I love Robert Frost's poetry. My two favorite poems are Mending Wall and Birches. These two poems use Frost's familiar rural images. However, when I read them and understand them, I see that he is not talking about a benevolent and kind nature. He sees the harshness of nature and what it means in people's lives.
In Acquainted with the Night Frost goes to the city, and shows his lonely, dark, shuttered side. His images are stark and make me feel lonely and somewhat afraid. I feel depression and angst in this poem. He looks for answers and finds none, not even wrong and right. In fact, most of his poems leave us with ambiguity. He offers no solutions or answers, he just offers questions, and he never is particularly upbeat or optimistic.
He looks at life realistically, but cloaks it in his powerful images, so I don't have to accept a big bite all at once. I can take him a bite at a time, which is enough.
This poem was beautiful! I liked its simplicity in wording and how that contrasted with the deeper meaning of those words. In this poem the word night has many meanings. None of them really having anything to do with what is the general meaning. In the first few lines Frost seems to be talking about the feelings of darkness rather than the night. This is when he sees the sadness and the watchman yet turns away. A few lines later he is almost hopeful when he hears the voice call out, only to realize that they were not calling him. I agree that the images are stark, and lonely. For such a short poem and in so few words Frost makes me feel the sadness and loneliness as if it was my own.
ReplyDeleteI did enjoy this poem also. However, I was stuck at the end trying to decide what the meaning of the poem was about rather than the feelings it brought up. I did conclude in my reflection that I thought the poem was about a homeless man. I imagined a homeless man wandering the city bored and lonely. The poem does leave the meaning wide out there for you to interpret many different ways. I can see why people like this poet.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed this poem. You really get the sense of loneliness and frustration of the speaker as he describes a life of solitude. It is easy to identify with the speaker considering that we have all experienced the lonesome feeling of facing issues on our own. It definitely makes me grateful for having family and friends to lean on for advice and support.
ReplyDeleteWhat a sad, sad, lone poem this was. I just felt utterly alone and lonely. The line that said "I have walked out in the rain-and back in the rain" made me feel really confused, as if I didn't know if I was coming or going. Frost did a great job of making pictures of dark and gloom. I think he accomplished what he set out to do, and that is portray sadness and loniness.
ReplyDeleteThis poem really struck me to be a very lonely one. The person in the story was almost walking in the footsteps of his life. The author could have been referring to the bad and worst of times in his life, "I walked out in rain and back in rain". The walks also seems to be very frightful at times but it's a walk that is a completed one. The poem dives deeper into expression of being alone, "But not to call me back or say good-bye". This is the saddest part of the poem to me. People are very relationship oriented and to be alone and to die alone is the worst. At the end of the poem I get the indication that even though this person has had a hard life they are exactly where they are suppose to be. Acquainted with the night... Great finished!
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