may, at least, to some small degree, be in keeping with the sentiment that the caveat writer has expressed. I must say I do appreciate the compliment upon the professionalism of the analysis. Mddietz 19:36, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Dear caveat writer, I just noticed you and I were out there working on the page at the same time. (Wikipedia has such a wonderful way of creating a sense of community.) I really would like to know if you think that moving the comments after the poem was an improvement. I see the original caveat is back. As I said above I will not touch it. Your argument now is with the wikipedia administrators. Hope you have a good weekend. Mddietz 19:54, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

I have just added three paragraphs to my "response to the caveat" below. The additonal citations that the caveat writer have provided are quite interesting. I have read them all before, but I have read so much of Arnold that his words start to swirl together. The nice thing about having them here was that it allowed me to read them afresh. Thanks. Mddietz 21:22, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Response to the criticism in caveat
I notice that the caveat has yet again been reverted. Whether or not this shall bring closure to this issue I suppose we shall have to wait and see, but meanwhile, it occurred to me over supper this evening that in a very significant way I had failed to show full respect to the author of the caveat. He had raised several critiques of the article as it stands now which I have not directly responded to. As I understand the purpose of this discussion page, responses to such critiques are its traditional fare, and I have been quite remiss in not so responding.

As I read the caveat (and other comments form the caveat author) I believe a fair statement of these criticisms would be:
 * 1) analysis is an inappropriate way of dealing with poetry of any kind;
 * 2) I have provided only one interpretation of the poem Dover Beach in the article;
 * 3) a dictionary is a sufficient resource for interpreting poetry;
 * 4) the poem is "easy" and does not need any additional interpretation in order to be fairly understood by the average reader.

I hope we might all be able to agree that the question of censorship may be set aside for the purpose of this analysis, without, in doing so, in anyway either discrediting, nor crediting its author's claim.

1) I agree with Alf and Shoesss, that this is a question (i.e. whether analysis of poetry is at all appropriate) which probably resides outside the purview of this particular article. I cannot help but note, however, how old this thought is.  Dryden in writing the prefaces to his plays felt himself to be under some compunction to explain why he felt comment was necessary at all (Dryden's prefaces are some of the first descriptive literary criticism in the English language; I state this on the authority of George Watson, The Literary Critics, 1962, Baltimore: Penguin Books, see his first chapter and the second which deals directly with Dryden).  I frankly feel that in many respects the caveat writer's claim is thus wholly legitimate; the tradition that poetry should not be subjected to analysis is an old and well honored one.  However, I would note, it represents only one tradition in the history of literature. The alternate tradition here, that which dates back to Dryden (at least in English) has been a hard won tradition in many ways. It, frankly, has had to prove itself, not only in Dryden's time, but in the intervening years as well. In a passage I have recently spent some time with, George Saintsbury argues with those who felt poetic classics should not be adorned with commentary, stating his belief that the prefaces Arnold wrote for collections of Byron and Wordsworth's poetry had merit and should not be too quickly or easily dismissed.
 * [Arnold] thought – and not a few good wits have thought with him – not only that these Introductions are an opportunity for men like himself, with original gifts of thought and style, to display these gifts, but that the mighty public, for all its knowledge of everything that has been thought and said about everybody, might find something new to it even in the observations of lesser folk. As a matter of fact, of course, and neither to talk nor to quote nonsense, the utility of such Introductions, even if moderately well done, is unmistakable.  Not one in a thousand of the probable readers of any book has all the information which even a fairly competent introducer will put before him; not one in a hundred knows the previous opinions of the author; not many possess the acquaintance with his whole work which it is part of the business of the introducer to acquire... George Saintsbury, Matthew Arnold, 1899, pages 183-4.

Thus there are here two traditions, each of great value, it seems to me. However, in any single venue, only one of these traditions may be practiced, although I suspect there are certain middle ground positions which I will discuss below by which a reasonable moderation may be practiced. I would also note that both traditions have had practitioners who were poets. That Dryden stands at the head of the English tradition of literary criticism seems to me no singular accident.

2) I responded, when this second criticism (i.e. that I offered but one interpretation), was first offered, that, in fact, I had used three separate sources for my interpretation, although I frankly hesitated at the time as I knew that at least one significant critical tradition relative to this poem was absent. Post-modernism has not been kind to Arnold.  Therefore I offered, and still believe it would be relevant to do so, to include David Riede's critique that in this poem Arnold, "by emptying the language of his predecessors of its power, ... ends by emptying his own, ends with a return to silence." David G. Riede, Matthew Arnold and the Betrayal of Language, Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1988.  This is an extreme position and probably should be noted as such, nonetheless, its inclusion would provide some balance.

However, part of the caveat writer's critique was that I alone had chosen the commentary. Alf discovered some evidence that my choices were fairly consistent with accepted critical authority on Arnold. However, the question often raised today upon this head is whether this appeal to authority is sufficiently indicative of the validity of such opinions, or if alternatively some sort of Kuhnian paradigm is in effect, thus preventing other, perhaps more legitimate, or at least in no wise less valid, thoughts from arising. One answer to such queries is that perhaps such authority is, like the rules of wikipedia which echo such appeals to authority, inevitably functioning in this paradigmatic and somewhat stultifying manner. Another answer is to counter with the question, have we any other choice but to, at least, use these appeals to authority for what merit they do have? Arnold, whom Trilling described as a precursor to the pragmatists, seems to continually walk a middle ground between the two. He works back and forth between appeals to authority and time honored standards, and appeals to reason and experience. He called these two forces Hellenic (reason) and Hebraic (the appeal to authority) and felt that the two must be kept in some reasonable balance.

3) Whether or not a dictionary is a sufficient resource for a reasonable person to interpret a poem raises some hidden questions. What is interpretation, and are all interpretations of a kind?  If I gloss a word like "glimmering" or "Aegean" am I interpreting the poem?  Would the unaided modern reader, unaware of Thucydides description of the battle of Epipolae, recognize the allusion at the end of the poem?  The New Critics in the 1930s famously raised the question of whether a summary of a poem had any critical legitimacy.  The poem, they felt, is its text and nothing more.  If I add a comment on the relationship of Arnold's honeymoon to this poem, have I, in so doing, rashly interpreted the poem?  Honan connects one phrase in the poem to a hypothetical Arnoldian memory of a lake in the Lake District, Wastwater, but then goes on to describe it, rather lyrically, as "mountainous grey 'scree' running into translucent depths of water." Is this additional bit of near poetic language an irredeemable intrusion on the poem? The few statements I have included with this poem manage to run the full length of interpretive statements, from fairly simple glosses, to explanations of allusions, to near poetic reminiscences, to summaries, to biographical commentary. If there is some line past which we do not go, I am loathe to draw it. I take comfort in Arnold's own statement on the matter:


 * …the method of historical criticism, that great and famous power in the present day … The advice to study the character of an author and the circumstances in which he has lived, in order to account to oneself for his work, is excellent. But it is a perilous doctrine that from such a study the right understanding of this work will “spontaneously issue.” (see above)

Let us not throw out these methods, but as both Arnold and the caveat writer warn, let us not think that they provide a miracle means by which we may come to terms with a poem. However, is that a lesson we can properly teach on this page? I prefer to send the readers to the Matthew Arnold page and cite sufficiently from Arnold that perhaps they may see this for themselves or be enticed to read more in Arnold's own writings.

4) Finally, is this poem so easy to understand that any one may grasp it from a simple straight forward reading. I have to say the critiques that the caveat writer himself has raised upon these very pages suggest the opposite.  He has complained that someone had read the last line as "prophetic," while he feels certain it is not.  I have complained that a reading which suggests that "love will out" ignores the equivocation I, and I should add Honan, sense in the poem's "Ah, love, let us be true / To one another!"  No, I think this is not an easy poem at all.  We might say, as the caveat writer has, that reading poetry is a subjective act and that therefore all interpretations are legitimate.  That does not account for his own sense that the interpretations he has read here fail in certain respects.  Arnold answers this in another citation I have added above, that concerning getting "near" to St. Paul. I believe what Arnold is telling us is that the act of reading may be subjective, but it still has some power to mover the reader nearer to the author's intention. Unlike so many critics since the advent of Intentional Fallacy, I cannot bring myself to reject the notion that the author's intention has no resonance nor relevance in the act of reading. I have approached this problem with a concept I call congruence theory (the reader's and writer's thoughts may not be identical, but they may have some level of congruence). Our inference is composed of three valenced components: the intention of the author, the inference we draw from the text itself, and our own associative thoughts (the latter of which may carry us very far indeed from the poem and its author). Balancing these three elements, understanding their valences and their resonance in our thoughts, is the true business of criticism.

Arnold's use of the phrase "free play of mind," I beleive, to some degree suggests this, but one of the passage that the caveat writer has just added makes me stop a bit and ask if Arnold, without a system, was at all consistent in his desire to create such a critical balance. He might, indeed, speak of coming to a nearness with respect to St. Paul, but moving from descriptive crticism to a more legislative role he feels that the critic ought to warn the poet against trying to satisfy the critic's "rhetorical sense and their curiosity" at the expense of their "poetical sense"; he goes on to say that the poet must


 * ...be perpetually reminded to prefer his action to everything else; so to treat this, as to permit its inherent excellences to develop themselves, without interruption from the intrusion of his personal peculiarities: most fortunate when he most entirely succeeds in effacing himself, and in enabling a noble action to subsist as it did in nature.

Arnold is here neither a precursor to the New Critics, nor, what he never really was, a carbon copy continuation of the historical critics, and he is clearly not a precursor to the reader-response theorists today who would see poetry as largely existing in the subjective response of the reader (which, I realize, is a rather unfair and much too generalized account of a concept that has, to my mind, contributed much to the understanding of the literary process). In this passage, Arnold effaces the poet's role more thoroughly than did the New Critics with their Intentional Fallacy; he dismisses the text itself as rhetorical effect; and he leaves in place not the subjective reaction of the critic, but rather the critic's capacity to discern the action of the poem no matter its words or its personal colorings. (Above three paragraphs, including citation, added 4 August, mddietz).

Ultimately, I suppose I can only answer that I feel myself to be in the opposite camp from the caveat writer (i.e. I am an interpreter, of that tribe of critics desirous of gaining a nearness to our authors, of approaching them, with respect, but not fear for their "author"-ity, but not, in so doing, intent upon losing myself utterly within them, contiguous but not continuous), but I am in this camp with no wish to even remotely denigrate those such as the caveat writer who may hold an opposing position (all I really am opposed to is his making such a statement in a place and in a way that seem rather cruelly inappropriate). Mddietz 02:23, 4 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Your words are very kind.
 * 1) analysis is an inappropriate way of dealing with poetry of any kind;
 * That is as may be. This site aims to collect 'the sum of human knowledge' (obviously with caveats about a lot of things), to that end we have guidance about introducing material, the five pillars, unless this is a case of ignoring all rules and I most certainly don't think that, the first is that "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia... All articles must follow our no original research policy and strive for accuracy; Wikipedia is not the place to insert personal opinions, experiences, or arguments." The encyclopedia is categoried and linked, the varying levels of information about any particular subject may belong in a number of hierarchically sorted articles. The question if it is for inclusion, should reside in a different level of article.
 * 2) About the interpretation of the poem Dover Beach in the article;
 * Again, I will point to a pillar, the second is that "Wikipedia has a neutral point of view. Sometimes this requires representing multiple points of view; presenting each point of view accurately; providing context for any given point of view, so that readers understand whose view the point represents; and presenting no one point of view as "the truth" or "the best view"." Isn't this exactly what you're doing Mddietz? Well I think so.
 * 3) a dictionary is a sufficient resource for interpreting poetry;
 * On Wikipedia we can link interesting things like Thucydides's History of the Peloponnesian War, which although does not tell you his experience, does give the reader much more than a normal dictionary could. I would hope that a balanced summary style of the work will be provided, much like you are providing for those who choose to read the page.
 * 4) the poem is "easy" and does not need any additional interpretation in order to be fairly understood by the average reader.
 * This project is providing openly, for those who wish to partake of it (noble goals eh?), in this case, further than appreciating the poem by reading it. I wish more television, film and record album articles were as encyclopedic as this article, as the ip well knows, we have things on "This Little Piggy, it's a no-brainer that good sourced material gets entered into any article.
 * Sorry my replies do injustice to your amount of thought, time is scarce this end at this very moment.--Alf melmac 22:28, 4 August 2007 (UTC)


 * A minor point, as I look back on what I wrote above, I seem to have misstated the caveat writer's thesis in one respect. He actually did allow that analysis was appropriate, but only for lesser literary products than that with which we are concerned here, and he also allowed that longer literary efforts may need such analysis.  He primarily seemed to be concerned that short efforts should not be held to such analysis, that such analysis should not be "unschooled," and that such analysis should not be too derivative from the work of others.  I summarize here to the best of my memory and cannot be sure, at this point, if I have captured him correctly.  But I think, nonethless, even with these emendations, I would stick by what I have said above.
 * I agree with your analysis, Alf. More sucinct that mine, and clearly more to the point. I need to get one of those little buttons for my user page that says "Caveat: This editor can be overly loquacious on the Discussion page." Mddietz 19:08, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Interpretation
Dear 66.245.18.106, I don't disagree with you, but I think we may find a better way to address your issues than just to say that poetry is subject ot multiple interpretations. As I am sure you are aware, this poem has had more than its share of varied interpretations. On that ground, and given Wikipedia's NPOV approach, any attempt at a definitive interpretation is clearly inappropraite. Offering multiple interpretations from the likes of Lowry, Allott, etc. is probably our best bet. The current interpretation, with no reference, probably could be replaced by a few select quotations. What do you think? Mddietz 16:59, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I frankly have a lot of problems with this article myself. Here are a few thoughts.


 * "Dover Beach" is the most famous poem by Matthew Arnold and is generally considered one of the most important poems of the 19th century. First published in 1867, in the collection New Poems, its condensed 37 lines with a subtly interwoven and shifting rhyme have a memorable theme: the crisis of faith in the mid-Victorian world, which was generated by the German developments of biblical Higher Criticism.

The major problem with this paragraph, aside from the lack of clear citation, is the clause at the very end: "which was generated by the German developments of biblical Higher Criticism." The nineteenth century crisis of faith cannot be attributed solely to the German high criticism. While such criticism may have had its deletory effect, so too did the internecine conflicts within the Anglican church, the radicalism of the Non-conformist churches, and rather notably the general spirit of science. For Arnold, the Anglican conflicts, his own father's leadership of the liberal party within the Anglican church, his reading of Spinoza, his peculiar response to Newman, his relationship with Clough,-- all of these are part of his response to the crisis of faith.


 * In the first six lines, Arnold evokes the moonlit seascape of the English Channel, tranquil and sweet, and the reassuring "cliffs of England" of the Strait of Dover. "Only," opening the seventh line, begins the transition, unfolding through the "tremulous cadence" of the waves to the "eternal note of sadness." The Anglo-Grecian connections of Sophocles and the Aegean are only momentarily relevant "by this distant northern sea," for this is the Sea of Faith — or was, and that image withdraws in its turn and the vision turns windy, vast, naked and drear. "Ah love..." here the accumulated poetry conveys the momentary view that love is the bulwark against the uncertainties of the modern (Victorian) world — the solution the Victorian reader expected — "only" Arnold then undercuts this declaration with a despairing litany of the failure of culture, to end with the prophetic imagery of the last three lines.

Again, no citations and the dismissal of the Sophocles lines is worrisome, to say the least. Arnold's interest in the Greeks had not the sense of distancing suggested here, rather he saw the Greeks as "moderns" who dealt (several thousand years ago) with all the problems we face in the modern world. Overall the analysis is rather too perfunctory, one of those word pictures which attempts as much to compete with the original as to explicate it, and, in any event, by wikipedia standards this analysis should come from established sources. "Love" as the bulwark against the uncertainties of the modern world is equivocal at best and rather oversimplifies a poem that is richly complex, uncertain, and, in all honesty, more than a little pessimistic. Later (in his religious writings) A. would clearly suggest a much more complex solution to the problem of the crisis of faith (not love but "righteousness" in which he seems to combine conduct, belief unhampered by Aberglaube (superstition), and emotion). The seeds of this complexity are suggested here largely by way of equivocation. At the same time, the poem's pessimism makes it less expansive than A., I suspect, would have wished it to be.


 * Poetry, by its very nature, is subject to manifold interpretations of which the above is only one. The Austro-Prussian War was ongoing at the time the poem was composed, having begun in 1866. Thus, there was really nothing prophetic about the poem, especially as it was published just two years after the conclusion of the American Civil War.

Unlike our friend I have little problem with the word "prophetic" -- even in time of war lines like these may have a "prophetic" feel, and we do not know when this poem was actually written. Odds are it was written well before the Franco-Prussian War broke out. Some have suggested it was written as early as 1850, but Allott thinks it more recent than that [I had clearly remembered this wrong -- I am sure I read someone who questioned the dating based on the Empedocles notes, but I cannot remember whom -- this critic's logic was that A. left such notes on his work desk all the time and picked them up, flipped them over and used them for scratch when he needed to record a new thought -- perhaps it is a comment from Honan not directly related to this poem]. And "Poetry, by its very nature, is subject to manifold interpretations" is one of those received ideas that tumble out today a little too easily. It clearly does not belong here as it is not really have a more significant attribute to this poem than it does to many another. Moreover, if we must make a statement to this effect let us turn instead to Arnold's "free play of mind."

Significantly missing here are: Sources for these questions: Allott's notes to the poem; Tinker and Lowry's comments on the poem; Honan has an extended piece on it in his bio... Mddietz 16:05, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
 * the question of autobiography (does this poem refer to a trip A. and his wife took to Dover?)
 * the question of source for the Sophocles allusion
 * the allusion to Thucydides in the final line
 * the critical reactions to the poem over the years

I have gone ahead and addressed these issues as best I could. Using only Allott, Tinker and Lowry and Honan. Would like eventually to expand the critical base. Riede's analysis, a little too deconstructive for my taste, nonetheless could add some interest (and probably, I am afraid, annoy those who love this poem rather too unreservedly).

This is a large change for this article, I know. But the poem, I think, merits this fuller treatment. Having the poem itself available on line (and in wikisource) and as it is not an extremely long poem, it seemed to me reasonable to include it in full with the remarks from the critics interpolated into the running of the poem. All of the critics I have used are well-established Arnoldian critics. All three books are constantly cited in the literature on Arnold. Mddietz 17:05, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

My critique of the original version of this article is posted above. I hope it is sufficient rationale for having removed the second paragraph and replace it with the more detailed and more fully researched "Analysis of the poem". If not, we can always add it back in. But I for one should like to see references added to it if we do. Mddietz 17:20, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

New Ratings
Dear midnightdreary, I'm not sure what the ratings really mean, not sure if I should be happy or sad that this page is rated Start and Mid-importance. Start, I assume, is a step above stub, and I cannot imagine that as long as it has that nasty bit of garrulous text at the front that the caveat writer added (containing those oblique quotations from Matthew himself), and which, frankly, does not seem to me to belong on this page, that it should get rated any higher. As to Mid-importance, what if I were to stamp my feet and let my bottom lip protrude and throw a hissy fit? Didn't work? Okay. Frankly, as much as I love this poem, I'm not sure but that you are right. Arnold's page itself seems to me more important, and somehow I have doubts that that page would rank above Mid-importance, at least not from a poetry point of view (however, were it ranked from the point of view of importance in the history of literary criticism, it should be, I think, of the utmost importance; actually the Matthew Arnold page has no importance rating only a quality rating, do you know why that is?). By the way, what are your thoughts on the initial section entitled Arnold's thoughts on the analysis of poetry? I'm frankly thinking it might be time to move taht section to the Arnold page where I believe it belongs. Do you think that would improve this page? (I'm not trying to solicit a higher rating; merely trying to get a second neutral opinion before I make the move. Given the hurly-burly this page has seen I'm thinking it best not to act too unilaterally.)  In any event, thanks for taking the time to rate the page. Mddietz 23:20, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't worry about this too much. The rating/importance is mostly irrelevant to anyone outside of WikiProject Poetry. It has nothing to do with Wikipedia in general. It's also incredibly informal. We're just now trying to revitalize the project and the assessment has only been in place for a couple days as a step one. It really doesn't mean much, but I went with Start class after exactly two seconds of serious consideration because it probably could use more sources. --Midnightdreary 02:25, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
 * midnightdreary, thanks, I think. I really was looking for an answer to my question on the section entitled Arnold's thoughts on the analysis of poetry, but as you did not read the article, I understand that you cannot help me with that. Mddietz 16:17, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Well... the section is clearly too long and adds undue weight to the article. If the editors here want this article to be about Arnold's thoughts on the analysis of poetry, it's great. If they want this to be an article on "Dover Beach," it's terrible. :) -Midnightdreary 18:19, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Great! The second opinion is much appreciated. The individual who added it is, I believe, no longer around, however, I felt that I should have a second opinion before I did anything with it given the hulabaloo that surrounded its creation.  Thanks. Mddietz 21:44, 9 November 2007 (UTC)