M E N D I N G W A L L by Robert Frost

Q u i c k H i s t o r y Full Name: Robert Lee Frost

Life: March 26, 1874 – January 29, 1963

He is highly regarded for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloquial speech.

His work frequently employed settings from rural life in New England in the early twentieth century, using them to examine complex social and philosophical themes.

One of the most popular and critically respected American poets of his generation, Frost was honored frequently during his lifetime, receiving four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry.

Teacher, mill worker, newspaper reporter

Poems about country life and the beauty of landscape

Poet of deep thoughts with spiritual meanings

Q u i c k H i s t o r y Nationality – American

Lifespan - 1874 – 1963

Father - William Prescott Frost Jr.

Editor of the San Francisco Daily Evening

Post Education – Harvard

Career - Poet, essayist, educator, and critic

Born in San Francisco but lived in a farm in New England

Darthmouth University and later Harvard without a degree

Q u i c k H i s t o r y Four-time Pulitzer Prize winner

Author of Fire and Ice, Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening, The Road Not Taken and A Question

Poem ~ Mending Wall

Wrote just before World War One in England

Reminded him of his home in America

Relationships about anyone anywhere

Unites rural description with deep thinking

S T R U C T U R E Structural Description of the Poem

45 - line consists of one verse paragraph = like a wall of words

'I' = story with narrator; monologue; dramatic speech

Present tense = idea happens as the reader reads the poem

contractions, 'oh' = space filler, everyday speech, immediate emotion

Full stops in the middle of lines = common in everyday speaking, adds a natural feel   ex: 'He said it for himself. I see him there.’

C O N C E P T S setting = countryside in spring

border between two farms

writes about both a physical wall and the character of his neighbor

compares the neighbor to himself

What makes a good neighbor?

I N C E P T I O N a country scene where the walls need to be

repaired

a farmer’s pride in the wisdom passed down to him by his father.

stubbornness in a conservative farmer who blindly follows tradition

examines how humans deal with each other and live isolated lives.

T H E M E S barrier building

[Sisyphus ~ Greek Mythology; push a boulder up the hill only to have the boulder roll down again] (segregation in its broadest sense)

the doomed nature of this enterprise

Our persistence in this activity 

M E N D I N G W A L L Something there is that doesn't love a wall, 

That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it, 

And spills the upper boulders in the sun, 

And makes gaps even two can pass abreast. 

The work of hunters is another thing

I have come after them and made repair 

Where they have left not one stone on a stone, 

But they would have the rabbit out of hiding, 

To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean, 

M E N D I N G W A L L No one has seen them made or heard them made,

But at spring mending-time we find them there. 

I let my neighbor know beyond the hill; 

And on a day we meet to walk the line 

And set the wall between us once again. 

We keep the wall between us as we go.  

To each the boulders that have fallen to each. 

And some are loaves and some so nearly balls 

We have to use a spell to make them balance: 

M E N D I N G W A L L "Stay where you are until our backs are turned!" 

We wear our fingers rough with handling them.

Oh, just another kind of out-door game, 

One on a side. It comes to little more: 

There where it is we do not need the wall: 

He is all pine and I am apple orchard. 

My apple trees will never get across: 

And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him. 

He only says, "Good fences make good neighbors." 

M E N D I N G W A L L Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder 

If I could put a notion in his head: 

"Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it 

Where there are cows? But here there are no cows. 

Before I built a wall I'd ask to know 

What I was walling in or walling out, 

And to whom I was like to give offense. 

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,  

That wants it down." I could say "Elves" to him,

M E N D I N G W A L L But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather 

He said it for himself. I see him there 

Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top 

In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.

He moves in darkness as it seems to me, 

Not of woods only and the shade of trees. 

He will not go behind his father's saying, 

And he likes having thought of it so well 

He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors.”

L I N E S F O R T H O U G H T

a respectful distance between neighbours is the recipe for harmonious relationships (27/45)

a farmer’s pride in the wisdom passed down to him by his father (43)

portrays an unusual and dour country character (40)

co-operation between neighbours (12)

people need their own space (15)

explores the futility of a country custom (21)

L I N E S F O R T H O U G H T

suggests there are mysterious forces at work in nature (35-36)

different types of agriculture in the locality (24)

the way some people keep to themselves, no matter what (41)

the mental struggle between two neighbours who appear to co-operate on a physical task while they are very different in outlook (23)

R E F E R E N C E S http://studentacademichelp.blogspot.com/2

009/09/robert-frost-critical-analysis-of.html

http://peterrock12.wordpress.com/2011/01/26/mending-wall-robert-frost-on-relationships/

http://www.skoool.ie/examcentre_sc.asp?id=1252