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As a modern poet, Robert Frost is somewhat of a contradiction. His technique was rarely experimental, and yet he strayed from traditionalist structures expected from the verse forms he commonly adopted; erratic rhyme and pseudo-parallelisms litter his work amid strict meter and wild imagery. His language employed nostalgia and wandered often into pastoral connotations, but his symbols and intentions were delivered from the industrial tensions of his time—not timidly stepping into the idioms of his early twentieth century contemporaries, but also not happily bound to nineteenth century practices, Robert Frost developed a distinctive and recognisable style. A style which, more than any other poet of his day embodies the duality of individualism in poetry, the conflict of emotion versus intellect.
Perhaps it isn’t odd that his impact on poetry and literature has out-lived some of his more eccentric peers when we consider how his compositions seamlessly tie two divergent centuries together. Like the romantics before him, recalling word and phrase borrowed from the greats (usurping the public domain), and ensuring no poem is false but always a personal endeavour, Frost’s poetry is at its best when tangibly vague. A concept found in such work as ‘Locked Out’.
When we locked up the house at night,
we always locked the flowers outside
and cut them off from window light.
The time I dreamed the door was tried
and brushed with buttons upon sleeves,
yet nobody molested them!
We did find one nasturtium
upon the steps with bitten stem.
I may have been to blame for that:
I always thought it must have been
some flower I played with as I sat
at dusk to watch the moon down early.
While nothing is expected from the reader here, Frost implies we know where these flowers reside and how they grow, their colour and placement—indeed, he puts to us this work as if we comprehend the gravity of the broken stem. The reader is no idiot, and Frost gives us just what we need to ‘know’ his words. When I was 15, I instantly knew the opening passage, but I can never, and will likely never be able to explain why—I know the intention, and the obscurity of the wording allows me to know it without ever needing to understand it in full.
In order to accomplish such phrasal grace, Frost employed what many of his peers deemed outdated methods: the self-imposed restriction of metre, arrangements in static stanzaic constructs (primarily quatrains or octaves when not presented a single, continuous stanza). Frost used these to his benefit, forcing his work to follow a logical resolve, even if his metaphor meandered enough to become almost overly personal language. He believed that the general tone of the poet’s mood should dictate the first commitment to paper, and the poet’s intellect would bring it through by metre and context.
As a poet, I find my own writing following similar patterns, unintentionally mimicking Frost at times—I consider myself modern in my themes and motifs, yet I also reach for metre and structure, rhyme where it pleases and fits, and possibly, as many of Frost’s critics said of him, I over-complicate my work with subtle embellishments. Taking the abstractions of fanciful language and placing them juxtaposed against the directness of common-day speech. Frost’s most frequently received critique was that his verse felt forced, elegant yet rigid metre grafted onto the soft nature of his own accent… but I see that as what identifies him; as a Welshman, the New England accent is alien to me, but even so, I can fit his verse into the melodic Celtic tones of my valley vernacular. If anything, Frost reads to me as a voice in conversation, enriched only by its rhythm—a voice I know as Frost as he speaks to me in his words. However, there are regionalisms to his doing this; his incorporation of dialect and New England colloquialism. I wonder if this makes his work less universal, or whether only more deliberate, like a fence in place to yield good neighbours, as Frost expresses in Mending Wall: catch and celebrate first the differences, our own space where we are secluded, so we can enjoy the common ground. Mending Wall first sees this under the light of ridicule, with a hint of sarcasm in re-stating it, but in ending on that line, we see the cleverness of Frost and how he bends an opposed ideal to fit his own truth—a perfect and neatly sewn example of how a poet's context reforms the mood beyond its core metaphor.
Frost was also a master of the mundane. The primary focus of much of his poetry is the every-day, the routine and the common-place. Though often austere in tone, much of his work delves deep into the relationship between mankind and nature, oddly demarcated by a lyrical fluidity. His explicit inclusion of humdrum facts and monotonous artefacts enables that, presenting to us an insight of near 'education by poetry'—refusing to subscribe to any singular school of poetry, ultimately liberating his verse from the shackles of modernism. In essence, I believe it is Frost’s willingness to be a poetic throwback that keeps him as one of the most revered and celebrated modern poets. Perhaps, ‘Good fences make good neighbors' never sounded so true by any other summation.
I conclude with one of Frost’s best known pieces, one which solidifies my analysis and truly sits on the cross-roads of nineteenth and twentieth century poetry. ‘Acquainted with the Night’ is a terza-rima sonnet which openly discusses the poet’s position in the world, and the loneliness of metropolitan man.
I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain --and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.
I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
and dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.
I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
when far away an interrupted cry
came over houses from another street,
but not to call me back or say good-bye;
and further still at an unearthly height
one luminary clock against the sky
proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.
_________________________________________________
Please post your favourite Frost poems (with or without comment).
Perhaps it isn’t odd that his impact on poetry and literature has out-lived some of his more eccentric peers when we consider how his compositions seamlessly tie two divergent centuries together. Like the romantics before him, recalling word and phrase borrowed from the greats (usurping the public domain), and ensuring no poem is false but always a personal endeavour, Frost’s poetry is at its best when tangibly vague. A concept found in such work as ‘Locked Out’.
When we locked up the house at night,
we always locked the flowers outside
and cut them off from window light.
The time I dreamed the door was tried
and brushed with buttons upon sleeves,
yet nobody molested them!
We did find one nasturtium
upon the steps with bitten stem.
I may have been to blame for that:
I always thought it must have been
some flower I played with as I sat
at dusk to watch the moon down early.
While nothing is expected from the reader here, Frost implies we know where these flowers reside and how they grow, their colour and placement—indeed, he puts to us this work as if we comprehend the gravity of the broken stem. The reader is no idiot, and Frost gives us just what we need to ‘know’ his words. When I was 15, I instantly knew the opening passage, but I can never, and will likely never be able to explain why—I know the intention, and the obscurity of the wording allows me to know it without ever needing to understand it in full.
In order to accomplish such phrasal grace, Frost employed what many of his peers deemed outdated methods: the self-imposed restriction of metre, arrangements in static stanzaic constructs (primarily quatrains or octaves when not presented a single, continuous stanza). Frost used these to his benefit, forcing his work to follow a logical resolve, even if his metaphor meandered enough to become almost overly personal language. He believed that the general tone of the poet’s mood should dictate the first commitment to paper, and the poet’s intellect would bring it through by metre and context.
As a poet, I find my own writing following similar patterns, unintentionally mimicking Frost at times—I consider myself modern in my themes and motifs, yet I also reach for metre and structure, rhyme where it pleases and fits, and possibly, as many of Frost’s critics said of him, I over-complicate my work with subtle embellishments. Taking the abstractions of fanciful language and placing them juxtaposed against the directness of common-day speech. Frost’s most frequently received critique was that his verse felt forced, elegant yet rigid metre grafted onto the soft nature of his own accent… but I see that as what identifies him; as a Welshman, the New England accent is alien to me, but even so, I can fit his verse into the melodic Celtic tones of my valley vernacular. If anything, Frost reads to me as a voice in conversation, enriched only by its rhythm—a voice I know as Frost as he speaks to me in his words. However, there are regionalisms to his doing this; his incorporation of dialect and New England colloquialism. I wonder if this makes his work less universal, or whether only more deliberate, like a fence in place to yield good neighbours, as Frost expresses in Mending Wall: catch and celebrate first the differences, our own space where we are secluded, so we can enjoy the common ground. Mending Wall first sees this under the light of ridicule, with a hint of sarcasm in re-stating it, but in ending on that line, we see the cleverness of Frost and how he bends an opposed ideal to fit his own truth—a perfect and neatly sewn example of how a poet's context reforms the mood beyond its core metaphor.
Frost was also a master of the mundane. The primary focus of much of his poetry is the every-day, the routine and the common-place. Though often austere in tone, much of his work delves deep into the relationship between mankind and nature, oddly demarcated by a lyrical fluidity. His explicit inclusion of humdrum facts and monotonous artefacts enables that, presenting to us an insight of near 'education by poetry'—refusing to subscribe to any singular school of poetry, ultimately liberating his verse from the shackles of modernism. In essence, I believe it is Frost’s willingness to be a poetic throwback that keeps him as one of the most revered and celebrated modern poets. Perhaps, ‘Good fences make good neighbors' never sounded so true by any other summation.
I conclude with one of Frost’s best known pieces, one which solidifies my analysis and truly sits on the cross-roads of nineteenth and twentieth century poetry. ‘Acquainted with the Night’ is a terza-rima sonnet which openly discusses the poet’s position in the world, and the loneliness of metropolitan man.
I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain --and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.
I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
and dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.
I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
when far away an interrupted cry
came over houses from another street,
but not to call me back or say good-bye;
and further still at an unearthly height
one luminary clock against the sky
proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.
_________________________________________________
Please post your favourite Frost poems (with or without comment).
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