I certainly agree that knowing the context helps understand a poem, but in my cynical moods I sometimes feel that *some* discussions of context are just lit majors showing off and playing useless games. Does knowing that the rhyme scheme resembles that in The Divine Comedy really matter? Couldn't someone how a complete appreciation of Frost's poem while remaining completely ignorant of that similarity? Again, everyone has a sense of the mythic quality of the fire/ice contrast, what is added by knowing the contrast appears in both the bible and norse mythology? I actually suspect that the answer is "nothing." (Also, isn't the first foot in line 1, "some say," a trochaic substitution?)
Couldn't agree more! I included most of this to try and show that settling on any one interpretation is probably a matter of a little knowledge begin a dangerous thing.
To take your points in order...
Yes they could appreciate the poem without thinking of Dante. I did for years, and I was hoping to show a little scepticism of that interpretation. Although I think once you have read a certain amount of poetry, that rhyme scheme is not exactly esoteric knowledge.
I included the mythology etc because people use to have much more contextual knowledge and I think narrow "clever" interpretations are a product our of times when we tend to lack such broad awareness.
I used to think the first foot was/could be trochaic, but Frost reads it iambic, quite firmly, in his own recordings, which I think makes sense with the whole poem.
I agree that paying strict attention to the text is the best way to enter upon a first reading of this seemingly little poem. Its symbolism and language is readily accessible. But it also helps to know this: Robert Frost is an ironist who is forever undercutting conventional views and imagery, who always means more than he says. That road in “The Road Not Taken” really was not taken, however much high school English teachers and the American public want to claim otherwise.
This poem begins with a simple truism about the way the world will end, stated in universal imagery: the seeming dichotomy of conflagration or ice age. By the end, it suggests fire and ice are essentially the same, equal in their power to destroy, be it the world or anyone in it.
The shift in the rhyme scheme in line 6 is purposeful: it links “hate,” normally associated with fire, with ice. “Hate” is not a third possibility: it is a synonym for “ice.” The poem suggests the two seemingly disparate responses are not so different as they seem.
Like an earlier New Englander, Nathaniel Hawthorne, the wannabe farmer Frost had an abiding distrust of the intellect when it is separated from the warmth of the flesh (see, e.g., “At Woodwards Gardens”). In that, he is solidly American. In his fiction, Hawthorne had described the Unpardonable Sin as a triumph of the intellect over the “heart” that produces “a want of love and reverence for the human soul.” His arch-villain is named Chillingsworth. Mark Twain, maybe the most American voice of all, made a living off scoffing at the those enamored of abstractions.
If you have time, let's read Frost's "The Road Not Taken." It is so often misunderstood.
I certainly agree that knowing the context helps understand a poem, but in my cynical moods I sometimes feel that *some* discussions of context are just lit majors showing off and playing useless games. Does knowing that the rhyme scheme resembles that in The Divine Comedy really matter? Couldn't someone how a complete appreciation of Frost's poem while remaining completely ignorant of that similarity? Again, everyone has a sense of the mythic quality of the fire/ice contrast, what is added by knowing the contrast appears in both the bible and norse mythology? I actually suspect that the answer is "nothing." (Also, isn't the first foot in line 1, "some say," a trochaic substitution?)
PS not intended as a personal attack (I myself was a lit major)
Couldn't agree more! I included most of this to try and show that settling on any one interpretation is probably a matter of a little knowledge begin a dangerous thing.
To take your points in order...
Yes they could appreciate the poem without thinking of Dante. I did for years, and I was hoping to show a little scepticism of that interpretation. Although I think once you have read a certain amount of poetry, that rhyme scheme is not exactly esoteric knowledge.
I included the mythology etc because people use to have much more contextual knowledge and I think narrow "clever" interpretations are a product our of times when we tend to lack such broad awareness.
I used to think the first foot was/could be trochaic, but Frost reads it iambic, quite firmly, in his own recordings, which I think makes sense with the whole poem.
I agree that paying strict attention to the text is the best way to enter upon a first reading of this seemingly little poem. Its symbolism and language is readily accessible. But it also helps to know this: Robert Frost is an ironist who is forever undercutting conventional views and imagery, who always means more than he says. That road in “The Road Not Taken” really was not taken, however much high school English teachers and the American public want to claim otherwise.
This poem begins with a simple truism about the way the world will end, stated in universal imagery: the seeming dichotomy of conflagration or ice age. By the end, it suggests fire and ice are essentially the same, equal in their power to destroy, be it the world or anyone in it.
The shift in the rhyme scheme in line 6 is purposeful: it links “hate,” normally associated with fire, with ice. “Hate” is not a third possibility: it is a synonym for “ice.” The poem suggests the two seemingly disparate responses are not so different as they seem.
Like an earlier New Englander, Nathaniel Hawthorne, the wannabe farmer Frost had an abiding distrust of the intellect when it is separated from the warmth of the flesh (see, e.g., “At Woodwards Gardens”). In that, he is solidly American. In his fiction, Hawthorne had described the Unpardonable Sin as a triumph of the intellect over the “heart” that produces “a want of love and reverence for the human soul.” His arch-villain is named Chillingsworth. Mark Twain, maybe the most American voice of all, made a living off scoffing at the those enamored of abstractions.
If you have time, let's read Frost's "The Road Not Taken." It is so often misunderstood.
Good points — I think we concur