Both Robert Frost and Edward Thomas use the idea of searching as a main theme in their poems and this is shown in both ‘For Once, then, Something’ and ‘The Glory’. In Frost’s poem, the main subject is about Frost or the narrator of the poem, looking down into a well, while others taunt him. He looks into the well, and sees his own reflection in the water below, but hopes to find something beyond his reflection, something, anything that could give him peace of mind, “I discerned as I thought beyond the picture… and then I lost it.” ‘The Glory’ however is about one man’s self doubt, and wondering about what ‘glory’ actually is. He looks into himself, and cannot find glory, and therefore looks to nature, “The glory of the beauty of the morning”. ‘For Once, then, Something’ is a sonnet, although it isn’t a sonnet in the usual sense. It contains fifteen lines as opposed to fourteen. It’s also written in iambic pentameter but consists of eleven syllables in each line, instead of ten. This irregularity in sentence and structure could possibly be connected with the fact that Frost is trying to emphasise the theme of seeing beyond everyday life and concentrating on the bigger picture, “As I discerned, as I thought, beyond the picture/Through the picture…”. ‘The Glory’ is written in one large stanza consisting of twenty-eight lines. This could possibly highlight the length of time it is taking the speaker to search for glory. ‘For Once, then, Something’ contains no rhyme scheme whatsoever, and this is possibly due to the fact that the speaker is unable to find ‘the bigger picture’ by peering into the well, “Others taunt me with having, knelt at well-curbs/Always wrong to the light.” This is unusual because Frost was a very lyrical ... ... middle of paper ... ... Frost however includes the use of personification in the poem. He personifies the water droplet which falls into the well. The water droplet obscures the speaker’s view from seeing his reflection, and therefore the water droplet could be seen as a person who does not want him to see any further. (As well as personification, this area of the poem uses both alliteration and the three stages used to obscure the speaker’s view. “...and lo, a ripple/Shook whatever it was that lay there at bottom,/Blurred it, blotted it out”.) Both poets use onomatopoeic words which sound like the words they are describing. Frost uses the phrase, “one drop fell from a fern” and Thomas’ uses the phrase “small dark drops”. However the biggest similarity between the poems is that they both successfully communicate their feelings and the idea of searching to the reader.
Frost’s diction could be described as simplistic. Frost does not use large vocabulary words, but rather uses simpler everyday words that most people word use. By using a simpler vocabulary it allows the one to understand the meaning of the poem more clearly. The language used is a testament to Frost’s style of writing that he is known for. The language used is clear in this poem, such as “And both that morning equally lay / In leaves no step had trodden black. / Oh, I kept the first for another day!” (11-13). This type of diction helps the reader to analyze and interpret the poem more deeply. As the use of everyday language allows the poem to become more relatable and reach a more diverse audience. Diction is an important element of this poem as it adds to the poem’s
Frost first presents this idea by metaphorically discussing the spectacular abilities his daughter possesses but refuses to use. In the first quatrain, the poet suggests that his da...
Frost uses different stylistic devices throughout this poem. He is very descriptive using things such as imagery and personification to express his intentions in the poem. Frost uses imagery when he describes the setting of the place. He tells his readers the boy is standing outside by describing the visible mountain ranges and sets the time of day by saying that the sun is setting. Frost gives his readers an image of the boy feeling pain by using contradicting words such as "rueful" and "laugh" and by using powerful words such as "outcry". He also describes the blood coming from the boy's hand as life that is spilling. To show how the boy is dying, Frost gives his readers an image of the boy breathing shallowly by saying that he is puffing his lips out with his breath.
Frost's poem addresses the tragic transitory nature of living things; from the moment of conception, we are ever-striding towards death. Frost offers no remedy for the universal illness of aging; no solution to the fact that the glory of youth lasts only a moment. He merely commits to writing a deliberation of what he understands to be a reality, however tragic. The affliction of dissatisfaction that Frost suffers from cannot be treated in any tangible way. Frost's response is to refuse to silently buckle to the seemingly sadistic ways of the world. He attacks the culprit of aging the only way one can attack the enigmatic forces of the universe, by naming it as the tragedy that it is.
Frost uses quite a bit of personification throughout the poem to give the sky and ocean human like traits. The use of this literary device helps embody the meaning of the poem. The first use of personification is seen in the second and third line “Great waves looked over others coming in/ and thought of doing something to the shore”. This illustrates how the waves were smashing upon each other and getting larger and larger than the ones before. The personification of the waves in line three, suggest that the waves have an actual mind of their and shall do what they wish.
Frost created many poems with a correlation to death. A poem that easily displays this theme is “A Soldier” because it deals with the falling of a soldier at war. As Karen Hardison explains that “"A Soldier" is composed around an extended metaphor that is introduced in the first line: "He is that fallen lance ...." The soldier is compared to a fallen lance, a weapon, that lies on the ground” (1). Most of this poem involves a metaphor and imagery, which help the reader understand the theme. The fallen soldier lies dead on the ground and as time passes he begging to deteriorate yet he remain in the same location, just like the lance. Frost also condemns war and all of the consequences that occur because of it. Furthermore, another of Frost poem that containing the theme of death is “Nothing Gold Can Stay’, the poem indirectly references the theme of death. The poem states that everything eventually comes to an end and that not even gold can remain unchanged. The poem explains this theme with many metaphors about everything’s coming to an end. Freeman explains that “Even the poem's rhymes contribute to this sense of inevitability: Nature's gold we (or She) cannot hold; the flower lasts only an hour; the post flower leaf is like Eden's grief; the coming of day means that dawn's gold cannot stay”(2). The poem explains that everything has a natural cycle and that nothing last forever. When the poem states “nothing can
The first technique he uses is imagery. Frost does this at the beginning of the poem by talking about all of the beauty of nature that is around the boy. For example, he talks about the mountains in the distance that the boy does not see because he is too busy working. Another example and the most important use of imagery in this poem is the snarling and rattling of the saw. This is essential because it gives the readers a since of life to the saw. Lastly, the sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it gives the reader not only smell but also touch. All of these examples of imagery helps set the mood for the reader and puts them into the poem as an onlooker. Another technique that he uses is figurative language. The saw “snarled and rattled” is the use of figurative language and onomatopoeia because it represents the fate of the boy and the animal-like noise that accompanies the fate. Also, “Call it a day” is figurative language because this represents that if the boy was told to stop working earlier he might have never lost his and hand and would not have died. Frost also uses figurative language when he wrote “The life from spilling” meaning that literally the blood is gushing from his arm and so his life is quickly fading away because the more blood loss the faster arrival of death will come. Irony can also be found in “Out, out” when the boy laughs after his hand is cut off by the saw. This ironic because usually people do not laugh at these types of situations and have the complete opposite reaction which is usually panic. Frost also uses blank verse and no stanzas to convey emotion throughout the poem. He does this by showing the light heartedness of the setting at the beginning of the poem and is invested in the boy, but then as the poem continues he detaches himself from the emotional aspect of the situation the boy is in. For example, when is says, “Call it a day , I
...ed by many scholars as his best work. It is through his awareness of the merit, the definitive disconnectedness, of nature and man that is most viewable in this poem. Throughout this essay, Frosts messages of innocence, evil, and design by deific intrusion reverberate true to his own personal standpoint of man and nature. It is in this, that Frost expresses the ideology of a benign deity.
...to be. The characters of which Frost’s poems are about paint clear pictures of what he anticipates that the readers will get out of the poems. The characters could be nature, animals, or people that are used as symbols. The poems are always understandable, even if there is not a clear plot within the poem.
strengthens his viewpoint and regards Frost as ―one of the most intuitive poets [. . . h]e sees
The poem is showing how many people are questioning the way Frost conducts himself and his happiness. Everything in Frost’s poem up until the last stanza is dark and depressing. An example of this is, “Between the woods and frozen lake The darkest evening of the year.” (Frost, Lines 7 and 8). Frost is so consumed in the sadness, that its very dark around him. The last stanza is where Frost’s hopefulness is presented. The happiness is hinted towards, “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.” (Frost, Lines 13 to 16). He has promised himself to always keep moving forward and focusing on the goodness that life has to offer. Frost knows that he isn’t quite there yet, but he will not give up. He emphasizes his perseverance by reaping himself twice when he says “And miles to go before I sleep,” (Frost, Line 15). He had a break through and knows that he cannot give up. He is taking the little bit of happiness he knows to transform his life completely too where he is happy with every aspect of it. He is taking the hope that he does have and running with it, not looking back at the despair he feels that surrounds
Nature is an important theme in every frost poem. Nature usually symbolizes age or other things throughout Frost’s poems. In lines 5-10 it says, “Often you must have seen them loaded with ice a sunny winter morning after a rain. They click upon themselves as the breeze rises, and turn many-colored as the stir cracks and crazes their enamel. Soon the sun’s warmth makes them shed crystal shells.” This demonstrates how nature can sometimes symbolize something. Also in lines 29-33 it says, “ By riding them down over and over again until he took the stiffness out of them, and not one but hung limp, not one was left for him to conquer. He learned all there was to learn about not launching too soon.” In lines 44-48 it says, And life is too much like a pathless wood where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs broken across it, and one eye is weeping from a twig’s having lashed across it open. I’d like to get away from earth for a while.”
Frost was a rural Yankee whose writings reflect everyday experiences-his own experiences, but was one who saw metaphorical dimensions in the everyday things he encountered. These everyday encounters held ground as his subject manner, combined with the rural setting of New England nature, seasons, weather and times of day. Frost’s goal was to write his poetry in such a way that it would cover familiar ground, but in an unfamiliar way or uncommon in expression.
In the opening stanza, Frost describes coming to a point during a walk along a rural road that diverges into two separate, yet similar paths. The narrator finds that he ...
In this poem he now talks about water. The reader can see how powerful the water is when it eats away at the cliff. The shore was lucky by being backed by the cliff. Once again Frost is discussing water which goes back to stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening by stating the water because there is water in this poem with snow Frost keeps bringing up water and snow.