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The theme of loneliness in literature
History of american poetry
Desert places - robert frost analysis
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Recommended: The theme of loneliness in literature
Loneliness
Robert Frost is one of the most famous and influential poets in our nation's history. His simple style of writing and constant attention to nature make his poems unique. His poems have captivated thousands and have been analyzed time and time again. Many feel that his poems often times represent emptiness, loneliness, and despair. The poem "Desert Places" could certainly fall into these categories. Robert Frost was a very successful poet with a wife and loving family which begs the question, "Why would Robert Frost choose to write this poem at this period in his life?"
When attempting to answer this question one must first analyze the poem. "Desert Places" is a poem told by a third person observer who initially is focusing on a snowy field. In the third line Frost states, "And the ground almost covered smooth in snow." This starts to paint the image of an empty field being covered by more and more snow. Towards the end of the poem Frost makes reference to the stars. Space between stars is perhaps the biggest empty space we can begin to comprehend. "Desert Places" are demonstrated through the use of a snowy field and outer space. This is the obvious observation but the poem seems to be referring to much more. In line eight the poem Frost writes, "The Loneliness includes me unawares." Albert J. Von Fronk makes an interesting observation in saying, "The poet notes that he, too, is "absent-spirited"; he, too, is "included" in the loneliness." It is not just the animals and snowy field the speaker is accusing of being lonely but them self as well. The field seems to be a metaphor for the speaker's loneliness.
Frost demonstrates that what he feels inside is far most vast than even the stars. Edward Hirsch states it best when he wrote, "He knows a desolation inside that can match and even outdo any desolation that exists apart from him." Hirsch also notes how the very last line of the poem reveals the poem's title. When one reads the title of the poem this time around, one has a very different sense of the meaning. The very worst "Desert Places" are within the speaker and ultimately Robert Frost.
By 1936, astronomers had realized that the hazy balls they sometimes saw in their telescopes, which looked like stars obscured by gas, were actually galaxies (Hibbison).
Robert Frost’s poem Desert Places (1936) begins to stimulate the reader’s visual senses in the first stanza. The poem begins, “Snow falling
Robert Frost is often known as one of the greatest American poets of all time. Although he is sometimes remembered as hateful and mean spirited, his life was filled with highs and lows. These differentiating periods are represented throughout his poetry. Frost once said that “A poem begins in delight, and ends in wisdom.” As can be seen, this quote not only reflected his poetry, but his life. Though many years of his life were troubled by misfortune, Frost always seemed to persevere. Robert Frost was a talented, thoughtful poet whose life was filled with complexity and tragedy (brainyquote.com).
In the poem Desert Places by Robert Frost, the author describes the scenery in which he came across with. It was on a winter day, and the day was turning into a night. As he went across a field, he saw that the ground was almost all covered in snow. But then he noticed a few weeds and stubble on the ground.
“The Mountain” is a poem that has many metaphors and life lessons. Frost’s uses of dialogue and analogies makes the poem relatable for readers. Also his use of analogies allows the reader to interpret the poem from numerous perspectives. There is no proper path in life. “Do not go where the path may lead, instead go where there is no path and leave a trail.”
“Some say the world will end in fire,/ Some say in ice./ From what I’ve tasted of desire/ I hold with those who favor fire./ But if it had to perish twice,/ I think I know enough of hate/ To say that for destruction ice/ Is also great/ And would suffice.” This poem by Robert Frost is an excellent example of how even though people tend to think that Frost’s poems are just fun easy to read poems, a lot of them actually have dark themes to them. The poem “Fire and Ice” quoted above is a poem all about death and his prefered way to die/ destroy the world. So, although the average reader will quote Robert Frost as being a poet of positivity, yet many of his poems actually point out the dark side of human existence.
“Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words,” Robert Frost once said. As is made fairly obvious by this quote, Frost was an adroit thinker. It seems like he spent much of his life thinking about the little things. He often pondered the meaning and symbolism of things he found in nature. Many readers find Robert Frost’s poems to be straightforward, yet his work contains deeper layers of complexity beneath the surface. His poems are not what they seem to be at first glance. These deeper layers of complexity can be clearly seen in his poems “The Road Not Taken”, “Fire and Ice”, and “Birches”.
To begin with, the understanding of loneliness and desolation is identified through the use of the dark night in one of Frost’s most popular poems, “Acquainted With the Night.” Briefly, this poem revolves around a lonely speaker who is endlessly taking a walk beyond the city he or she lives in but is not able to locate anything or anyone that would comfort the speaker in his or her stage of depression. Loneliness and isolation are actually two of the crucial themes associated with this poem. The speaker is being “acquainted with the night,” because the night shares the same emotion that the speaker carries. They carry the same emotion because from personal references, the nighttime is often referred to as the time of reflection, sadness, loneliness, and indeed isolation. There is and evident choice of diction to depict isolation like, “the furthest city light,” (L3) as the speaker grows farther away from the city and loses light, which contributes more to the idea of the dark night. This also heightens the understanding of the speaker’s depression and isolation. “The s...
Stevens’ message reveals itself as the poem unravels: there is never one true understanding of a reality outside of one’s interpretation. The author suggests that one can’t help but transfer their own beliefs and ideas onto what they see; in this case, the “listener” is projecting an impression of misery onto the scenery that lies before him. For example, the first two stanzas are filled with decorative language that serves to describe the visual image of a winter landscape. Using phrases such as “crusted with snow” (3) instead of “covered” with snow provides an evocative illustration of the snow’s roughness. Other phrases such as “shagged with ice” (5) and “rough in the distant glitter/Of the January sun” (6-7) force the reader to experience the miserable portrayal of winter. These are not the descriptions of an observer who “beholds nothing that is not there” (14-15), but rather the objective, poetic appreciation for the snowy
The first person to ever observe the Milky Way was Greek philosopher, Democritus, who said the galaxy may consist of distant stars. In 1610, Galileo Galilei used a telescope to study the Milky Way and came to the conclusion that it was composed of billions and billions of faint stars. Then, in 1750, Thomas Wright c...
Robert Frost’s poetry is what is is because it uses rural terms, phrases, and themes to make his great poetry. Urbanity is what he knows, he grew up in it. Most successful poems that are great, are great because they are personal to the author. He or she can’t write poetry if it doesn 't have something to do with them. This is why Frost’s poetry is meaningful, he puts in things that he knows and then puts in hidden meanings that makes the poem worth reading. Urbanity has a lot of different meanings that can be applied to real life. Frost takes this into account when he is writing poetry. Robert Frost also writes his poems in a way that makes them meaningful to everyone, not just the people that live in urban. This is why Frost is such a good writer. Another reason Frost’s poetry is meaningful because he goes from simple to the complex. This helps his poetry flow together and no matter what he or she will get something out of it. The
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
By reading the two together, the reader can see how isolation can be caused by the imagery of setting, but can differ in their type of isolation. Together, Frost 's "Desert Places" (759) and Dickinson 's "I felt a Funeral, in my Brain" (726) illustrate one another as to the type of isolation that is taking effect in each poem; without one another, the importance as to the type of isolation would not be as significant to the reader. Since Frost 's narrator is shown to be physically separated from any type of interaction the reader can better understand how the narrator in Dickinson 's poem is emotionally isolated because he or she chooses to not interact with the people at the funeral. Also, since Dickinson 's narrator is surrounded by people, but chooses to not interact with them, which supports how Frost 's poem examples a physical isolation because even his narrator wanted to interact with someone there is an absence of people. Since each poem helps to bring out the specific type of isolation in the other poem, the reader can better understand how isolation can be caused by surrounding aspects or due to one 's own choices to be secluded from other surrounding people.
The vivid imagery, symbolism, metaphors make his poetry elusive, through these elements Frost is able to give nature its dark side. It is these elements that must be analyzed to discover the hidden dark meaning within Roberts Frost’s poems. Lines that seemed simple at first become more complex after the reader analyzes the poem using elements of poetry. For example, in the poem Mending Wall it appears that Robert frost is talking about two man arguing about a wall but at a closer look the reader realizes that the poem is about the things that separate man from man, which can be viewed as destructive. In After Apple Picking, the darkness of nature is present through the man wanting sleep, which is symbolic of death.
Lynen also states that “the struggle between the human imagination and the meaningless void man confronts is the subject of poem after poem” (6). On speaking of Frost’s nature poetry, Gerber says, “with equanimity Frost investigates the basic themes of man’s life: the individual’s relationships to himself, to his fellow man, to his world, and to his God” (117). All of these...
First, in the poem “Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening” there is a lot of nature expressed. Frost’s very first sentence already talks about the woods. Whose woods these are we don’t know. Also, in the poem he states that the narrator likes to sit and watch the snow. He is also a nature lover. In the second stanza Frost refers back to the woods. He must also like ice, because he brings ice and cold up a lot in his poems. Once again Frost brings ice up when he mentions flake and cold wind.