Robert Frost poetry

Question 1

The Death of the Hired Man
‘He hates to see a boy the fool of books.
Poor Silas, so concerned for other folk,
And nothing to look backward to with pride,
And nothing to look forward to with hope,
So now and never any different.’

Answer 1

Temporality and change – the difficutly of establishing a legacy
‘the Hired man’ – asks if capitalist society takes the genuine nature out of family, or if it is the same to be hired as it is to do willingly
Speaks to a wider American concern with establishing a legacy – the importance of asserting a place and status

Question 2

The Death of the Hired Man

‘Of course he’s nothing to us, any more
Than was the hound…’

Answer 2

‘any more’ could be anymore OR any more – ambiguity when spoken aloud reveals the concern with temporality and status which this poem reveals; the difficulty of establishing a legacy which connects present with past and future when change occurs

Question 3

The Wood-Pile

A small bird flew before me. He was careful
To put a tree between us when he lighted,
And say no word to tell me who he was
Who was so foolish as to think what he thought.
He thought that I was after him for a feather—
The white one in his tail; like one who takes
Everything said as personal to himself.

Answer 3

Anthropomorphic attribution of cognition to an animal – suggesting the autonomy and thus equal importance of nature as humanity itself

Essential solipsism of life – we cannot understand others, though we automatically strive to identify with them
Bird physically blocks this attempted identification with a ‘tree’; implication of differing heritage?

irony - as soon as he says that assuming thoughts is ‘foolish’, then ascribes thoughts straight away

Question 4

Home Burial

“Three foggy mornings and one rainy day
Will rot the best birch fence a man can build.”
Think of it, talk like that at such a time!’

Answer 4

Although the speaker does not realise it, this speech is intending to connect the death of the infant to a time and legacy – in order to understand it temporally, and thus be able to remember it – discussing the nature of trasncience
The fact that this speech is directly quoted shows the preservation of non-physical things is also possible??s

Question 5

After Apple-Picking
For I have had too much 
Of apple-picking: I am overtired 
Of the great harvest I myself desired.
…
For all 
That struck the earth, 
No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble, 
Went surely to the cider-apple heap 
As of no worth.

Answer 5

Achievement – as seeming futile once achieved? Speaks to the American dilemma post-Independence
Necessity of the wroth of all – but some are unacknowledged? ?

Question 6

Birches
‘When I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy’s been swinging them.
But swinging doesn’t bend them down to stay
As ice-storms do…

Answer 6

Questions the tangibility of human achievement and legacy

Donald Hall also notes that Edward Lantham (editor) hd published the edition without the hyphen – what does he original hyphen which frost intended have?

Question 7

Birches

But I was going to say when Truth broke in
With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm
I should prefer to have some boy bend them
As he went out and in to fetch the cows—
Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,
…
One by one he subdued his father’s trees
By riding them down over and over again
Until he took the stiffness out of them

Answer 7

Importance of lineage – though detached from society, the family line is emphasied – due to legacy? The absent figure of the father

Importance of the boy’s isolation from society?

Although humans can have an impact, their legacy cannot ‘stay/as ice-storms do’ – somehow less tangible achievement?

Question 8

Birches

So was I once myself a swinger of birches.
And so I dream of going back to be.
It’s when I’m weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood
…
‘That would be good both going and coming back.’

Answer 8

‘going and coming back’ - reversability of human legacy?

Question 9

Stopping By Woods

‘The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.’

Answer 9

Progress and temporality/spatiality

Donald Hall ntoes that Edward Lanthem (editor) changed the punctuation of this to ‘the woods are lovely, dark, and deep’ – what is the effect of Frost’s initial punctuation in comparison?

Question 10

Essay – The Figure a Poem Makes

• [a poem] ‘begins in delight and ends in wisdom’
• ‘ends in a clarification of life….a momentary stay against confusion’
• ‘the artist must value himself as he snatches a thing from some previous order in time and space into a new order’
• ‘scholars and artists….both work from knowledge….scholars get theirs with conscientious thoroughness along projected lines of logic; poets theirs cavalierly and as it happens in and out of books. They stick to nothing deliberately’

Answer 10

Clarificaiton of a moment

Belief in a final knoweldge - contrast to wallace stevens