Arnold's reference of Sophocles in "Dover Beach".

Arnold used the reference of Sophocles in his famous elegiac poetry, "Dover Beach"(1867).

         Sophocles was a Greek tragic dramatist. His popular tragedies are Oedipus Rex, Antigone, Ajax etc. Sophocles, in his famous tragedy, "Antigone" refers that he heard the "turbid ebb and flow/ of human misery" in Aegean sea, a part of Mediterranean sea.

          The poet of the present poem, Arnold also hears the same sound of sea waves. The sound of the sea waves generated in him a melancholy thought - No human beings are free from misery, worldly anguishes and sufferings. The poet uses the name of Sophocles to emphasize his view of "eternal note of sadness" because of the loss of religious faith.