Matthew Arnold’s ‘Dover Beach’ and ‘Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse’

In some of his major poems Mattew Arnold (182-88) faces the crisis posed to established views of religion posed by new Biblical scholarship and Darwinism. His most famous poem is ‘Dover Beach’ (1867) which mourns the apparent passing of the age of religious faith. His encounter with Carthusian monks in ‘Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse’ (1855) faces the issue in terms of a personal dilemma. The texts can be found at www.poetryfoundation.org