This paper is about “After Apple Picking,” by Robert Frost, from the perspectives of Carl Phillips and Priscilla Paton. I would like to focus more on Carl Phillips discussion of “After Apple Picking” as his article has more focus on an actual argument on what “After Apple Picking” is about compared to Paton’s article which is more about how Frost went about writing his poems though his usage of metaphors and vague colloquialisms . Neither article was solely about “After Apple Picking,” but both had a few good observations and comments about the poem. Phillips main observation, and argument, was that “After Apple Picking” was about restlessness and ambition. “It’s a poem of restlessness, the restlessness of an ambition that spurs us towards greater achievement.” (Phillips 134). Restlessness is the main focus of Phillips’ article, it is the title of his article and in his opinion it is the reason why poems exist at all. “Poetry is the results of a generative restlessness of imagination… uncertainties become obsessions to be wrestled with, and with luck, the result is poetry…” (Phillips 132) Phillips, in summary of his article, claims uncertainties in life trouble our minds until the uncertainties become obsessions. We become restless in our quest to understand the uncertainties we face and by writing poems we can organize our thoughts and try to understand the things we do not. Phillips furthers his explains his claim by admitting “ I write poetry for the same reason that I read it, both as a way of being alive and as a way of trying to understand what it means—how it feels—to be alive.” (Phillips 133). Phillips continues his discussion about restlessness by saying restlessness is linked to ambition. “Unsatisfied with the given—the... ... middle of paper ... ...to discern what Frost means in his poems. His poems are vague, and force the reader to think about what they really mean, and helps them think about slippery issues and also about how they make people more free and wise? I thought it would be a good secondary source because it ties in well with uncertainty which in turn ties in well with restlessness. Phillips, Carl. "On Restlessness." New England Review (10531297) 30.1 (2009): 131-140. OmniFile Full Text Select (H.W. Wilson). Web. 4 Nov. 2013. I decided to focus more on Phillips’ article because he talks more about the poem itself, and has a stronger focus on a particular argument and theme of restlessness in my opinion compared to Paton and her analysis of how frost writes poems. I also enjoyed the article and thought it very thought provoking while being easier to read and comprehend compared to Paton’s article.
Frost, Robert. "Mending Wall." Responding to Literature. 2nd Ed. Ed. Judith A. Stanford. Mountain View, California: Mayfield Publishing Co. 1996. 1212-1213.
Selected Poems by Robert Frost, New York: Barnes and Noble, 2001 3.Graham, Judith, ed. Current Biography Yearbook Vol. 1962, New York: The H.W Wilson Company, 1993 4.Kesey, Ken. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, New York: Penguin Group, 1962 5.Weir, Peter. Dead Poets Society, 1989
Frost, Robert. “The Road Not Taken.” Literature and the Writing Process. Ed. Elizabeth McMahan et al. 8th ed. Upper Saddle River: Pearson, 2007. 695-696. Print.
Good poetry provides meaningful commentary. One indication of a poem’s success in this is the depth of thought the reader has as a result of the poem. The poems I anthologized may take different
Robert Frost’s intricate meanings are stated in such a way that the reader must dwell so much deeper into the poem than one does when one just reads the poem. The poet has a major theme in all of his poems and that theme is nature. Nature is something that Frost could always relate to. In nature Frost sees life, people, and situations in life. In the poem “After Apple-Picking”, he uses the situation of a man picking an apple as another lesson on life. Picking apples is tedious work where one must observe and pick the ripest apples...
“I look to poetry, with its built-in capacity for compressed and multivalent language, as a place where many senses can be made of the world. If this is true, and I’ve built a life around the notion that it is, poetry can get us closer to reality in all its fluidity and complexity.”
Weaving in and out of a dream-like state, the persona of Robert Frost’s, “After Apple-Picking,” explores the tendency of man to set impossible personal standards and the desire to give in to the, “long sleep,” (After, 536) when these standards aren’t met. Through deeply intricate structure Frost paints a portrait of a man on the brink of self proclaimed failure and the exhaustion he faces after spending so long fighting his inevitable defeat.
To conclude, Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” has given readers an incredible look into the journey and flow of life and death through the use of heavy metaphors, emphatic repetition, and a flowing rhyme scheme. Frost teaches us that stagnancy means not growing, that being stuck in one place, however enjoyable, isn’t conducive to self-improvement or productivity. This is the ultimate lesson in moving
When reading or listening to poetry, the main objective for me is to feel moved. Happiness, longing, sadness are some of the feelings that can be achieved just by listening to others’ words. It is within these words that creates another world, or separates us from our own. Words all have a certain kind of attachment to them, so if used properly an author can stimulate a reader beyond belief.
Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay, entitled " The Poet", takes the reader into a new awareness concerning an artistic writer. This essay created new insight about a writer's handicraft. Emerson shows us how a poet uses his gift to connect a non-artist of words to feelings that he is unable to express. A poet uses his God-given ingredient, the soul, to describe the things that engulf our lives. We, that do not have this talent, are given this connection by the writings in "The Poet".
After Apple Picking has become so familiar and revered that it is difficult to recognize its strangeness. But it would probably seem familiar in any case; it is a prime example of how even the very great poems of Frost can induce a kind of ease about their deeper intensities. It is a proud poem, as if its very life depends upon a refusal to justify itself by any open evidence of what it is up to. The apparent "truth" about the poem is that it is really concerned with the actualities of its announced subject. But is that "truth" even residually enough if, not thinking so, one takes the risk of burdening the poem with "more than the truth"? Brower has written meticulously about its rhythmic form, but he has not let himself feel the deeper pulsations in its metaphors. There are energies in the poem as well as a dream of potential experience that include but are passionately larger than that recorded in his otherwise useful observation that "From the opening lines, apparently matter-of-fact talk falls into curious chain-like sentences, rich in end-rhymes and echoes of many sorts" until "memories of waking fact and their sleepy distortions become impossible to tell apart" (The Poetry of Robert Frost, pp. 24, 25).
Frost, Robert. "After Apple-Picking." Perrine's Literature: Structure Sound & Sense. 11th ed. Belmont: Wadsworth, 2010. 720-21. Print.
The poem “After Apple Picking” by Robert Frost expresses the feelings of the narrator during and after the process of harvesting apples by showing the sustainability and ambition of human spirit. Frost’s poem is an accurate reflection of life and of human imperfection through the use of repetition, literal and figurative language and various symbols.
Richardson, Mark. The Ordeal of Robert Frost: The Poet and His Poetics. Urbana: University of Illinois, 1997. Print.
“After Apple Picking” is fraught with imagery. Frost uses visual, olfactory, kinesthetic, tactile, and auditory imagery throughout this piece. Because the poem is filled with a variety of images, the reader is able to imagine the experience of apple picking.