Unharvested BY ROBERT FROST
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Transcript of Unharvested BY ROBERT FROST
M.N.SPIES
UNHARVESTEDBy
ROBERT FROSThttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M59lVUe_3r0
M.N.SPIES
Unharvested (Robert Frost)
A scent of ripeness from over a wall.And come to leave the routine road
And look for what had made me stall,There sure enough was an apple tree
That had eased itself of its summer load,And of all but its trivial foliage free,
Now breathed as light as a lady's fan.For there had been an apple fall
As complete as the apple had given man.The ground was one circle of solid red.
May something go always unharvested!May much stay out of our stated plan,
Apples or something forgotten and left,So smelling their sweetness would be no theft.
M.N.SPIES
IS THE POEM A SONNET?
• The form, supporting the poem’s thematic turn, suggests but does not completely match a traditional sonnet.
• The rhyme scheme is abacbcdade edff. • Most of the rhymes are strong, one-syllable
words, except for line 11; “unharvested” provides the poem’s only unstressed line ending. This line represents a turn in both meaning and form, leading into a separated stanza
M.N.SPIES
• Robert Frost is well-known for his use of natural imagery to convey wisdom about
life. • His poem "Unharvested" describes an apple tree whose fruit has been allowed to fall to the ground, a sight embraced
positively by the poem's speaker. • A simple, short poem, "Unharvested" uses
both rhyme and rhythm in unique ways.
M.N.SPIES
Fruit left on a tree is a waste, either someone had so much that they
didn't need the food and didn't want to
share it with others or someone was simply too lazy to harvest.
M.N.SPIES
A scent of ripeness from over a wall
And come to leave the routine road
And look for what had made me stall,
There sure enough was an apple tree.
M.N.SPIES
LINES 1-4• wall = a structure that divides (l. 1) (NATURE AND MODERN LIFE)
• “And” (l.2) and “And” (l.3)= the repetition empathise the effect the
amazing smell had on him (SHOCK AND SURPRISE= He broke routine (l.2)
and stalled(l.3).
• “There sure enough”: these words indicated that, from the smell, he
expected it, but to discover an unharvested apple tree was so abnormal
that he had to stop to see for himself, because it is not in the order of
the day to come across an unharvested apple tree: people are greedy,
and only unharvested fruit, starting to rot in the sun, could be smelled.
M.N.SPIES
M.N.SPIES
Cause and effect. The speaker is on a "routine road” and then stops with the smell of
"ripeness" -- presumably apples or something more. The speaker
smelled something amazing (cause), and this made him to disregard his normal routine to
investigate (effect)
M.N.SPIES
“That had eased itself of its summer load,
And of all but its trivial foliage free
Now breathed as light as a lady's fan
For there had been an apple fall”
M.N.SPIES
• “that had eased itself of its summer load”=fruit-drop (ripe fruit falling from trees)
• Trivial=having little value or importance• Foliage=the leaves of a plant or tree• “Now breathed”= personification• “as light as a lady’s fan” = simile• Seasons changed from summer to fall:
double meaning of “fall”
M.N.SPIES
• Note the play of language coinciding with the seasons = “summer” (L.5) as the season, “fall”
(L.8) as the verb. • The "ripeness“(l.1) is from the end of cycle: the
last load of a tree. The tree “eased itself” (l.5).• It is now “free”!
• Alliteration: “foliage free”, “fan”, “fall”• And note how the simile is to a "lady's fan"
which points at heat/summer/relief that “fall” has arrived. (Change has occurred)
M.N.SPIES
“As complete as the apple had given man”
M.N.SPIES
Here the speaker is solid in his lesson: •Note that the mention of man here can have implications to Genesis...•(the “fall” of man in Eden?)=fruit are ruined•(the apple doesn't “fall” far from the tree?)=We have become greedy/wasteful and future generations will continue in the same way.•... and the question can be what has the apple given man?
M.N.SPIES
“The ground was one circle of solid red”
M.N.SPIES
•Have you taken a walk, in an area you thought was purely natural and untouched, only to find evidence of previous habitation? •Where humans go, we leave our imprint. Very often that’s an unpleasant sight—candy wrappers or cigarette butts in an otherwise pristine landscape. •Nature is now leaving her mark, feeding the soil...•What is your connotation to “red”?
M.N.SPIES
•Some people hate the sight of deadfall/fruit-drop.. They see it
as sad, because the people are gone and the tree is producing
for no one. Or they see it as wasteful.
•Don’t see deadfall as sad or wasteful. The tree is doing what it
was designed to do and, even though the humans who planted
it are gone, the fruit is feeding innumerable birds and animals,
as well as re-feeding the very ground in which the tree grows.
And it provides an unanticipated sense of community to any
person who happens by, and recognizes the human hand
behind the tree’s existence on that spot.
M.N.SPIES
“May something go always unharvested!May much stay out of our started plan.”
M.N.SPIES
•“May” (l. 11) and “May” (l.12) sounds as if the speaker is praying...•Alliteration: may/may/muchSomething/stay/ stated/something/smelling/sweetness•Repetition:Something/something
M.N.SPIES
So, should we see it as deadfall, and a waste, or a lively, and
uplifting, lesson about being open to the unplanned and nature’s ability to catch us off guard?
Perhaps, our “stated plan” can also suggest that we plan and plan, but
our plans are not always in our own or in nature’s best interest.
M.N.SPIES
As humans, we plant and we harvest. We monitor the seasons and try to account for every little thing. We become difficult to surprise or
delight. The discovery of an unexpected deadfall, the sweetness
in the air and the colour on the ground, becomes our reminder that
nature still has the ability to outwit us and surprise us, and to outlast us.
M.N.SPIES
“Apples or something forgotten and left,”
(if we have no plans, if we allow nature and life to take its course)
“So smelling their sweetness would be no theft.”
(we can still enjoy life without sinning against ourselves and against nature)