THE POETRY OF ROBERT FROST :
Autobiographical background
· He had a difficult childhood and had to deal with a lot of personal loss and sadness in his adult life. (This influences the tone and the themes of his poetry – often tinged with a sense of sorrow, loss, sadness, isolation and a troubled spirit)
· His sister was committed and died young. His wife became ill and died quite young. One of his daughter got TB and died at the age of 29. His son suffered from depression and committed suicide. His third daughter suffered from mental illness.
· He worked on many farms during his life and he knew the ordinary country people of New England and their farming lifestyles intimately. He worked out in the natural world and his poetry is set in the natural world of the New England countryside and farms. He describes many ordinary scenes and episodes from the world of the New England countryside and farm life and he uses these scenes to explore deeper meanings. Many of his poems are based on his experiences of rural life among the low paid farmers and they are at home with the ordinary lives that people lead.
· He did not like overly complicated poetic language and he writes in a down to earth and often conversational way with clear and simple images. He wanted his poetry to be easy to understand although beneath the simple surface there are complex themes and thoughts to be discovered.
· He writes two types of poems – long narrative type poems usually in blank verse ( no rhymes) eg) “Out, Out” and “Mending Wall” – he also write short sonnets ( 14 line poems) that have complex rhyming schemes.
Robert Frost writes a very modern poetry that deals with how dark and grim the world can seem when you no longer have belief in a God that governs everything and that will look out for you in the end. His poetry is influenced by the sadness, tragedy and troubles that he faced in his own life and it often has a sad and sorrowful tone. His poetry reflects on the darker aspects of life and presents us with a tough yet sensitive look at some ugly and harsh realities. He was very aware of how brief and fragile life was and how the world was full of danger, disease and death. His poetry shows us that life can be nasty, brutish and short. His poetry is most often set in the natural world and while it recognises the beauty to be found in nature it also reminds us that nature can be bruising and brutal and as often destructive of life as it is supportive. His vision is one of an indifferent and often hostile universe where fate can be cruel and people helpless in a world governed by chance . When he was told that his poetry put forward a bleak and dark view of the world he replied “ Well there’s plenty to be dark about, you know, it’s full of darkness.” His poetry is honest and takes a tough minded look at the worst aspects of life. Although the poetry is sometimes very dark and it does focus on the tragic side of life it does not give in completely to despair and at times reminds us of the hope and joy and beauty that life may have to offer as well if we are not overcome by despair. Although his poetry rejects belief in a gentle and loving God that created the world and watches over us it does celebrate and honour the efforts of humans to build a community and a better world and create some meaning in an otherwise meaningless world.
His poetry is grounded in everyday scenes drawn from the New England farms where he lived and worked. He disliked modern poetry which used complicated language and could only be understood by a small elite He writes in a clear and easy to understand way and his poetry often has a conversational quality to it. He was very popular among a general readership. People could recognise their lives in his poetry and his clear way of writing gave the general readership a way in to the complex reflections at the heart of his poems. His poetry often describes a general scene in great detail and uses this reflects upon this scene to discover some deeper significance and meaning. His descriptions often turn out to have a symbolic meaning and a deeper significance. He writes long narrative poems in blank verse and rhymed shorter poems such as sonnets. His poetry has a conversational quality at times and Frost does succeed in getting the music and rhythm of everyday speech into his poetry on occasions. This was because he wanted ordinary people to relate to his poetry and not think it was above or beyond them or their concerns and lives.
“Design” is a poem that expresses Frost’s dark vision of the universe. In this poem he questions the belief that the world was created or “designed” by a gentle and good God. In fact he instead argues that a look at the world suggests that if there is a creator that controls and puts order on things that it is an evil and bad spirited force instead. It is evil in the sense that the world has many harmful, dangerous and destructive sides to it. This poem insists that we must look at the world without the support, consolation and reassurance of traditional religious beliefs. A common argument made for the existence of a good creator is to point to the beauty in the world like a Rose. Frost turns this argument by pointing to some of the ugly and disturbing aspects of the world. “Design” is a sonnet and in the octet ( opening 8 line stanza) he describes an unnerving and unpleasant scene from nature and then in the sestet ( last 6 line stanza) he reflects upon the scene and draws some conclusions. He describes a fat white spider that he sees on a white plant ( a heal all) which has caught a moth and has wrapped it so it can devour it later and holds it in its legs. The white spider was camufluaged by the white plant and Frost calls them
“Assorted characters of death and blight”
They represent all the harmful and destructive aspects to the world and Frost goes on to say they are
“Like ingredients in a witches’ broth”
This suggests that the world contains many things that have been brought together by an evil presence for evil purposes. It tells us that evil and harmful forces exist and are at work in the world. When the poet refers to the “dead wings” of the moth he is highlighting the world is full of danger and that can lead to misfortune and tragedy without warning or cause. It is an unpleasant and unnerving sight that revolts and horrifies the poet. He points to the ugliness and horror of the scene by using words with sinister associations like “death”, “blight”, “dead” and “witches”.
After this description in the octet Frost goes on to consider the meaning of such a scene in the sestet. He asks why both the spider and the plant were white when they are not normally that colour and this helped the spider to capture the moth. He asks what led the spider and the moth to meet at that point in time and at that exact place. He suggests some sinister force is at work and “steered” the moth during the night. The poet concludes in answer to the question of what arranged things like this
“What but darkness to appall? / If design govern a thing so small.”
This suggests that nature has a dark side and that evil is a part of the design of the world. The world can be a cruel and dangerous and violent place and this poem suggests we are helpless to change that. The poet is disturbed by this knowledge “darkness to appall”. The last lines suggest that if there is a designer it must be evil and cruel to create such forces of “death and blight” as represented by the spider and the plant that camouflaged it. They also suggest that there may be no design at all and that the universe is just a place of blind, random chance. Either way the poem ends on a pessimistic note and expresses the modern sense of doubt about the existence of a good god and the discomfort that people feel when they no longer have the comfort of traditional religious beliefs. Like many other Frost poems “Design” describes scenes from nature and draws a deeper meaning from them. Here the violence and viciousness that can be seen in nature represents the harmful and destructive aspects life.
“Out, Out” is one of Frosts narrative long poems written in blank verse. It draws on Frost’s knowledge of the lives of hardworking farmers in New England who were struggling to get by in life. They led harsh and difficult lives. In this poem Frost explores how life can be short and ended very quickly without warning. He is again exploring the sad and tragic aspects of life and how life is brief and fragile. Just like “Design” he is facing up the dark aspects of existence and how we can be victims of a world governed by cruel chance. It was inspired by a real incident in 1910 when the son of a friend of his lacerated his hand on a saw and died from shock. It left a deep impression on Frost and he wrote this poem 5 years later. The poem begins with the sound of the buzz saw that the boy is using to cut wood. We are told the saw
“snarled and rattled” and this is repeated twice more in the poem. It makes the saw seem menacing and alive like a vicious animal. The boy has been working all day and we are told later that he was a boy
“Doing a man’s work”
Everyone must work hard for the family to survive. It is a tough and hard life, the boy would consider half an hour off work to be a great gift. The poem is rooted in the everyday world of these farm families. It briefly describes the beauty of the mountain ranges and the sunset before focusing on some more harsh and unpleasant aspects of the harsh lives that these farmers lead. The poet wishes that he had finished early and this creates a sense of forboding. When his sister calls him for dinner the saw slips in his hand and cuts into his hand. He turns to the others in complete shock holding up the hand. He realises “all is spoiled” but when the doctor arrives he begs not to have the hand amputated. The doctor gives him an anaesthetic “ether” and he loses consciousness before his heart slowly stops and he dies. Frost describes the people listening to his weakening heartbeat
“Little – less – nothing! And that ended it.”
He meets such an untimely and unexpected death. Frost shows us how harsh and brutal and unfair life can be. We see the young boy’s life getting snatched away in the middle of an ordinary and uneventful day. The family coldly accept the death, there are no great displays of grief or shock. They have to get back to scratching out a living and his death makes very little difference to their struggle except that he can no longer help. They have little time to grieve.
“No more to build on there. And they, since they/Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs”
Just like “Design” this poem shows us the harmful and destructive aspects of the world that cause pain and suffering but this time he shows us clearly the impact of this tragic dimension on human life. The poem just shows us this harsh reality, it offers no comfort or hope. The title comes from “Macbeth” where Macbeth compares a life to a candle that can be easily snuffed out and that life has no point or meaning in the end. This poem recognises that life is brief and can end suddenly without warning. He uses the language of the everyday at times to connect his poem to the lives of the people he is describing.
“Call it a day I wish they might have said.”
“big boy/ doing a man’s work”
Frost personifies the saw and creates drama and tension by repeating “snarled and rattled” and by saying that he wishes the boy had finished up.
“Aquainted with the Night” is a rhyming sonnet that expresses the feelings of a person overcome by a sense of depression, isolation, sorrow and sadness. It describes a tormented mind that is troubled by worries and darkness and despair. It describes some of the moods that Frost slipped into when he he was overwhelmed by feelings of sadness, loss, loneliness and hopelessness. He did battle with depression at times. His sensitive awareness of the suffering of other and the darkness that exists in the world as expressed in “Design” and “Out, Out” could lead to very dark moods. This poem creates a symbolic landscape that reflects his inner mood when depressed. As Frost said of some of his poems , the outer weather mirrors his inner weather. The poem describes a solitary person unable to sleep at night walking the city streets in the rain. The city seems deserted and he is all alone except for the policeman he passes. The miserable weather never seems to stop
“I have walked in rain – and back in rain”
It is dark and he has walked beyond the “furthest city lights”. He feels beyond hope or comfort. (Like Plath – Child)
He has no meaningful contact with anyone. He looks away from the watchman and does not want to talk with anyone
“unwilling to explain”
The only sound is the sound of his feet until he hears “an interrupted cry”. But this cry is not for him “But not to call me back or say goodbye” He is cut off from any connection with anyone else. He looks up to the heavens “Unearthly height” to a bright “clock” that
“Proclaimed the time neither right nor wrong” He does not seem to care about anything and just feels numb. ( like Plath – Poppies in July) The look to the heavens may be the wish for faith in God but instead he finds there is only the passage of time with no moral force in the world. It suggests we are alone in an uncaring universe. This may be one reason for his depressed state of mind. The poem also hints at the violence and danger that this life brings with it – the watchman and the “interrupted cry” suggest possible violence and suggest a sense of fear and menace and unease. The poem creates an atmospheric psychic landscape very like Plath that expresses a tormented and haunted and lonely and fearful and despairing internal state of mind. The darkness, isolation, sense of being cut off from others, constant rain and numbness creates a memorable and disturbing portrait of a mind struggling with depression and a dark night of the soul.