Through the use of numerous literary techniques in his poems, Robert Frost continues to engage audiences to the paradigms of everyday life. By writing about everyday life he was able to layer the key meaning of his poem with extended metaphors. Robert Frost’s poems are multi-faceted, which leads the reader with unending possibilities of analysis and ultimately possesses a greater connection to each poem. Most of his works are mostly autobiographical which includes two of his great poems Mending Wall and Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening alongside The Road Not Taken.
The Road Not Taken foregrounds the expansive idea of choices and decisions in life, through the extensive use of literary techniques. In life we come across forks in the road and we must determine which path to traverse. The path the persona is walking on is splitting into two directions which is evident through the use of metaphor in “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood” we can identify that this is not just the woods but also represents decisions in life. This line also establishes the setting of the poem since the speaker is referring to the woods as yellow, we can conclude that it is autumn. The metaphorical significance of this poem taking place in autumn is the speaker is making a choice in the fall of his life while he is beginning to grow older. The description of the road “And looked down one as far as I could to where it bent in the undergrowth” is a metaphor for the future as it shows the speaker foreshadowing and imagining where this path would lead him in life until it became unclear. After examining, he changed his mind and opt for a different future he chose to go down the path because it “wanted wear.” The rhyming scheme ABAAB it gives a sense...
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...y of his decisions and the commitments he has is pressuring him. Literary elements such as imagery, personification, denotative word meanings help the reader decipher the poem and examine the metaphorical meaning within the poem. For example stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening is about taking a sleigh ride through the woods but can metaphorical be about the threat of death in the changing seasons and the traditional expectations of duty.
The texts studied engage audiences to the paradigms of everyday life through the use of literary techniques showing a deeper metaphorical meaning of the poem, this is evident in all three poems stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening, Mending walls and The Road Not Taken. Robert Frost has creatively incorporated in metaphor leaving the audience to have different understanding of the poems which all symposia about everyday life.
Instructor Mendoza English 1B 22 July 2015. Robert Frost: Annotated Bibliography. Research Question: What are the common themes in Robert Frost's work? Robert Frost is a very successful poet from the 20th century, as well as a four time Pulitzer Prize winner.
Robert Frost wrote poetry about nature and it is that nature that he used as symbols for life lessons. Many critics have been fascinated by the way that Frost could get so many meanings of life out of nature itself. Frost‘s poetry appeals to almost everyone because of his uncanny ability to tie in with many things that one is too familiar with and for many, that is life in itself. “Perhaps that is what keeps Robert Frost so alive today, even people who have never set foot in Vermont, in writing about New England, Frost is writing about everywhere” (294).
Life and death are two things that we as humans must all face. The road from one to the other, from life to death, is a long and at times, both joyous and painful one. Robert Frost’s poems are a prime example of these times and trials. The poems I chose for this paper highlight them, and with Frost’s allegory, they present a sort of silver lining to the string of dark and dreary words he’s pieced together for these poems. The depressing tone to the poems “Acquainted with the Night”, “Nothing Gold Can Stay”, and “Stopping by the Woods on a Snowing Evening” could be attributed to the death of many of Frost’s family members, and how despite this he overcame it all, and at the end of his life, was a successful writer. These poems to not go into great explanation of the details of Frost’s life, however, I believe that they are representations of the things path that he’s walked, and how he viewed his actions and death in general.
...ert Frost 's poems, I now see his poems in a different perspective. I once thought as many do, that Frost 's poems where about nature but now I know that Frost 's true intention was of “taking life by the throat” (Frost Interview). While others consider him as a nature poet, Frost doesn’t believe himself as one and we can see his perspective in his poems but especially in “Mowing,” “After Apple-Picking,” and “The Road Not Taken.” Frost actually uses nature as an analogy to human life experiences or the troubles that people go through. He reflects these poems back to his personal life and the struggles he has been through also. After researching and reading about Robert Frost I have became very fond his work and enjoy looking deeper into his work trying to picture what he truly meant. While Frost uses a simple idea like nature, he relates it back to human nature.
“I took the one less traveled by, / And that has made all the difference” (Frost 19-20). Many famous lines like these have been written at different periods of Robert Frost’s life. Most of his poems can tie back to a specific time and place in Frost’s lifetime. Different poems convey various emotions as Frost writes about many personal struggles and successes that he encountered in his lifetime. Robert Frost portrays his childhood, marriage, and adulthood through his various poems, like “A Peck of Gold,” “Birches,” ”The Thatch,” and “The Birds Do Thus.”
“Mending Wall” by Robert Frost is a poem in which the characteristics of vocabulary, rhythm and other aspects of poetic technique combine in a fashion that articulates, in detail, the experience and the opposing convictions that the poem describes and discusses. The ordinariness of the rural activity is presented in specific description, and as so often is found in Frost’s poems, the unprepossessing undertaking has much larger implications. Yet his consideration of these does not disturb the qualities of accessible language and technique, which give the poem its unique flavor and persuasiveness. The poem works on two levels of realism and metaphor, with a balance as poised as the act of mending the all itself.
Exploiting symbolism is used by containing objects in the poem that represent an article of something relevant in the reader’s life; therefore, assisting in the presentation of the theme. The primarily symbolized object in this poem is the fork in the road, which is the basis of the theme. “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, /And sorry I could not travel both / And be one traveler, long I stood / And looked down one as far as I could / To where it bent in the undergrowth” (Frost.
Above all, 'The Road Not Taken'; can truly be interpreted through much symbolism as a clear-sighted representation of two fair choices. The two roads in the poem, although, 'diverging,'; lead in different directions. At the beginning they appear to be somewhat similar, but is apparent that miles away they will grow farther and farther away from each other. Similar to many choices faced in life. It is impossible to foresee the consequences of most major decisions we make and it is often necessary to make these decisions based on a little more than examining which choice 'wanted wear.'; In
Poetry is a diverse and rich form of literature that allows one to openly express or leave underlying messages about any topic the author chooses. Poets have a variety of tools that act as multipliers, increasing the depth of the message the poet is expressing. Imagery and setting are often used most freely as the two have unlimited potential. Robert Frost capitalizes on that potential and is considered to be the one of the greatest American poets of all time. Frost implores the utilization of isolation and setting to give the reader a sense of personalized immersion. Frost’s use of setting in particular is most lucidly illustrated in his iconic works: “The Road not Taken”, “To E.T.” and “Stopping by woods on a Snowy Evening.”
The main theme of the poem that Frost attempts to convey is how important the decisions that one makes can be, and how they affect one’s future. In lines 2-3, he expresses the emotions of doubt and confusion by saying, “And sorry I could not travel/ And be one traveler, long I stood”, which explains how the speaker contemplated their decision of which road to take. In the closing, line 20 of the poem further reestablishes the theme when it states, “that has made all the difference”, meaning that making the decision of which road to take for themselves is the important key for a successful future. Frost helps to express this theme by using symbolism to portray a road as one’s journey of life. Using symbolism, Frost suggests that the speaker of this poem is taking the harder of the two roads presented before them, because the road the speaker chooses, “leaves no step had trodden black” (12...
The everyday objects present in his poems provide the reader an alternative perspective of the world. Robert Frost uses all the elements of poetry to describe the darker side of nature. After analyzing the Poem Mending Wall and After Apple Picking it is clear that nature plays a dark and destructive role for Robert Frost. This dark side of Frost’s poetry could have been inspired from the hard life he lived.
Robert Frost is popular because of his ability to capture imagination and consciousness in his poetry (Michael). There are plenty of poems Frost wrote that express this, such as: Range-Finding, A Cliff Dwelling, and The Road Not Taken. The Road Not Taken, is considered one of his most symbolic poems. The two pathways in the yell...
"Don't ever take a fence down, until you know why it was put up"- a quote from Robert Lee Frost, a well-known American and English poet. Following the death of his father he faced many challenges, including failing to finish college and many unsuccessful jobs. Shadowing his father and mother, he began a career in poetry. With his literary career failing, he and his family moved to England and then back to America a few years later. His success in America began in 1915 when his collection of poems became a sensation. Writing over one-hundred poems and winning countless awards, Frost became a sensation, even speaking in inaugural speeches. He died at the age of eighty-eight. Frost’s most recurring theme was elusiveness. He wrote about the struggles of nature and overall life, using very vivid imagery, making the reader dig deeper into his poems to find the true meaning of each. One of “Frost’s most famous poems, “The Road Not Taken,” has been criticized many times, even one woman calling it "the best example in all of American poetry of a wolf in sheep's clothing.” Overall, Robert Frost was one of the most well-known poets in American history, and his main theme, elusiveness, caused for many varied interpretations and critiques, most of them extraordinary.
This poem is one of many written by Frost in 1916 and it is commonly used in high school writing classes. It has been written about frequently and often analyzed because of the connection people feel to the poem for the reason that everyone has to make life choices. The reading of the poem touches a wide variety of readers because each one can identify with the writers predicament of having to make a choice, with two different options, as in the poem which road to take either the well-traveled path or as he decides the less journeyed. As an outcome of this choice, the writer states, that his life was profoundly different than it would have been had he taken the other road. The other road the more traveled and seemingly the safer of the two makes the reader seem more fearless to except what the unknown has to offer thus making his own way in the world. In reading further the roads are almost the same both being beautiful and equally passable. The writer tries to explain why things happened the way they did and that is a significant moment in his life. One might pick the road that gets them to w...
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.