Loneliness in Robert

Frosts Poems

Zhang Yan



What is Modernism?



The Definition of Modernism
The term modernism is widely used to identify new and
distinctive features in the subjects, forms, concepts, and styles of
literature and the other arts in the early decades of the 20
th

century, but especially after World War(1914-18). The specific
features signified by modernism vary with the user, but many
critics agree that it involves a deliberate and radical break with
some of the traditional bases not only of Western art, but of
Western culture in general.

--M.H. Abrams& Geoffrey Galt Harpham, A Glossary of Literary
Terms, p.201-02

Robert Frosts poems represent the combination of tradition
and modernism.
He takes advantage of metrical forms and free verse and
makes some changes on the conventional rhythm.
Besides, with the description of humans rural life (such as
brook, woods, apple picking, fence mending, etc), he writes
in colloquial language to reflect modern themes.
Loneliness--one of his modern themes
Loneliness of humans inner world
Estrangement among people
Relationship between human and nature

Desert Places

Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast
In a field I looked into going past,
And the ground almost covered smooth in snow,
But a few weeds and stubble showing last.



The woods around it have it--it is theirs.
All animals are smothered in their lairs,
I am too absent-spirited to count;
The loneliness includes me unawares.



In the first stanza, the snowy night and
the desolate ground create a cold and
bleak atmosphere.
In the same atmosphere, there are
great differences between the nature
and I, a human being. The woods,
the ground, and the animals form a
whole natural world, while the human
feels alienated from the natural world.
Animals can hibernate together in
their lairs, while the human has to
taste the imponderable loneliness in
his own world.

And lonely as it is, that loneliness
Will be more lonely ere it will be less--
A blanker whiteness of benighted snow
With no expression, nothing to express.




They cannot scare me with their empty spaces
Between stars--on stars where no human race is.
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places.


The first two lines expresses humans strong
feeling of loneliness and the loneliness
seems hardly to alleviate but to deteriorate.
And the natural world in the snowy night
will not understand the humans inner
loneliness because it seems indifferent to the
human, according to the words with no
expression, nothing to express.
Here the stars is a metaphor of the
snowy empty spaces, where is desolate
and inhabited. In the last two lines, it
stands for the wasteland and home
means humans spiritual world; so the
most dreadful thing is that the loneliness
of ones inner landscape.
There are two worlds in this poem--one is theirs natural
world and the other is my lonely world. Through the
comparison between them, it strengthens humans feeling
of loneliness.
Mending Wall


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
line,23-31



In this poem, the wall signifies barriers
that impede humans communication and
mutual understanding. I dont like the
wall but the neighbor sticks to the fusty
view and doesnt think about whether it is
right or necessary to mend the wall. It also
reveals the alienated relationship among
people in the modern society, which is
reflected by mutual suspicion, indifference
and even hostility.

The sentence There where it is we do not
need the wall manifests its theme, i.e. to
dismantle the wall among people rather
than mend the wall.
Through describing the wall-mending activity in spring,
it tries to represent the invisible wall among people in
the modern society and expresses the wish to eliminate
the estrangement and isolated living state.
The Tuft of Flowers

I went to turn the grass once after one
Who mowed it in the dew before the sun.

The dew was gone that made his blade so keen
Before I came to view the leveled scene.

I looked for him behind an isle of trees;
I listened for his whetstone on the breeze.

But he had gone his way, the grass all mown,
And I must be, as he had beenalone,

As all must be, I said within my heart,
Whether they work together or apart.




I walks in the grassland and searches for
the mower, but he has already left. So I
am alone in the spacious land and have the
feeling of loneliness
But as I said it, swift there passed me by
On noiseless wing a wildered butterfly,

Seeking with memories grown dim oer night
Some resting flower of yesterdays delight.

And once I marked his flight go round and round,
As where some flower lay withering on the ground.

And then he flew as far as eye could see,
And then on tremulous wing came back to me.

I thought of questions that have no reply,
And would have turned to toss the grass to dry;

But he turned first, and led my eye to look
At a tall tuft of flowers beside a brook,

A leaping tongue of bloom the scythe had spared
Beside a reedy brook the scythe had bared.

The mower in the dew had loved them thus,
By leaving them to flourish, not for us,

Nor yet to draw one thought of ours to him.
But from sheer morning gladness at the brim.







A butterfly breaks the static scenery and
leads me to find a tuft of flowers, which
is reserved by the mower perhaps because
of his love for beauty. It manifests the
harmonious relationship between human
and nature

The butterfly and I had lit upon,
Nevertheless, a message from the dawn,

That made me hear the wakening birds around,
And hear his long scythe whispering to the ground,

And feel a spirit kindred to my own;
So that henceforth I worked no more alone;

But glad with him, I worked as with his aid,
And weary, sought at noon with him the shade;

And dreaming, as it were, held brotherly speech
With one whose thought I had not hoped to reach.

Men work together, I told him from the heart,
Whether they work together or apart.



The twitter of birds and the sound of
mowing seem incompatible but here are
harmonious, because the mower pays
attentions to the tuft of flowers and tries to
protect it, which is identical with my own
spirit.
The consensus between the mower and I
on this point alleviates the loneliness in
humans heart.


The loneliness among people is caused by the lack of mutual
understanding and communication. In the poem, when the
person finds the resonance with the mower, he says Men
work together.
Thank you!