Mending Wall

By Robert Frost

Robert Frost

• 1874 – 1963• Published his first poem in 1894• Lived in England from 1912-1915, published two

collections while living there, with the help of Ezra Pound

• 1920s, most celebrated poet in America• Won many awards including 4 Pulitzer prizes• Most frequent subject is New England landscape• Believed meter was essential to poetry at a time

when free verse was becoming the norm.

“Mending Wall”

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, 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:

“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.” 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 offence. Something there is that doesn't love a wall, That wants it down.” I could say “Elves” to him, 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."

Frost reads “Mending Wall”

• Listen to and watch the following clip which dubs a reading of “Mending Wall” over video from the Berlin Wallwww.youtube.com

The Poem’s Speaker

• A farmer, probably in New England

• Participates in the yearly ritual of mending the wall between his and his neighbor’s property

• Takes up a philosophic analysis of the purpose of the wall

The Poem’s Speaker

• Initiates the mending of the wall (“I let my neighbor know beyond the hill”),

• Yet recognizes that the wall is needed only in some areas, not in all (“My apple trees will never get across / And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.”)

The Attitude of the Poem’s Speaker toward the Poem’s Subject

• The poem has two main subjects:– The wall– The speaker’s neighbor

The Speaker’s Attitude Towards the Wall

• The speaker sees both the practicality of maintaining the wall in some places (for instance, “where there are cows”) and the impracticality of maintaining the wall where there is no physical need for it (apples and pines)

• He calls the task of mending the wall a game and remarks: We have to use a spell to make them balance:“Stay where you are until our backs are turned!”

The Attitude of the Speaker Towards his Neighbor

• The speaker’s playfulness suggests a fondness for his neighbor, or amusement at his neighbor’s simple-mindedness..

• In response to his neighbor’s repetition of “Good fences make good neighbors,” he considers a way to make his neighbor think more deeply, saying,

“Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder

If I could put a notion in his head: […]

I could say “Elves” to him,

But it's not elves exactly”

The Attitude of the Speaker Towards his Neighbor

The tone changes from playfulness to critical with the final image:

“Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top

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

The Poem’s Organization

• One long stanza

• Loose blank verse

• Sentence lengths vary

The Poem’s Organization

• The poem breaks down into __ sections:1. Lines 1-11: The speaker compares the two

types of gaps (man-made and caused by the weather) he finds in walls.

2. Lines 12-22: A description of the task of mending the wall

3. Lines 23-27: The speaker raises the question of why a wall is needed between the pines and apply orchard and the neighbor’s only answer is that it is.

The Poem’s Organization

4. Lines 28-38: The speaker becomes more persistent in questioning why they need the wall, but he doesn’t vocalize his question, because he knows his neighbor’s answer will not change

5. Lines 39-45: The speaker’s view of the neighbor shifts from amused to critical, as he sees the neighbor as a simpleton who will not question lessons his father has handed him.

Dominant Imagery

The Wall

• A rough stone wall of irregularly shaped stones, typical of New England landscape, formed with odd rocks from the fields. Made to be useful, not beautiful

The Farms

• We picture pastures with cows, an apple orchard, wood lots

Dominant Imagery

The “old-stone savage armed”

• Switch from more literal description to figurative– This simile transforms the poem from a

narrative of a farm ritual to a greater statement about humankind

– The farmer becomes representative of close-minded, provincial people who are unwilling to consider a new outlook

Diction and Syntax

• Simple, concrete language• Syntax is simple and conversational with the

exception of the first line, which is repeated in line 35:

“Something there is that doesn’t love a wall”

As opposed to the standard:

There is something that doesn’t love a wall

OR, more simply:

Something doesn’t love a wall

Syntax

“Something there is that doesn’t love a wall”

• Inverted subject/verb order gives the line an old-fashioned feel– The outdated manner of speech suggests a

sort of ancient wisdom (think Yoda), a lesson learned from nature which resists, and has always resisted, walls

Conclusions

“Mending Wall” is a poem that resists a literal reading. What begins as a simple poem about farm life becomes a criticism of all people whose perspectives are limited and who do not question the lessons the previous generation has handed down.

Conclusions

The poem’s title should not be overlooked:Before reading the poem, the grammar of

the title leads us to expect that the wall performs an action of “mending,”

perhaps the relationships between people, or the unity of whatever is kept inside the wall, but we learn that in fact by mending the wall, it is divisions that

are being mended.