18 pages • 36 minutes read
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It is tempting, on first read, to find in Frost’s narrative a simple endorsement of friends, quaint and folksy as an old-school Pepperidge Farm commercial. After all, the speaker describes the conversation he is about to have as a “friendly visit” (Line 10), which is of course not the same thing as a visit between friends. The reader wants the two to be good friends. After all, the genre of so-called hospitality poems was a major expression of poetry in both Victorian England and in Gilded Age America, poems that celebrated the uncomplicated support and love between friends and that offered inspirational, uplifting reminders of the virtue of others.
But Frost is, well, too much Frost to allow such a theme to go unquestioned. The two characters in the poem are never given a context, never given backstories, indeed never even given genders or names. There is really no reliable textual evidence to define the level of their friendship or even who they are—Is this a good friend? An acquaintance? A neighbor? A relative? A stranger hailing him for directions? Their conversation begins just after the poem ends—so there is no way, at least textually, to define this relationship.
Frost creates the ambiguity to give the poem its widest possible thematic reach.
By Robert Frost
Acquainted with the Night
Acquainted with the Night
Robert Frost
After Apple-Picking
After Apple-Picking
Robert Frost
Birches
Birches
Robert Frost
Dust of Snow
Dust of Snow
Robert Frost
Fire and Ice
Fire and Ice
Robert Frost
Mending Wall
Mending Wall
Robert Frost
Nothing Gold Can Stay
Nothing Gold Can Stay
Robert Frost
October
October
Robert Frost
Once by the Pacific
Once by the Pacific
Robert Frost
Out, Out—
Out, Out—
Robert Frost
Putting in the Seed
Putting in the Seed
Robert Frost
Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening
Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening
Robert Frost
The Death of the Hired Man
The Death of the Hired Man
Robert Frost
The Gift Outright
The Gift Outright
Robert Frost
The Road Not Taken
The Road Not Taken
Robert Frost
West-Running Brook
West-Running Brook
Robert Frost