Sound and Personification in "The Haunted Beach"

Claude Monet: "Beach in Pourville"(1882)

            Sound plays an important role in the movement and atmosphere of Mary Robinson’s “The Haunted Beach”, and it also serves to create a sublime setting. Coupled with instances of personification, the sounds of the poem hint at a deeper mystique and power working through the natural and inanimate, from the cliffs to the ocean itself. Even more, the sounds (or lack thereof) that the humans make are unusual and contrast with the noises of the inanimate. In all, the audible points of this poem – and who or what supplies them – reveal a powerful form of communication, even one devoid of human-constructed words.

            Personification and sound go hand in hand throughout the poem. In the first line, to be exact, the beach is described as “lonely” (l. 1), a characteristic that already depicts human unrest and isolation. Two lines following this description, the shed is given a “head” (l. 3), and in the next stanza, a cavern wide is supplied with jaws (ll. 15-16). Fittingly, both jaws and a head are gateways to communication, and at the least, they join the chorus of personified yet naturally-occurring features on the beach. Certainly, the most prominent of these is the ocean, with its green billows that “play’d”, as referenced six times during the poem. The sublime, then, is allowed to manifest through the personification of otherwise inanimate bodies.

            The ocean engages in two forms of discourse: roaring and yawning. Each of these come from a mouth but have different meanings. Yawns usually exude tiredness, a lack of interest or boredom, and what is more, they can be attempts to energize the body and gain more oxygen. Roaring is much more beast-like and is a total emission – a release of epic, loud proportions. That the ocean balances between these disparate sounds signals the awe and epic nature of the scene. As expressed in the first stanza, the green billows produce “the deafening roar /re-echoed on the chalky shore” (ll. 7-8), and the interplay with a “chalky” surface seems intentional, as to intimidate human instrumentation of language. This cross blend of communication and nature is also present earlier in the stanza, as “lofty barks were shatter’d” (l. 4), with the word “barks” playing on both trees and the talking or noise made by outsiders, lofty and separated from the beach.

            The apparitions are termed a “band/ of spectres” (ll. 25-26), which may also supply a musical connotation in addition to one of camaraderie. This would also be an interesting addition to the conversation between the ocean and outsiders, as the green billows “play”, perhaps musically. Unlike the winds that moan, the spectres howl, which is a decidedly less humanistic verb. In relation to the ghosts, the ocean exudes the same power of its “deafening roar” (l. 7), but does so with its “yawning” (l. 55), in which “the spectre band, [the mariner’s] messmates brave, /Sunk” (ll. 54-55). With the sound of this yawn, as defined earlier, the ocean both exudes its lack of concern for the humans, and perhaps attempts to re-energize itself.

            Of course, the green billows are in conversation with other elements. For example, “the moaning wind / Stole o’er the summer ocean” (ll. 19-20), with the moaning again signaling both personification and unrest. Moreover, as the ocean yawns late in the poem, the storm above produces a “commotion” (l. 57). This continued implementation of unsettling noises could be a precursor to the dark murder of the mariner. Even more, it is arguable that the silence of the fisherman/murderer dehumanizes him in the poem and strips him of his ability to express or emote. In addition, the silence could be symbolic of how the expressive natural world has supplanted him.

            Sadly for the fisherman, it seems an unhappy partnership, as his “liquid way/ bounds over the deeply yawning tomb” (ll. 69-70). The tomb is not pleased; rather, it yawns and almost seems like the embodiment of an unenthused master. Perhaps, this theory of natural dominance over the humans (the fisherman and the apparitions) explains the dreary servitude the murderer inhabits in the final stanza. No explanation is perfect, but what can be ascertained is the dramatic role sound and personification play in the sublime setting of Mary Robinson's “The Haunted Beach”.