Some Themes in the Poems of Robert Frost

There are a number of reoccurring themes in the work of Robert Frost.

Youth & Aging/Death

Youth and especially the loss of innocence is a key theme in Frost’s poems. Contrasted with youth is aging and death. Think of the poem “Out, Out—“. How do the themes of youth, loss of innocence, and/or death present in this poem?

Boundaries & Liminality

Another common theme in Frost’s work is the theme of boundaries or barriers. Together with this theme is occurrence of liminal spaces, i.e. “in between” spaces. Look at the poem “Desert Places” and try to identify the boundaries in the poem. Now consider the poem “The Road Not Taken,” where would you say is the liminal space in this poem?

Isolation & Loneliness

A major theme in Frost’s work is the idea of isolation, alienation or loneliness. A regular motif used by Frost is the “solitary traveler” or “lonely wanderer.” Read the poem “Acquainted with the Night” and identify the different ways in which Frost highlighted this theme.

Man & Nature

The mystery of nature is a common theme for Frost. Man’s ability to gain self-knowledge from nature is also prevalent. What do you think does each speaker learn from nature in the poems “Design” and “A Considerable Speck”?

Robert Frost (1874-1963)

(Image Source: University of Massachusetts Lowell)

Robert Frost was born and raised (until the age of eleven) in San Francisco. He attended Dartmouth and Harvard College. For a decade, around the turn of the century, he worked as a farmer in New Hampshire. From 1912 until 1915 he, his wife, and their four children lived in England, where he met the poets Ezra Pound and Edward Thomas, both of whose shrewd reviews helped establish his reputation. Upon his return to America, Frost held a number of teaching appointments, his most enduring association being with Amherst College. In the year following the publication of his second book, North of Boston (1914), Frost became one of the best-known and most celebrated of American poets, and in 1961 he read his poem “The Gift Outright” at President John F. Kennedy’s inauguration. Rooted in the rugged New England landscape, his poems were phrased in plain speech, set to traditional meters made to sound classical forms. Some intellectuals dismissed him as provincial, and modernists who preferred conspicuous difficulty and radical innovation thought him conventional. Even Frost’s adoring public was often hoodwinked by his pithiness into missing the menacing forces at work beneath the surface. Astute readers saw an altogether different sensibility, however, one possessed of propensity toward darkness and terror, in which a poem is “a momentary stay against confusion.” (Biographical Summary from Norton's Anthology of Poetry, 4th Edition.)

Figurative Language I

There are many types of figurative language. In this post we will look at six types, namely: metaphor, simile, personification, apostrophe, metonymy, and synecdoche.

Simile & Metaphor

If I say the sun is like an orange, then an orange becomes a symbol for the sun. They are similar in color and in form (spherical). When I use terms such as "like", "as", "than", "resembles", we call it simile. "The sun is like an orange", is an example of a simile. When I omit such words of reference, and merely say X = Y, it is a metaphor. For example, "The sun is an orange" is a metaphor.

Sound & Sense (p. 72-74) explains that metaphor can take one of four forms, “depending on whether the literal and figurative terms are respectively named or implied.”

Personification

When a thing, animal or something abstract (e.g. Truth), is given the attributes of a human, it is called personification. In Dickinson’s poem “Apparently with no surprise” the flowers are described as “happy”; this is an example of personification.

Apostrophe

Apostrophe is a way of speaking to someone (dead) or something which one does not ordinarily speak to. For example, if I speak to my chair, or if I speak to Elvis Presley, it is called apostrophe. When I speak to my pet cat it would not be considered apostrophe because people often speak to their pets. However, if my cat is dead and I then speak to it, it would be considered apostrophe.

Synecdoche & Metonymy

Sound & Sense (p. 78) explains: “In contrast to the preceding figures that compare unlike things are two figures that rest on congruences or correspondences. Synecdoche (the use of the part for the whole) and metonymy (the use of something closely related for the thing actually meant) are alike in that both substitute some significant detail or quality of an experience for the experience itself.”

If I ask you to give me a hand, your "hand" stands for the whole of you – this is called synecdoche. Similarly if you bought a new car and I compliment your new car by saying “Nice wheels!” then the "wheels", which is a part of the car, represents the whole car. This is another example of synecdoche.

When I describe the library as “a house of pens”, it is metonymy. A library is not a house of pens; rather it is a house of books. However, pens are associated with writing and with books. Pens and books are therefore closely related although not actually part of the same thing. When figures are compared that are closely related (although not part of the same thing), it is called metonymy.

Consider the following questions from the "Reviewing Chapter Five" section in Sound & Sense:

1. Distinguish between language used literally and language used figuratively, and consider why poetry is often figurative.
2. Define the figures of comparison (simile and metaphor, personification and apostrophe), and rank them in order of their emotional effectiveness.
3. Define the figures of congruence or correspondence (synecdoche and metonymy).
4. Review the four major contributions of figurative language.
   

Figurative Language & Figures of Speech

Figurative language is language with a deeper and often aesthetic meaning and “cannot be taken literally” (Compare with connotation); a figure of speech is “any way of saying something other than the ordinary way,” (Sound & Sense, p. 71).
Figurative language contributes to poetry in four major ways (Sound & Sense, p. 79, 80):

1. Figurative language affords us imaginative pleasure by linking different things in interesting ways.
2. Figures of speech bring additional imagery into verse, making the abstract more concrete, and making poetry more sensuous.
3. Figures of speech add emotional intensity to otherwise informative statements.
4. Because figures of speech are so rich in meaning, they can say more in a small space.