Post below on any aspect of Robert Frost's work, though you might want to think about the following questions:1) How do Frost's speakers view the American landscape? Furthermore, what makes his poems "American"?
2)What kind of relationships between humanity and nature are explored in Frost's poems?
3) What attitudes toward the passage of time are expressed?
4) How does Frost capture the rhythms of ordinary speech through traditional verse forms?
5) How does Frost marry form and content?
6) The theme of loss recurs in a number of Frost's poems. Compare the ways in which loss is portrayed in these poems.
You might also be interested in checking out some of these Frost resources on the web:
Poets.org page about Robert Frost
The Friends of Robert Frost House and Museum in Vermont
This video (link to YouTube) of Frost reading "After Apple-Picking." There are many, many videos of Frost up on YouTube, which--at least to me--are fascinating tributes to one of our most famous national poets.
Robert Frost’s poems all seemed dark and gloomy to me. The first time I read “After Apple-Picking” I didn’t think too much about it, but after watching the video of Frost reading the poem it seemed a lot more depressing. In all the poems where there was a loss, it seemed like he was hinting towards death especially when he mentions sleep. He says, “For all/ That struck the earth,/ No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble,/ Went surely to the cider-apple heap” (1398). Frost is using apples to symbolize the fact that everyone is eventually going to die, whether their lives were good or bad.
ReplyDeleteI read Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken" in a class freshman year. When discussing the poem then, the class time was taken up mostly by people expressing their feelings and relationship to Frost's words. It seemed that this was a popular poem for motivating people and expressing individuality by taking the path less traveled. After reading the poem again, I can see how this piece can be misunderstood in that respect, but the poem clearly defines the two roads as identical, both equally worn down. This develops more of an argument in that we can never really know what lies ahead on the path we choose, and though they may look the same at the trailhead, they will lead to very different destinations. I don't buy into the idea that this poem preaches to individuality. The line in which Frost writes that he would save the other path for another day contradicts the theme of walking the road less traveled. It's more of a retrospective thought as to what could have been had he walked the road not taken.
ReplyDeleteMichael A.
The Frost poem which really stood out to me was "Birches". It is a great example of the way Frost so fluidly combines that of nature and humanity. To me, this poem creates that nostalgiac, childhood feeling that so many people wish could stay alive. It also praises that idea of simplicity. That when the speaker is at the top of the tree, closest to heaven is when he feels the happiest. It is when the birch tree bough slumps down that he is "back to earth" and must start dealing with the repetitiveness of society. The fact that the bough is permanently draped shows the darker side of Frost. It seems as though this is him saying, "it would be nice to climb that tree again, but I know it cant happen." Overall, these poems were very complicated to me and I still have not really figured out what they mean to me.
ReplyDeleteSam Newbold
Of the poems required to read by Robert Frost, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" impacted me the most. This poem really stood out to me, not only because its beautifully constructed lines, but also because of the meaningful lesson I got from it. Upon reading this poem, I was reminded that I should never be too busy as to not stop and appreciate the immense beauty of nature. This appreciation is something that is uniquely human, as seen by the horse's reaction to the non-utilitarian stop of his master. The narrator is on a long journey and has many other things to do, but he realizes that to miss out on such a beautiful sight of nature would be to miss Nature's true connection with the human soul. I believe, and I know that Robert Frost would agree, that taking time out of one's day to "stop and smell the roses" is equally as important as a hard day's work. Even though the narrator has "miles to go before [he] sleep[s]", he still recognizes the importance of appreciating nature, and that is the lesson that this poem taught me.
ReplyDeleteWow, everyone that has posted is really good at interpretation. I cannot begin to unravel Frost's work, for some reason I just cannot get along with poetry. For the purpose of blogging, I will try my best.
ReplyDeleteI read "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening" aloud and it seems pretty straightforward. There is a rhyme scheme that helps the poem flow. By giving us the imagery of a man on a horse and carriage driving through the woods at night on a snowy evening, I believe he is metaphorically wanting us to know that we are alone, and can't always know what is happening all the time everywhere. He mentions that the guy who owns this land would not even know if he stopped on his land, because he doesn't live on it. And since the owner wouldn't know what was happening, anything could happen. Frost may be trying to tell us that we are never in control of our lives, though we may think we are. At the end he repeats the last line, and I'm not sure why. I may be completely off about this whole thing, but I got a really lonely feeling after reading it a few times. Seems to be pretty dark stuff.