T. C.
SELÇUK ÜNİVERSİTESİ
SOSYAL BİLİMLER ENSTİTÜSÜ
İNGİLİZ DİLİ VE EDEBİYATI ANA BİLİM DALI
İNGİLİZ DİLİ VE EDEBİYATI BİLİM DALI
NATURE IN FIVE POEMS OF ROBERT FROST
ÇİĞDEM ALÇAR
YÜKSEK LİSANS TEZİ
Danışman
YRD. DOÇ. DR. NAZLİ GÜNDÜZ
ii
Ek-7: Bilimsel Etik Sayfası
T.C.
SELÇUK ÜNİVERSİTESİ
Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Müdürlüğü
BİLİMSEL ETİK SAYFASI
Bu tezin proje safhasından sonuçlanmasına kadarki bütün süreçlerde bilimsel etiğe ve akademik kurallara özenle riayet edildiğini, tez içindeki bütün bilgilerin etik davranış ve akademik kurallar çerçevesinde elde edilerek sunulduğunu, ayrıca tez yazım kurallarına uygun olarak hazırlanan bu çalışmada başkalarının eserlerinden yararlanılması durumunda bilimsel kurallara uygun olarak atıf yapıldığını bildiririm.
Öğrencinin Adı Soyadı (İmza)
iii
Ek- 1: Yüksek Lisans Tezi Kabul Formu
T.C.
SELÇUK ÜNİVERSİTESİ
Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Müdürlüğü
YÜKSEK LİSANS TEZİ KABUL FORMU
………. tarafından hazırlanan ……….. başlıklı bu çalışma ……../……../…….. tarihinde yapılan savunma sınavı sonucunda oybirliği/oyçokluğu ile başarılı bulunarak, jürimiz tarafından yüksek lisans tezi olarak kabul edilmiştir.
Ünvanı, Adı Soyadı Başkan İmza
Ünvanı, Adı Soyadı Üye İmza
iv
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I would like to express my great depth of gratitude to my thesis supervisor Assisstant Professor Doctor Nazli GÜNDÜZ for her expert advice, feedback and encouragement while writing this thesis. I would also like to extend my appreciation to Nezih ONUR and Assisstant Professor Doctor Ayşe Gülbün ONUR, Head of the Department of English Language and Literature for their comments.
I am also grateful to my mother Resmiye ÇAY and my father Adli ÇAY for taking care of my baby well and trying to be silent while I was studying.
Special thanks go to my husband Metin ALÇAR for helping me during the first research phase of this thesis.
Lastly, I also would like to thank my brother Erdem ÇAY for providing me a technical support for upgrading my laptop and my colleague Meral SERVİ for her help in editing the thesis.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
BİLİMSEL ETİK SAYFASI………ii
TEZ KABUL FORMU………iii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT………...………iv
ÖZET……….……….………...………viii
ABSTRACT……….…….x
INTRODUCTION……….………...…....1
CHAPTER 1 – BACKGROUND TO ROBERT FROST………...4
1.1. FROST’S LIFE……….……….………4
1.2. FROST’S POEMS………..………..…………...…..9
1.3. FROST’S STYLE OF WRITING………...…..18
CHAPTER 2 – LITERARY APPRECIATION IN POETRY………....….25
2.1. THE POETICS OF ROBERT FROST………34
2.1.1. FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE….…...……….……...35 2.1.1.1. Metaphor………...………...…….35 2.1.1.2. Simile………..………..36 2.1.1.3. Symbol………..………37 2.1.1.4. Personification…..………38 2.1.1.5. Apostrophe……..………..39 2.1.1.6. Synecdoche………..……….39 2.1.1.7. Metonymy………...…………...…………40 2.1.1.8. Allegory………...………..41 2.1.1.9. Paradox………..42 2.1.1.10. Hyperbole………..……….….42 2.1.1.11. Understatement………..……….…42 2.1.1.12. Irony………..………..43
vi 2.1.2. IMAGERY……….………...44 2.1.2.1. Visual Image………..…...44 2.1.2.2. Auditory Image………..44 2.1.2.3. Olfactory Image……….45 2.1.2.4. Gustatory Image……….45 2.1.2.5. Tactile Image………..…….………..45 2.1.2.6. Organic Image………..………….46 2.1.2.7. Kinesthetic Image……….…....46 2.1.3. METER………..………...47 2.1.4. SOUND DEVICES……….………….49 2.1.4.1. Alliteration……….………...49 2.1.4.2. Rhyme……...………49 2.1.4.3. Assonance………..………...50 2.1.4.4. Consonance…………...………..…..51 2.1.4.5. Onomatopoeia………..……….51
2.1.4.6. The Sound of sense………..……….52
2.1.4.7. Tune………..………53 2.1.5. FORM……….………...54 2.1.5.1. Lyric Form………..54 2.1.5.2. Narrative Form………...……….55 2.1.5.3. Dramatic Form……….………..56 2.1.5.4. Stanzaic Form……….………57 2.1.5.5. Fixed Form……….58 2.1.5.6. Continuous Form………60 2.1.6. TONE……….………...62
CHAPTER 3 – NATURE IN FROST’S POETRY………..…….65
CHAPTER 4 – THE POETIC ANALYSES OF FIVE POEMS OF ROBERT FROST………...71
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4.1. “AN OLD MAN’S WINTER NIGHT”………....….………..72
4.2. “THE ROAD NOT TAKEN” ………...….………..………..86
4.3. “STOPPING BY WOODS ON A SNOWY EVENING”………….….99
4.4. “NOTHING GOLD CAN STAY”……….………113
4.5. “THE MOST OF IT”……….124
CONCLUSION……….………....136
REFERENCES...………..………..………..142
viii
Ek- 2: Türkçe Özet Formu
T.C.
SELÇUK ÜNİVERSİTESİ
Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Müdürlüğü
Ö
ğre
nc
ini
n
Adı Soyadı Çiğdem ALÇAR Numarası 064208001001
Ana Bilim / Bilim Dalı
İNGİLİZ DİLİ VE EDEBİYATI / İNGİLİZ DİLİ VE EDEBİYATI
Danışmanı Yrd.Doç.Dr. Nazli GÜNDÜZ
Tezin Adı NATURE IN FIVE POEMS OF ROBERT FROST
ÖZET
Bu tez öncelikle Robert Frost’u ve şiirlerini incelemeyi amaçlamaktadır. Bir şair hakkında yeteri kadar bilgi sahibi olmadan, onun şiirlerini kolayca anlamak ve de kelimelerin altında yatan gizli anlamları doğru bir biçimde ortaya çıkarmak mümkün değildir. Bir şiirden doğru mesajı yada mesajları çıkarabilmek için, şiiri inceleyen kişi ilk olarak şairin düşünme biçimini ve hayatını, bu düşünme biçimini şiirlerine nasıl yansıttığına dikkat ederek anlamaya çalışmalıdır. Bu anlamda, bu tezde kullanılan yaklaşım şiirin eleştirisinin şairin hayatını anlama yoluyla yapıldığı ‘Biyografik Yaklaşım’dır. Bu nedenle, bu tezde öncelikli olarak Robert Frost’un yaşamı hakkında da bilgiler ortaya konulmuştur.
İkinci olarak, iyi bir edebi eleştirinin nasıl yapılacağına dair kurallar sunulmuştur. Herhangi bir şiirin edebi eleştirisini yaparken, iyi bir eleştirmen bahsedilen kurallara harfiyen uymalıdır çünkü bu kurallar hakkında hiç bir bilgi sahibi olmadan yapılan bir eleştiri, eleştiri değerinde kabul edilemez. Bu noktada, eleştiri olduğu düşünülen o sözler aslında hiç bir edebi değeri bulunmayan sadece
ix
yorumlardır. Edebi değerlendirme üzerine genel bir bakışın ardından, bu çalışmada Frost’un mecazi anlamları şiirlerinde kendine özgü kullanma biçimini ve bunun diğer modern şairlerinkinden farklı olduğu düşünülerek, Frost’un bahsedilen şiir teknikleri bir alt başlıkta sıralanmıştır.
Üçüncü olarak, Frost’un şiirlerinde doğayı nasıl kullandığını öğrenebilmek amacıyla, diğer eleştirmenlerin görüş ve alıntıları sıralanmıştır ve buna ek olarak, Frost’un şiirlerinde doğanın insanda yada insana dair birşeylerde son bulduğu fikrini içeren varsayım verilmiştir. Frost’un şiirlerinde doğanın rolünü anlamak için, şiirlerinden beşi seçilerek derinlemesine incelenmiştir. Şiirlerin analizinde, Edebi Yaklaşımlar’dan ‘Formalizm’, ‘Psikolojik Yaklaşım’, ‘Post Yapısalcılık’, ‘Mitolojik Yaklaşım’ ve ‘Okur Tepki Eleştirisi’ kullanılmıştır.
Son olarak, varılan sonuçlar ve Frost’un şiirlerini anlayıp doğru yorumlamaya yardımcı noktalar ortaya konulmuştur.
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Ek- 3: İngilizce Özet Formu
T.C.
SELÇUK ÜNİVERSİTESİ
Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Müdürlüğü
Ö
ğre
nc
ini
n
Adı Soyadı Çiğdem ALÇAR Numarası 064208001001
Ana Bilim / Bilim Dalı
İNGİLİZ DİLİ VE EDEBİYATI / İNGİLİZ DİLİ VE EDEBİYATI
Danışmanı Yrd.Doç.Dr. Nazli GÜNDÜZ
Tezin İngilizce Adı NATURE IN FIVE POEMS OF ROBERT FROST
SUMMARY
This thesis primarily aims to analyze Robert Frost and his poetry. Without knowing enough about a poet, one cannot easily understand his/her poems and cannot interpret the underlying meanings in the right way. To be able to get the correct message or messages out of a poem, one should first know the poet’s way of thinking, regarding life and then the way s/he reflects them all in his/her poetry. In this sense, the approach that is used in this thesis is ‘Biographical Approach’, in which criticism of a poem is made through understanding the life of the poet. Thus, in this thesis, initially background information about Robert Frost is given.
Secondly, the rules about how a good literary appreciation is made are presented. When making a literary appreciation of a poem, a good critic should obey the mentioned rules since a criticism made without any knowledge about them, that is randomly, can no longer be considered as a criticism. From then on, it may only be a comment without having any literary value. After an all overview of literary appreciation, the poetics of Frost are suggested under a subtitle inasmuch as Frost
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has his own way of using figurative language in his poetry which is different from the rest of other modern poets.
Thirdly, to learn about Frost’s usage of ‘nature’ in his poetry, other critics’ views and quotations are presented and the hypothesis, which includes the idea that nature ends up in human or humanely things in the end in Frost’s poetry, is given. In the analyses of the poems, ‘Formalist Criticism’, ‘Psychological Approach’, ‘Post-Structuralism’, ‘Mythological Criticism’ and ‘Reader Response Criticism’ from critical approaches in literature are made use of.
Finally, conclusions and aiding points to understand and interpret Frost’s poetry are set forth.
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INTRODUCTION
In this thesis, Robert Lee Frost is going to be analyzed in terms of his views on nature in his poems. Every poet has his own style and so does Frost. When making appreciation of Frost’s poems, one should keep in mind that Frost has his own devices, which are called as ‘the poetics of him’ throughout the study. This is, in fact, a question that is going to be answered in this thesis. Richardson (1995) has the following claim at this point:
The great distinction of Frost’s poetics, however, lies in his ambivalent aspiration to transcend conditions of authorship that can alienate the writer from himself. The result is a complicated skepticism, a skepticism not simply of the possibilities for self-expression in language. (p.445)
The aim of poetry is first to give joy to its readers and then with its musical tone to make them draw up messages or moral lessons that are related to life. Poetry, one of the forms of literature, is the shortest but most enjoyable and effective way of teaching human beings a lesson. However, one may have found from his/her reading of poetry even in his/her mother tongue that s/he can enjoy a poem without fully understanding its meaning. It is possible to pay more attention to the way a poet says something rather than to what he actually has to say. Yet, enjoyment must not be confused with appreciation. It means to gain pleasure from a poem and to be able to say why you like it in fact. On the other hand, making criticism is totally different and requires knowledge about how to make a literary appreciation.
Needless to say, one has to decide in his/her mind what type of a poem s/he is reading before beginning to write an appreciation of it. After reading carefully, the poem must be analyzed with structural devices, sense devices and sound devices. Paying more attention on the vocabulary and the way in which words are used is going to help to write a good appreciation.
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Another important point in this thesis lies in the word ‘nature.’ Even a person who reads one of Frost’s poems just for pleasure may notice the high amount of elements from nature in his poems. Frost has so often written about the rural landscape and wildlife that at first anyone reading his poetry thinks he is surely a nature poet (Lynen, 1960). In this thesis, to find the answer to the question whether Frost is a nature poet or not is one of the main aims. On the whole, the role of nature is really interesting. The hypothesis in this thesis is that nature in Frost’s poetry concludes in messages that are related to human beings. If such is the case, then it may mean that Frost has an aim of showing a humanistic idealism through his poetry. In order to understand if this hypothesis is true or not, Frost’s poetic position and style of writing is going to be analyzed deeply. Similarly, whether the humanistic idealism of Frost really exists is going to be searched through responsive poetry analysis. Waggoner (1941) expresses his ideas as in the following:
Although Robert Frost’s poetic position seems as secure as that of any contemporary poet, the philosophical point of view consistently expressed in all of his poetry has never been adequately set against the thought currents of the past and of our day. Critics of the poet tend admiringly to see him as the voice of New England, the plain man speaking simply of homely things, or the voice of common sense, or disapprovingly, they change that he is not really contemporary, since he does not deal with science and machine civilization or with the problems arising out of these two determining factors of our age, but with country folk, birds, flowers, snowstorms, others, the Neo- Humanists come closer to understanding his thought when they praise him for having the perspicuity to see the rightness of their position and the virtue to associate himself with it. (p.207)
In Frost’s poetry, terms related to nature like snowstorms, birds, lakes, trees, cliffs, and especially woods attract much attention. The poems that are going to be analyzed in this thesis are selected randomly, without being examined deeply so that the outcome of the analysis is going to be more reliable. The poems are “An Old Man’s Winter Night”, “The Road not Taken”, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”, “Nothing Gold Can Stay”, and “The Most of it”. In the analyses of the
3
poems, ‘Formalist Criticism’, in which the analysis is textuality-centered in that the critic concentrates on features that make poems ‘poetic’ such as style, structure, tone, imagery and determines how such elements work together with the text’s content to shape its effects upon readers; ‘Psychological Approach’, in which the relation between ‘unconscious and consciousness’ is crucial when commenting on images; ‘Post-Structuralism’, in which the relationship between language and meaning is highly important; ‘Mythological Criticism’, in which several references to mythological stories are included in the hopes of getting a universal reaction from the readers, and ‘Reader Response Criticism’, which in short emphasizes the reader’s role in the development of the writing and describes what happens in the reader’s mind while interpreting a poem, are made use of (Gioia & Kennedy, 1995; Pope, 1998).
In short, this thesis consists of four chapters except the introduction and the conclusion parts. Background information about Frost is given in the first chapter since without knowing the poet’s life story and way of thinking; it is not possible to make appropriate comments on his/her poetry. Henceforth, the approach that is used at this point is ‘Biographical Approach’, in which understanding an author’s life is regarded as crucial to helping the critic more thoroughly comprehend the work (Gioia & Kennedy, 1995).
The rules for how to make a literary appreciation is listed in the second chapter, and in the subtitle “the poetics of Frost” are presented so as to comment on the elements of form in the analysis of the poems according to ‘Formalist Criticism’. The next chapter is completely devoted to ‘nature’. The role of nature is told by giving importance to other critics’ views and other poems containing ‘nature’ with their analyses. In the last chapter, five poems are deeply analyzed in terms of the approaches given above, and the results are suggested in the conclusion part.
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CHAPTER 1
BACKGROUND TO ROBERT FROST
In this chapter, in order to understand Frost’s view of life, background information is given that is going to be aiding in terms of understanding different concepts in his poems when they are being analyzed since a poet’s feelings are always reflected in his/her poems according to ‘Biographical Approach’. This mentioned background information includes Frost’s life, his poems and style of writing.
1.1. FROST’S LIFE
Robert Lee Frost was born on March 26, 1874 in San Francisco, California. His father, William Prescott Frost, was a native of England, came from Maine and New Hampshire ancestry and had graduated from Harvard in 1872. He left New England and went to Lewistown, Pennsylvania, to teach. He married Isabelle Moodie, a Scottish woman who immigrated to Ohio at the age of twelve. She was a teacher and a poet, as well. Later, they moved to San Francisco, where the elder Frost became an editor and politician. Robert, their first child, was named for the Southern hero General Robert E. Lee (Ellen, 2006).
Frost spent his early childhood in the Far West. When Frost's father died in 1884, his wife and two children, Robert and Jeanie, went east for the funeral as his will requested that he be buried in New England. However, they could not return to California because of lacking funds to go back so they settled in Salem, Massachusetts, where his grandfather had offered them a home. Eventually, Mrs. Frost found a job teaching at a school.
Frost’s mother had an immense influence on him, which first introduced him to a large variety of literature and then inspired him to become an excellent reader. As a little boy, Frost loved his mother reading to him. On the contrary to this love of reading, Frost lacked enthusiasm for school in his elementary years, but still he
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became a serious student and graduated from Lawrence High School as a valedictorian and a class poet in 1892. Then he entered the Dartmouth College but only a short time later, he left school to work at odd jobs and to write poetry. In 1894, he became engaged to Elinor White, a classmate trying to complete her college education. Again in the same year, he sold his first poem, “My Butterfly”, to the New York Independent. Frost was so overjoyed at this selling that he immediately had two copies of a booklet of lyrics privately printed, one for himself and one for his fiancée. He delivered Elinor’s copy in person but did not find her reaction enthusiastic enough. Being so depressed and thinking that he had lost her, he tore up his copy and began wandering south from Virginia to North California. In this depressing period, he sometimes contemplated even killing himself (Notable Biographies, 2008). Luckily, it was a temporary time for their relationship and Frost married Elinor White in 1895. He began trying to make a teaching career and helped his mother run a small private college in Lawrence, where his first son was born. In 1897, he tried college again (Harvard) but he left it at the end of two years with the reasons that he had an enduring dislike for academic convention and that undergraduate study proving to be difficult while raising a family (Baym, 1995).
Already having a son now to raise, Frost had a newborn daughter as well. This is why he decided to try chicken farming on a farm purchased by his grandfather in Massachusetts. For the next twelve years, Frost lived off the publication of his papers and books, and taught and lectured at various colleges. This was a period of poverty for Frost as he could make only a minimal living by teaching and farming while continuing to write his poems (U*X*L Encyclopedia of World Biography, 2003).
In 1900, his nervousness was diagnosed as a sign that he may possibly have tuberculosis and thus Frost had to move his chicken business to New Hampshire, where his first son died of cholera. In the same year, Frost had another painful loss with the death of his mother because of cancer. In 1906, Frost was stricken with pneumonia (a disease that causes inflammation of the lungs) and almost died. A year later, his fourth daughter died. All these losses of his beloved ones and especially the
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death of his fourth daughter turned Frost more and more to poetry. It may be claimed that this grief and suffering of death created a great poet in American poetry (Notable Biographies, 2008).
In 1912, Frost decided to venture everything on a literary career. He left Hampshire and sailed for England by using allowance from his grandfather to gamble everything on poetry. They settled on a farm in Buckinghamshire as a family and Frost began to write. In London, he soon found a publisher and his first book named A Boy’s Will (1913) was published. This book brought Frost to the attention of influential critics. Among them was a well-known expatriate Ezra Pound who praised him as an authentic poet (Baym, 1995).
When Frost and his family returned to the United States in 1915, North of
Boston, published in 1914, was a bestseller, which meant Frost was famous in his
native land too. This sudden fame embarrassed Frost as he was a man who had always avoided crowds. Once more, he withdrew to a small farm in Francoia, New Hampshire. However, financial need soon saw him responding to demands for readings and lectures. Frost spent the rest of his life reading poetry in front of different audiences and remaining in the public eye. The constant touring he underwent to share his work brought him physical discomfort and strain, but nonetheless Frost continued. By means of these lectures, he conquered his shyness, developing a ‘brief and simple speaking manner’ that made him one of the most popular performers in America and abroad (Ellen, 2006; *X*L Encyclopedia of World Biography, 2003; Notable Biographies, 2008).
In 1916, Frost published Mountain Interval, which included both lyrics and narratives. Next year, he began teaching at Amherst University and worked there until 1920, receiving his master of arts in 1918. In 1919, he moved his farm base to Vermont, and a year later he founded the Bread Loaf School of English of Middlebury College. From 1921 to 1923, he worked as a lecturer at the University of Michigan.
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Frost’s Selected Poems and a new volume New Hampshire appeared in 1923. The following year, he received the first of four Pulitzer Prizes for New Hampshire.
In 1928, Frost published West Running Brook, which attracted attention with changes in sound and rhythm of his poems. In 1930, he published his Collected
Poems. Unfortunately, in 1934, he suffered one more loss with the sudden death of
his daughter Marjorie and his grief showed itself highly in his poems of that time. In 1936, Frost returned to Harvard and then published A Further Range (Ellen, 2006; *X*L Encyclopedia of World Biography, 2003; Notable Biographies, 2008).
From 1936 to 1937, Frost served on the Harvard staff and received an honorary doctorate. After he had learnt that his wife died of a heart attack, he resigned from the staff, sold his house and returned to South Shaftsbury. He felt so collapsed that he could not attend even the cremation. Once again he completely turned to writing poems so as to forget his grief and in 1939; he published his second Collected Poems (Notable Biographies, 2008).
In 1940, Frost received the worst news of his life – his son who had a long-standing depression after his mother’s death committed suicide. For a long time before his death, Frost had tried to talk to his son many times to make him forget his suicidal thoughts. On his son’s death, Frost wrote to Untermeyer, who was a long-time friend and supporter of him, as in the following: “I took the wrong way with him. I tried many ways and every single one of them was wrong” (America’s Poet, 1998: 3). As seen in his words, Frost felt himself accused of his son’s death and later on, he devoted himself to religion much more than before. This devotion and interrogation of both life and God showed themselves in A Masque of Reason (published in 1945), and A Masque of Mercy (published in 1947), which was a verse drama based on the biblical story of the prophet Jonah (Notable Biographies, 2008).
The appearance of Frost’s poem books continued with the publishing of A
Witness Tree (1942), Steeple Bush (1947), Hard Not to Be King (1951) and In the Clearing (1962).
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In 1961, Frost had the honour of reading his poem named “The Gift Outright” at the inauguration of President Kennedy. He travelled to the Soviet Union the following year as part of a diplomatic change, meeting Soviet premier Khruschchev in the process (Meyer, 1996).
By the end of his life, he had become a national bard, and he received honorary degrees from forty-four colleges and universities. He won four Pulitzer Prizes and the United State passed resolutions honoring his birthdays (Baym, 1995).
At the age of eighty-eight, Frost died of infected blood clots and pulmonary embolisms on January 29, 1963 in Boston and he was buried in the family plot in Old Bennington, Vermont (Meyer, 1996). He had established a remarkably prolific career for himself and a prominent position in American Poetry. Graves (1963) states “Frost was the first American who could be honestly reckoned a master-poet by world standards” (p.9).
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1.2. FROST’S POEMS
In this part of this study, all of Frost’s poems are accompanied with short explanations of the books they were collected in.
A Boy's Will (1913)
A Boy’s Will, published in 1913, is the first book of Frost’s poems. It is
concerned with human tragedies and fears, his/her reaction to the complexities of life, and his/her ultimate acceptance of his/her burdens. This book consists of three parts:
Part 1:
“Into My Own” “Ghost House”
“My November Guest” “Love and a Question” “A Late Walk”
“Stars” “Storm fear”
“Wind and Window Flower” “To the Thawing Wind” “A Prayer in Spring” “Flower-Gathering” “Rose Pogonias” “Asking for Roses” “Waiting-a Field at Dusk” “In a Vale”
“A Dream Pang” “In Neglect”
10 “The Vantage Point”
“Mowing”
“Going for Water”
Part 2
“Revelation”
“The Trial by Existence” “In Equal Sacrifice” “The Tuft of Flowers” “Spoils of the Dead” “Pan with Us”
“The Demiurge’s Laugh”
Part 3
“Now Close the Windows” “A Line-storm Song” “October”
“My Butterfly”
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North of Boston (1914)
North of Boston, published in 1914, established Frost’s understated and mature
poetic voice, which is adhered to a formal tradition while quietly fighting the overstrained, obvious poetics of the time (Academy of American Poets, 2007). This book consists of four parts:
Part 1
“Mending Wall”
“The Death of the Hired Man” “The Mountain”
“A Hundred Collars”
Part 2
“Home Burial” “The Black Cottage” “Blueberries”
“A Servant to Servants”
Part 3
“After Apple-picking” “The Code”
“The Generations of Men” “The Housekeeper”
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Part 4
“The Fear” “The Self-seeker” “The Wood-pile”
“Good hours” (Frost, 1914; Academy of American poets, 2007; Poems, 2004)
Mountain Interval (1916)
Mountain Interval, published in 1916, in New York, was Frost’s first volume of
poetry after he had returned to the United States. This book consists of only one part and these are the poems collected in it:
“The Road Not Taken” “Christmas Trees”
“An Old Man’s Winter Night” “A Patch of Old Snow” “In the Home Stretch” “The Telephone” “Meeting and Passing” “Hyla Brook”
“The Oven Bird” “Birches”
“Pea Brush”
“Putting in the Seed” “A Time to Talk”
“The Cow in Apple-time” “An Encounter”
“Range-finding” “The Hill Wife”
13 “The Bonfire”
“A Girl’s Garden” “The Exposed Nest” “Out, Out”
“Brown’s Descent, or the Willy-nilly Slide” “The Gum-gatherer”
“The line-gang” “The Vanishing Red” “Snow”
“The Sound of the Trees” (Frost, 1916; Poems, 2004)
New Hampshire: A Poem with Notes and Grace Notes (1923)
New Hampshire is a 1923 Pulitzer Prize-winning volume of poems. The book
consists of three parts, named as “New Hampshire”, “Notes” and “Grace Notes”. The poems collected in it are the following:
“New Hampshire”
“New Hampshire”
“Notes”
“A Star in a Stone-boat” “The Census-taker” “The Star-splitter” “Maple” “The Axe-helve” “The Grindstone” “Paul’s Wife” “Wild Grapes”
14 “The Place for a Third”
“Two Witches” “An Empty Threat”
“A Fountain, a Bottle, a Donkey’s Ears and Some Books” “I Will Sing You One-O”
“Grace Notes”
“Fragmentary Blue” “Fire and Ice”
“In a Disused Graveyard” “Dust of Snow”
“To E.T.”
“Nothing Gold Can Stay” “The Runaway”
“The Aim was Song”
“Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening” “For Once, then Something”
“Blue-Butterfly Day” “The Onset”
“To Earthward”
“Goodbye and Keep Cold” “Two Look at Two” “Not To Keep” “A Brook in the City” “The Kitchen Chimney”
“Looking for a Sunset Bird in Winter” “A Boundless Moment”
“Evening in a Sugar Orchard” “Gathering Leaves”
15 “The Valley’s Singing Day”
“Misgiving” “A Hillside Thaw” “Plowmen”
“On a Tree Fallen Across the Road” “Our Singing Strength”
“The Lockless Door”
“The Need of Being Versed in Country Things” (Frost, 1923; Poems, 2004)
West-Running Brook (1928)
West-Running Brook, published in 1928, consists of only one part. These are the
poems collected in it:
“Spring Pools”
“The Freedom of the Moon” “The Rose Family”
“Fireflies in the Garden” “On Going Unnoticed” “Devotion”
“Acceptance” “The Cocoo”
“A Passing Glimpse” “A Peck Of Gold” “Once by the Pacific” “Lodged”
“Bereft”
“A Minor Bird”
“Tree At My Window” “The Peaceful Shepherd”
16 “A Winter Eden”
“Sand Dunes”
“The Egg and The Machine” “Canis Major”
“A Soldier” “Immigrants” “Hannibal”
“The Flower Boat” “The Times Table” “The Investment” “The Birthplace” “The door in the Dark” “Dust in the Eyes”
“Sitting By Brush in a Broad Sunlight” “The Armful”
“What Fifty Said” “Riders”
“On Looking Up By Chance At the Constellations” “The Bear”
“The Flood”
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A Further Range (1936)
A Further Range, published in 1936, is a volume of Frost poetry, which consists
of only one part. The poems collected in it are the following:
“Departmental” “Desert Places”
“Leaves Compared with Flowers” “Neither Out Far nor in Deep” “Provide, Provide”
“They were Welcome to their Belief” “Two Tramps in Mud Time”
“Design” (Frost, 1936; Poems, 2004)
Uncollected Poems
As well as a succession of poem books, Frost had also some poems which are not collected under any title or book (Graves, 1963). These poems are listed as ‘uncollected’:
“God’s Garden” “The Most of it” “The Silken Tent”
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1.3. FROST’S STYLE OF WRITING
“Style in prose or verse is that which indicates how the writer takes himself and what he is saying” (Frost, 1963: 33). Actually, this is the key sentence that can be pretty helpful to understand Frost’s point of view on style heard directly from his mouth. So, style is the way a writer expresses himself and it is highly important in literary works such as poems, novels inasmuch as it is the point which makes the difference between scientific writings and literary works more clear. For even a word to have a literary meaning, how and where that word is used has a great importance, and therefore, in literature, it is suitably called ‘style’.
Many critics think that Frost maintains a distinct position in American poetry. One of them, Lynen (1960) asserts that “Frost stands apart from other poets in the modern era in that his sentences are clear, his verse form traditional, and language similar to everyday speech” (p.2). In fact, Frost’s simplicity in poetry was such a strong one that one might find it difficult to classify him as a modern poet. What is meant by this simplicity is that the grammatical structures Frost uses are not complex or incomprehensible as in most literary works but written in plain instead. When it comes to words, it is difficult to mark this simplicity since the reader expects to understand the subject of Frost’s poems easily at first reading yet later on discovers that these words from nature are in fact not describing nature. It is sure to state that they aim to tell more than nature. Namely, they include many moral messages related to human beings and life. If such is the case, it is right to state that the simplicity disappears when it comes to words.
Moreover, some critics think that Frost’s poems always stay new because of the simplicity in their structures, and they are poems which can give messages that suit every age. In his book named Robert Frost, Gerber (1982) argues:
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[…]Frost’s poetry retains its freshness even today because it doesn’t depend upon the topic of the day but rather explores aspects of humanity that are timeless and universal. In dealing with the individual, Frost emphasizes that man remains single, alone with his fate. Life for the individual can hold the possibility of terror, but also contains the potential of beauty. (p.117)
Another critic, Schndeider (1931) calls Frost’s style “gnomic” (p.269). Schndeider’s view turns out to be correct with the word ‘gnomic’ since Frost’s poems generally mislead readers, especially at first reading, as they are ‘wise’ poems but they are sometimes difficult to understand because of the words which seem simple but have a lot of underlying meanings behind. Possibly, Brooks (1995) highlights the difficulty in understanding Frost’s style by asserting “the sensitive New Englander, possessed of a natural wisdom; dry and laconic when serious; genial and whimsical when not; a character who is uneasy with hyperbole and prefers to use understatement to risking possible overstatement” (p.54).
As seen above, it is sure that many critics think that Frost’s style is a difficult one to understand or ‘solve’ in American poetry. However, in Frost’s opinion, the poem should cover familiar ground, but say it in an unfamiliar way rather than trying to tell the reader something s/he does not know, reforming him/her, or even teaching him/her. Frost (1963) summarizes his point of view on style with these words: “If the poet succeeds, the poem will keep its freshness like a metal keeps its fragrance” (p.67). In fact, Frost himself explains the reason why many critics such as Gerber (1982) find his poems timeless and fresh. Hence, it is again his style which makes his poetry unique.
The style of Frost’s writing is very simplistic in colloquial diction. By using natural speech patterns, he wrote dialogues in his poetry. His words and so his poems are also very natural since Frost always used words that people can understand easily. This is one of the reasons that make his poetry seem ordinary. The structure of his poems is never complicated so his poems seem to be mere transitions or reflections of daily events into poetry. Instead of elaborate phrasings in his lines, a
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comprehensible manner is dominant. Some think that this simple way of writing is an effect of living in England just because Frost’s lifestyle there was an accordingly simple one.
Although Frost’s style is simple in terms of grammatical structures of the verses, this simplicity vanishes when it comes to meter. Frost’s dissimilarity to both traditional and modern poets turns up if meter is the case. In many of his poems, Frost begins writing by being strict to meters, yet before the very end of the poem; he leaves being such and keeps on writing completely in free verse. At this point, it is sure to say that Frost follows the rules and then breaks the rules. A good example of this is clearly seen in his poem “Acquainted with the Night”, which is written in the first person narrator and so the ‘I’ in the poem refers not only to the narrator of the poem but also to Frost, as well. In this poem, Frost expresses both his own dilemma as a poet whether to write in a strict meter or in free verse and the dilemma of the narrator of the poem whether to go beyond the unknown territories or stop only where he is. In the eighth line of the poem, an interrupted cry is heard, which comes over houses from another street, as seen below:
7 I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet 8 When far away an interrupted cry
9 Came over houses from another street. (Frost, 1923)
Upon hearing this strange cry, the narrator suddenly finds himself in a dilemma. He both wants to go there and learn what is going on and at the same time has a feeling of fear to go somewhere he does not known. At this point, some critics have a different aspect of view and they claim that not only the narrator but also the poet himself is in a dilemma (Amano 2006; Kimberley 2006). It is clear that Frost tries out the limits of conventional symbol and form. Amano (2006) asserts that ““Acquainted with the Night” stresses the importance of pushing the boundaries and exploring the unknown, while remaining within the limits of accepted tradition” (p.39). This is in fact what Frost does clearly in his poems. He knows the traditional
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rhyme schemes and strict verse forms and he uses them at the beginning of the poem, but he also wants to go beyond the limits and write freely without regarding verses, just as modern poets do. In this sense, the use of ‘terza rima’ in this poem is appropriate. The interlocking rhyme scheme gives the sense of continuation to the readers (Amano, 2006). However, Frost cannot resist experimenting with the traditional rhyme scheme. Although the readers would expect the traditional terza rima of the ABA BCB CDC DED EE rhyme, “Acquainted with the Night” rhymes ABA BCB CDC DAD AA, making a circular structure by repeating the opening line of the poem at the end: “I have been one acquainted with the night” (1, 14). Here is the poem with its rhyme scheme:
1 I have been one acquainted with the night. ___ a 2 I have walked out in rain -- and back in rain. ___ b 3 I have outwalked the furthest city light. ___ a
4 I have looked down the saddest city lane. ___ b 5 I have passed by the watchman on his beat ___ c 6 And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain. ___ b
7 I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet ___ c 8 When far away an interrupted cry ___ d
9 Came over houses from another street, ___ c
10 But not to call me back or say good-bye; ___ d 11 And further still at an unearthly height, ___ a 12 A luminary clock against the sky ___ d
13 Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right. ___ a 14 I have been one acquainted with the night. ___ a (Frost, 1923)
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This circular structure of the poem made by the repetition of the first line at the end of the poem, again, enhances the continuous nature of creating a new poem, just as the use of ‘terza rima’. In brief, Frost starts a strict rhyme scheme at first, but from the third stanza he goes on a free verse type.
The tone of Frost’s poems is generally formal, which actually means controlled. His poems seem to reproduce the diction and rhythms of actual speech of New England farmers (Everything2, 2001). Frost (1923) says “all poetry is a reproduction of the tones of actual speech” (p.28). In sum, his own word is enough to understand how important the tone is in his poetry. A good example of Frost’s love of tone is his poem named “Runaway”. Frost (1923) says he wrote the last lines of this poem just to add it an ‘aggrieved tone of voice’ (p.45). Here is the poem:
1Once when the snow of the year was beginning to fall,
2 We stopped by a mountain pasture to say 'Whose colt?' 3 A little Morgan had one forefoot on the wall,
4 The other curled at his breast. He dipped his head 5 And snorted at us. And then he had to bolt.
6 We heard the miniature thunder where he fled,
7 And we saw him, or thought we saw him, dim and grey, 8 Like a shadow against the curtain of falling flakes. 9 'I think the little fellow's afraid of the snow.
10 He isn't winter-broken. It isn't play
11 With the little fellow at all. He's running away. 12 I doubt if even his mother could tell him, "Sakes, 13 It's only weather". He'd think she didn't know ! 14 Where is his mother? He can't be out alone.' 15 And now he comes again with a clatter of stone 16 And mounts the wall again with whited eyes 17 And all his tail that isn't hair up straight. 18 He shudders his coat as if to throw off flies.
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19 'Whoever it is that leaves him out so late,
20 When other creatures have gone to stall and bin, 21 Ought to be told to come and take him in. (Frost, 1923)
It is not difficult to feel that kind of aggrieved tone, especially when the last lines of the poem are compared to the ones at the beginning which are rather lively and full of action. If so, this means Frost succeeded in controlling the tone of his poems.
Another important element to be pointed out in terms of style is the theme of a poem. The subjects of Frost’s writing also seem simple since he uses nature as an image and accordingly he writes of woods, birds, snow, trees. These images from nature are important. Some say they are the parts of a simple life in New England. Thus in Frost’s poetry, a bird is not only a bird or snow does not only symbolize itself. These images are always universal interpretations of common situations. On the whole, they take the point to messages related to human beings.
Subsequently, Frost opposed to the revolutionary poetic principles of his contemporaries. Instead of these principles, Frost chose ‘the old-fashioned way to be new’. In a way, he employed the plain speech of rural New Englanders and preferred the short, traditional forms of narrative (Baym, 1995). What is meant by this plain speech is the one used by only farmers and the inhabitants in New England which includes simple words that are related to nature or farming generally. Frost was affected by this speech during the time he lived and wrote his poems there and so his poems include plain words from nature such as woods, birds, insects and other parts of that simple life in New England (Everything2, 2001). Briefly, Frost believed that the subjects of poetry should be ‘common in experience’ that it should speak of familiar things everyone recognizes, but ‘uncommon in expression’ (Frost Friends, 2004).
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In sum, “style embellishes one’s persona and signals the observer what to expect” (Thompson, 1964). Then, if style is the key that make the poet a real poet and make him/her different from the other ones, then the importance of style should always be highlighted so as to clarify the difference between poetry and prose more precisely. With one sentence, Frost (1923) summarizes the importance of style as the following:
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CHAPTER 2
LITERARY APPRECIATION IN POETRY
In this chapter, firstly some general information about how to make a literary appreciation in poetry is set forth. Secondly, some literal devices that are peculiar to Frost are given under the subtitle “the poetics of Frost” for every poet has his/her own style of writing.
Literary appreciation is the kind of appreciation that should be made in many aspects, both on the surface and deeply as in ‘close-up reading’. It helps readers to reach a fuller enjoyment and understanding of the experience in and behind the writing of the poem. According to ‘Formalist Criticism’, the aim of literary appreciation is to find out and ‘exhibit’ the elements in the poem that give its particular quality (Gioia & Kennedy, 1995; Pope, 1998). Consequently, it is in a way criticizing every point in the literary work. Then a person making criticism on a piece of literary writing is called ‘critic’. (In this thesis, the mentioned literary writing is poetry, so in the rest of the study the word ‘poem’ is to be used instead.)
When criticizing a poem, a critic cannot make free comments without referring to the poem. Coombes (1975) emphasizes this point by saying that “a good critic, knowing that his account and evaluation of an author must depend on the actual words written by the author, supports the fundamental remarks and judgments with pieces (however slight) of examined text, the text out of which his judgments rise” (p.7).
It is obvious from the quotation above that a critic should not make empty, hazy comments. Instead, he should evaluate and reveal the main points, the key words or meanings, or images by fully depending on the real words in the poem and intuition of the poet and himself/herself as a reader.
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Another point here is that the critic should approach both the poet and the poem without any favoritism or prejudice. The critic, when regarded as not a critic but only a reader, may love a poet and his/her style and at the same time s/he does not have to love every poet and his/her style. Yet, in any case s/he should be objective all in his/her comments and should not reflect that favoritism or prejudice into his comments. Critical discipline requires such kind of an attitude. Namely, for a critical discipline to occur, a critic should be conscious of what he is doing (Coombes, 1975).
The last point is that the critic should be aware of what he is analyzing. Actually, scientific writing and literary writing are completely different from each other. In the former one, there are clear-cut sentences with certain results which do not require commenting on, but in the latter one there are literary phrases waiting to be commented on so as to be meaningful to the reader. So a critic should give the needed value to the poem being analyzed and he should always keep in mind that literary writings are full of words which have deeper meanings behind. One of the duties of a critic is to find and indicate these deeper meanings in a way. Coombes (1975) quotes Lawrence in his book named Literature and Criticism, in which Lawrence sets forth the difference between science and literature:
Literary criticism can be no more than a reasoned account of the feeling produced upon the critic by the book he is criticizing. Criticism can never be a science: it is, in the first place, much too personal, and in the second, it is concerned with values that science ignores. The touch-stone is emotion, not reason. We judge a work of art by its effect on our sincere and vital emotion, and nothing else. (p.8)
Literary appreciation helps to demonstrate the wholeness of meaning, and the total effect and significance of the writing. Making literary criticism has affinities with grammatical sentence-analysis but in order to make a good appreciation of a literary work, one has to make a comment by referring to the poem as well. Yet, this also is not enough. There are also some other devices and elements of form to be examined in each poem according to ‘Formalist Criticism’ (Gioia & Kennedy, 1995;
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Pope, 1998). Alexander (1963) asserts that “it is hardly necessary to state that a single poem will not contain every type of device there is: it is up to you to find exactly what devices are employed” (p.42). Then it is sure to add that the critic needs to create his/her criticism by not only depending on the poem but also making his/her own comments by referring to that poem.
Furthermore, before beginning to write a literary appreciation of a poem, understanding the type of the poem is also important. The types of poems are generally descriptive, reflective, narrative, the lyric and the sonnet. Here are the brief definitions with examples:
Poems that describe people or experiences, scenes, objects are named ‘descriptive’. Frost (1923) did not prefer this type of poetry.
Poems that are thoughtful and that contain a great deal of description from which the poet draws conclusions or makes comments on are named ‘reflective’. Frost (1923) did not prefer this type of poetry, either.
Poems that tell a story are ‘narratives’. Frost’s “Birches” is a good example for this type, in which Frost portrays the images of a child growing to adulthood through the symbolism of aging birch trees. Through these images, readers are able to see the reality of the real world compared to their carefree childhood. Here is the poem:
1 When I see birches bend to left and right 2 Across the lines of straighter darker trees, 3 I like to think some boy's been swinging them. 4 But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay. 5 Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them 6 Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
7 After a rain. They click upon themselves 8 As the breeze rises, and turn many-coloured
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9 As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
10 Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells 11 Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust
12 Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away 13 You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen. 14 They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load, 15 And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed 16 So low for long, they never right themselves:
17 You may see their trunks arching in the woods 18 Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground, 19 Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair 20 Before them over their heads to dry in the sun. 21 But I was going to say when Truth broke in 22 With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm, 23 I should prefer to have some boy bend them 24 As he went out and in to fetch the cows-- 25 Some boy too far from town to learn baseball, 26 Whose only play was what he found himself, 27 Summer or winter, and could play alone. 28 One by one he subdued his father's trees 29 By riding them down over and over again 30 Until he took the stiffness out of them, 31 And not one but hung limp, not one was left 32 For him to conquer. He learned all there was 33 To learn about not launching out too soon 34 And so not carrying the tree away
35 Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise 36 To the top branches, climbing carefully 37 With the same pains you use to fill a cup 38 Up to the brim, and even above the brim. 39 Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,
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40 Kicking his way down through the air to the ground. 41 So was I once myself a swinger of birches.
42 And so I dream of going back to be. 43 It's when I'm weary of considerations, 44 And life is too much like a pathless wood
45 Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs 46 Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
47 From a twig's having lashed across it open. 48 I 'd like to get away from earth awhile 49 And then come back to it and begin over. 50 May no fate willfully misunderstand me
51 And half grant what I wish and snatch me away 52 Not to return. Earth's the right place for love: 53 I don't know where it's likely to go better. 54 I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree
55 And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk 56 Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more, 57 But dipped its top and set me down again.
58 That would be good both going and coming back.
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Poems that are short and usually express a mood or feeling are named ‘lyric’. Frost’s “My November Guest” is one of his most famous lyrics, in which Frost shows how many people change for the one they love, not intentionally, but mentally. November may be considered as a season of dying, not beauty, but the ‘she’ in the narrator's life during autumn makes him love it. Here is the poem:
1 My Sorrow, when she's here with me, 2 Thinks these dark days of autumn rain 3 Are beautiful as days can be;
4 She loves the bare, the withered tree; 5 She walks the sodden pasture lane. 6 Her pleasure will not let me stay. 7 She talks and I am fain to list: 8 She's glad the birds are gone away, 9 She's glad her simple worsted grey 10 Is silver now with clinging mist.
11 The desolate, deserted trees, 12 The faded earth, the heavy sky, 13 The beauties she so truly sees, 14 She thinks I have no eye for these, 15 And vexes me for reason why.
16 Not yesterday I learned to know 17 The love of bare November days 18 Before the coming of the snow, 19 But it were vain to tell her so,
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Poems of fourteen lines with a very strict rhyme scheme are named ‘sonnet’. These poems consist of two parts. The first part of eight lines is octave and the second part of six lines is sestet. Frost’s “A Soldier” is a good example of this type with its rhyme scheme as ABBA CDDC EFFE GG.
1 He is that fallen lance that lies as hurled, ___ a 2 That lies unlifted now, come dew, come rust, ___ b 3 But still lies pointed as it plowed the dust. ___ b 4 If we who sight along it round the world, ___ a 5 See nothing worthy to have been its mark ___ c 6 It is because like men we look too near, ___ d 7 Forgetting that as fitted to the sphere, ___ d 8 Our missiles always make too short an arc. ___ c 9 They fall, they rip the grass, they intersect ___ e
10 The curve of earth, and striking, break their own; ___ f 11 They make us cringe for metal-point on stone. ___ f 12 But this we know, the obstacle that checked ___ e 13 And tripped the body, shot the spirit on ___ g
14 Further than target ever showed or shone. ___ g (Frost, 1928)
Lastly, there are three main types of sonnets: the Petrarchan, the Shakespearean, and the Miltonic. The Petrarchan sonnet consists of two parts, named as octave and sestet in which the rhyme scheme is ABBAABBA CDECDE (Alexander, 1963; Hellum, 2000). Frost’s “Design” is a good example of this in the octave but when it comes to the sestet, Frost breaks the rules and makes a free combination, as seen below:
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1 I found a dimpled spider, fat and white, ___ a 2 On a white heal-all, holding up a moth ___ b 3 Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth -- ___ b 4 Assorted characters of death and blight ___ a 5 Mixed ready to begin the morning right ___ a 6 Like the ingredients of a witches' broth -- ___ b 7 A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth ___ b 8 And dead wings carried like a paper kite. ___ a
9 What had that flower to do with being white, ___ c 10 The wayside blue and innocent heal-all? ___ d 11 What brought the kindred spider to that height, ___ c 12 Then steered the white moth thither in the night? ___ c 13 What but design of darkness to appall?-- ___ d
14 If design govern in a thing so small. ___ d (Frost, 1936)
The Shakespearean sonnet consists of 14 lines, in which all lines contain ten syllables written in iambic pentameter. The rhyme scheme in a Shakespearean sonnet is ABAB CDCD EFEF GG in which the last two lines are a rhyming couplet (Alexander, 1963: 23-38). Frost’s “The Silken Tent” is a good example of this type, as seen below:
1 She is as in a field a silken tent ___ a
2 At midday when the sunny summer breeze ___ b 3 Has dried the dew and all its ropes relent, ___ a 4 So that in guys it gently sways at ease, ___ b 5 And its supporting central cedar pole, ___ c 6 That is its pinnacle to heavenward ___ d 7 And signifies the sureness of the soul, ___ c
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8 Seems to owe naught to any single cord, ___ d 9 But strictly held by none, is loosely bound ___ e 10 By countless silken ties of love and thought ___ f 11 To every thing on earth the compass round ___ e 12 And only by one's going slightly taut ___ f 13 In the capriciousness of summer air ___ g
14 Is of the slightlest bondage made aware. ___ g (Graves, 1963)
The Miltonic sonnet has a different rhyme scheme that went ABBAABBA CDCDCD. Frost did not prefer this type of sonnet in his poetry (Alexander, 1963: 23-38; Oppapers 2008).
To last with a summary of how to make a good literary appreciation, Alexander’s (1963) key can be given as an example:
Key:
1. Reading: read carefully, look for a simple meaning. 2. Meaning: general, detailed, intention
3. Devices:
(a) structural: contrast, illustration, repetition (b) sense: simile, metaphor, personification
(c) sound: alliteration, onomatopoeia, rhyme, assonance, rhythm. (adapted from Poetry and prose appreciation for overseas students, pp.42:43)
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2.1. THE POETICS OF ROBERT FROST
In the former part of this study, generally the rules for how to make literary appreciation are put forth and several devices are mentioned. However, the reason for making a subtitle for literary appreciation is that every poet has a different style and way of using those devices. In literature, to emphasize that way of usage, the best way to name it is ‘poetics of a poet’.
Frost wrote his poetry using traditional theories and practices of versification. Rhyme and meter meant a lot to him. Form was of the utmost importance to Frost as a principle to make poetry. He liked the rules of poetry in a way. It is difficult to explain his viewpoint of those rules, but there is an important fact which should be kept in mind when studying Frost’s poetry that he both kept and broke the rules (Frost Friends, 2004). He brought an innovation to poetry by the usage of everyday language. Frost’s poetics can be studied under six subtitles:
1. Figurative language 2. Imagery 3. Meter 4. Sound devices 5. Form 6. Tone
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2.1.1. FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE
Figurative language means using ‘figures of speech’ in poetry. Briefly, using figurative language is a way of saying something by implying more than the literal meaning of words. Frost says that “every poem I write is figurative in two senses. It will have figures in it, of course; but it is also a figure in itself – a figure for something, and it is made so that you can get more than one figure out of it” (Cook, 1958: 235).
2.1.1.1. Metaphor
It is a type of figurative language in which a statement is made that says one thing is something else, but literally it is not (University of North Carolina, 2005; The Government of Prince Edward Island, 2000). Actually, it is a comparison that is made between two things essentially alike. Critics say Frost is a poet of metaphors. To him, metaphor is what poetry is all about (Frost Friends, 2004). In “The Silken Tent”, a woman is admired for her beauty and strength, like a silken tent, as seen below in the poem:
1 She is as in a field a silken tent
2 At midday when the sunny summer breeze 3 Has dried the dew and all its ropes relent, 4 So that in guys it gently sways at ease, 5 And its supporting central cedar pole, 6 That is its pinnacle to heavenward 7 And signifies the sureness of the soul, 8 Seems to owe naught to any single cord, 9 But strictly held by none, is loosely bound 10 By countless silken ties of love and thought 11 To everything on earth the compass round, 12 And only by one's going slightly taut
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13 In the capriciousness of summer air
14 Is of the slightest bondage made aware. (Frost, 1942)
2.1.1.2. Simile
A simile is a comparison of unlike things using the words ‘like’, ‘as’, ’than’, ’seems’. Frost’s favorite word is ‘as if’ (McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 2003; The Government of Prince Edward Island, 2000). In “Mending Wall”, the poet sees his neighbor bringing a stone which he holds firmly in his hand and so the neighbor to the poet is now ‘like an old-stone savage armed’. Here are the related lines of this poem:
[...] 38 I see him there
39 Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top 40 In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed. 41 He moves in darkness as it seems to me, 42 Not of woods only and the shade of trees. 43 He will not go behind his father's saying, 44 And he likes having thought of it so well
45 He says again, "Good fences make good neighbours". (Frost, 1923)
Similarly, in “Birches”, the trunks in the woods which trail their leaves on the ground are likened to girls who throw their hair, as seen below:
[…] 17 You may see their trunks arching in the woods 18 Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground, 19 Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
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2.1.1.3. Symbol
Thrall & Hibbard (1960) define symbol in their book named A Handbook to
Literature as:
On the most literal level, a symbol is something which is itself and yet stands for or suggests or means something else; as the letters in a p p l e form a word which stands for a particular objective reality; or as a flag is a piece of colored cloth which stands for a nation. All language is symbolic in this sense, and many of the objects we commonly use in daily life are. (So) In a literary sense, a symbol is a trope which combines a literal and sensuous quality with an abstract or suggestive aspect. (p.478)
A symbol can be an object, person, situation or even an action. Frost was not known as a symbolist. He rebelled against it and preferred metaphors, so the use of symbols is less obvious in his poetry (Cook, 1958). Frost says “if my poetry has to have a name, I’d prefer to call it Emblemism, not Symbolism, which is all too likely to clog up and kill a poem” (Burnshaw, 1987: 283). Although Frost did not like using symbols, he used them even rarely in his poetry which again indicates that he had his own way of keeping and breaking the rules. In “Rose Pogonias”, flowers become a symbol for his beloved wife Elinor in early Frost poetry (Frost Friends, 2004). Here is the poem:
1 A saturated meadow,
2 Sun-shaped and jewel-small, 3 A circle scarcely wider
4 Than the trees around were tall; 5 Where winds were quite excluded, 6 And the air was stifling sweet 7 With the breath of many flowers, 8 A temple of the heat.
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9 There we bowed us in the burning, 10 As the sun's right worship is,
11 To pick where none could miss them 12 A thousand orchises;
13 For though the grass was scattered, 14 yet every second spear
15 Seemed tipped with wings of color, 16 That tinged the atmosphere.
17 We raised a simple prayer 18 Before we left the spot,
19 That in the general mowing 20 That place might be forgot; 21 Or if not all so favored, 22 Obtain such grace of hours,
23 that none should mow the grass there
24 While so confused with flowers. (Frost, 1913)
2.1.1.4. Personification
Personification is making a non-living object seem alive, like a person. Distinct human qualities are given to objects and ideas (The Government of Prince Edward Island, 2000; University of North Carolina, 2005). In “Storm Fear”, the wind works, cold creeps and so the whole storm is personified, as seen below in the poem:
1 WHEN the wind works against us in the dark, 2 And pelts with snow
3 The lower chamber window on the east, 4 And whispers with a sort of stifled bark, 5 The beast,
