Selected Poetries by Robert Frost

Name: Miss. Jayati Rudresh-Kumar Thakar 

Roll. No: 30

Year: Batch 2015-1017

M.A. Semester: 3

Paper no. 10 American Literature

Email.Id: jjayti.thakar94@gmail.com

Unit: 4

Assignment topic: Selected Poetries by Robert Frost

Submitted to: Smt.S.B.Gardi                                  

Department of English,                              Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University,                                        Bhavnagar, Gujarat, India

To Evaluate my Assignment Click Here

Introduction:

Robert Frost was an American poet and he was born on March 1874 in San Francisco, California. He is extremely viewed for his realistic portrayals of rural life and his knowledge of American idiomatic communication. His work normally employed experiences from rural life in New England in the early twentieth century, using them to inspect composite social and ethical themes. Frost’s poems contract with man in relation with the world. Man stands alone and weak as compared towards the massiveness of the universe.

Almost all of Frost’s poems portray the themes of mortal restriction. This world looks messy and dreadful because man’s incomplete abilities cannot grasp its sense. Walls, physical and real, mental and invisible, distinct man from Nature. His personal life was full of grief and loss.  

Selected Poetries by Robert Frost

1     Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening’

2     Fire and Ice

3     Home Burial

‘Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening’ by Robert Frost can be considered as a poem of ‘karma- yoga’ or a person’s sense of duty. No doubt the literal meaning of this poem is simple but, the applied meaning of this poem is significant. Robert Frost himself at a particular stage in life worked as a ‘farmer’ and it has been said that he could not get expected prize of the products; which he had gone to sell in the market. While coming back in a wave of despair the present poem was composed.

The poem opens with the description of woods. The woods are lovely, having enough attraction in it to compile any individual to stop there and sit for a while. The poet knows whose woods they are and the owner lives in the village. He won’t mind if the poet stops there for some time to enjoy the beauty of that place. But, when he makes a pause there, his horse considers it strange, uneven and improper, because that is the darkest evening of the year and the lake is also frozen. The same horse gives a shake to its harness bell to remind the poet that their pause there is uneven. The only other sound except of that bell is the whistling sound because of the blowing of the wind.

The poet is remind it that the woods have got enough beauty- they are lovely, dark and deep, but the poet has got many promises to keep before he sleeps there, he has miles to go on and on.

The implied meaning of this poem is more appealing and convincing. The poet knows whose woods they are but that person is not an individual that owner is good almighty; who watches everything. The presence of horse also demands an interpretation. It is not merely in this poem as an animal, but the inner craving of an individual; which does not allow that person to be in the company of nature. The horse’s reminding to the poet is a sign of how man is occupied with material life, which does not allow man to be with nature.

The last stanza of the poem in which; the poet describes the woods lovely, dark and deep has note of despair in it. The word ‘dark’ suggests poet’s despair of Passimism; because he couldn’t get the expected prize of his agriculture products. The word ‘sleep’ suggests not a common sleep in the last two lines of the poem. It stands for ‘death’ and here this poem becomes a poem of ‘karma-yoga’. A man may come across beautiful sights, places and individuals, but man must not make there the final state. Man should go on and on doing his duties and his deeds or karmas. The day man stops performing his duty and karma, it is the day of his ‘death’, though that person may live biologically or physically. The lesson of the poem is importance of ‘Karma’ in life and ‘duty’ is more important than the ‘beauty’.

2 Fire and Ice

This short poem of Robert Frost interprets, his all thinking about ‘how probably the earth would be destroyed? The Indian oriental myth and the western myth- both suggests that there would be the end of this earth. The Indian oriental myth suggests that the earth would be destroyed because of ‘water’, and the western Christian myth suggests that the earth would be destroyed because of ‘fire’. The present poem shows the poet’s thinking about it.

Some people are of the opinion that the earth would be destroyed because of ‘Fire’; while some of others think that the earth would be destroyed because of Ice- Water.  The poet has made its study about desires of the people. On the basis of that study the poet comes to a conclusion that the earth would be destroyed because of the fire of ‘never ending desires’; but if the same earth is to be destroyed twice, the second time it would be destroyed because of ‘Ice’. The poet here refers to ‘cold- blooded’ or ‘cold hearted hatred’, which allows a person to be very cool on the surface but full of hatred and venom (poison) so for the second time if the earth is destroyed, it would be destroyed because of cold- blooded temperament with which remains covered modern man’s hatred. So, both ‘fire’ and ‘ice’ are equally capable of destroying the earth.

3Home Burial

In this narrative poem, Frost describes a tense conversation between a rural husband and wife whose child has recently died. As the poem opens, the wife is standing at the top of a staircase looking at her child’s grave through the window. Her husband, at the bottom of the stairs, does not understand what she is looking at or why she has suddenly become so distressed. The wife resents her husband’s obliviousness and attempts to leave the house. The husband begs her to stay and talk to him about the grief; he does not understand why she is angry with him for manifesting his grief in a different way. Inconsolable, the wife lashes out at him, convinced of his apathy towards their dead child. The husband mildly accepts her anger, but the rift between them remains. She leaves the house as he angrily threatens to drag her back for by force.

In terms of form, this poem is a dramatic or pastoral lyric poem, using free- form dialogue rather than strict rhythmic schemes. Frost generally uses five stressed syllables in each line and divides stanza in terms of lines of speech.

The poem describes two tragedies: first, the death of a young child, and second, the death of a marriage. As such, the title “Home Burial,” can be read as a tragic double entendre. Although the death of the child is the catalyst of the couple’s problems, the larger conflict that destroys the marriage is the couple’s inability to communicate with one another. Both characters feel grief at the loss of the child, but neither is able to understand the way that their partner chooses to express their sorrows.

The setting of the poem- a staircase with a door at the bottom and a window at the top- automatically sets up the relationship between the characters. The wife stands top of the stairs, directly in front of the window overlooking the graveyard, while the husband stands at the bottom of the stairs, looking up at her. While the couple shares the tragedy of their child’s death, they are in conflicting positions in terms of dealing with their grief.

Conclusion:

Ultimately, each character is isolated from the other at opposite ends of the staircase. In order for the marriage to succeed, each character must travel an equal distance up or down the staircase in order to meet the other.

To Evaluate my Assignment Click Here