Three Main Groups

Lyric My November Guest Mowing A Late Walk

Narrative Out, Out Love and a Question Brown's Descent
Dramatic Death of the Hired Man Home Burial The Witch of Coos

Structure
Stanzaic Form
Couplet The Secret Sits The Tuft of Flowers A Minor Bird
Tercet (Triplets) Acquainted with the Night A Star in a Stoneboat Provide, Provide
Quatrain Devotion Stopping by Woods Good Hours
Quintet My November Guest The Road Not Taken Bond and Free
.Sestet Spring Pools The Freedom of the Moon Closed for Good
Octave Nothing Gold Can Stay Two Tramps in Mud Time Love and a Question
Fixed Form
Sonnet Design Mowing The Silken Tent
Blank Verse Mending Wall Birches Out, Out
Continuous Form Storm Fear After Apple-Picking Mending Wall

Form
Frost's quote, "I'd sooner write free verse as play tennis with the net down," applies as well to form as it does to meter.
For Frost, both form and meter were fundamental in the crafting of poetry. It's important to know how much it meant to
him. Frost wrote,
"There is at least so much good in the world that it admits of form and the making of form. And not only admits of it,
but calls for it. We people are thrust forward out of the suggestions of form in the rolling clouds of nature. In us nature
reaches its height of form and through us exceeds itself. When in doubt there is always form for us to go on with.
Anyone who has achieved the least form to be sure of it, is lost to the larger excruciations. I think it must stroke faith the
right way. The artist, the poet, might be expected to be the most aware of such assurance. But it is really everybody's
sanity to feel it and live by it. Fortunately, too, no forms are more engrossing, gratifying, comforting, staying than those
lesser ones we throw off, like vortex rings of smoke, all our individual enterprise and needing nobody's cooperation; a
basket, a letter, a garden, a room, an idea, a picture, a poem. For these we haven't to get a team together before we can
play."

Form falls into general categories which overlay the terms of structure. Poems are said to be lyric, narrative or
dramatic. Thus a poem can be described as a lyric written in couplets, quatrains or sestets (2, 4 or 6 line stanzas). There
can be a narrative poem written in blank verse, continuous structure (Birches). There can even be a dramatic narrative
which has lyric overtones (Mending Wall). Frost wrote in all these forms.

Lyric poetry is usually a short poem expressing personal thoughts and feelings. It is meditative. It is spoken by a single
speaker about his feelings for a person, object, event or idea. This type poetry was originally sung accompanied by a
lyre. Frost is primarily a lyric poet.
Examples:
My November Guest is a lyric poem written in 5 line stanzas (quintets). The meter is tetrameter, with a rhyming
pattern abaab
Mowing is a lyrical sonnet with a very irregular rhyming pattern.
A Late Walk is a ballad-style lyric (tetrameter alternating with trimeter) rhyming the 2nd and 4th lines in
quatrains. The indentation sets off the rhymes.

Narrative poetry tells a story revealed by a progression unique to itself. There is a rising action, a climax and a falling
action.
Examples:
Out, Out is a narrative in blank verse written in a continuous structure. (No stanzas, no breaks)
Love and a Question is a ballad (see below) written in 8 line stanzas (octaves)
Brown's Descent is a humorous narrative rhyming the 2nd and 4th lines in quatrains. The indentation sets off the
rhymes. The meter is tetrameter.
Note: The ballad is a narrative poem with stanzas of two or four lines and sometimes, a refrain. They are written
in straight-forward verse, seldom with detail, but always with graphic simplicity and force. Ballads are generally
written in ballad meter, i.e., alternating lines of iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter, with the last words of the
second and fourth lines rhyming. Other Ballads: A Line Storm Song, Wind and Window Flower.

Dramatic poems have speaking characters as in a little play. There can be monologues (1 person speaking), dialogs (2
or more people speaking) and narratives. The Death of the Hired Man is often called a dramatic narrative. Frost usually
writes these in blank verse. The speeches follow no stanzaic pattern, but the lines are metrical. Frost's second book
North of Boston is most famous for his dramatic pieces. He patterned many of them after Virgil's Eclogues. Frost's
dramatic poems comprise some of his best praised work.
To give Form in poetry is to use organization, shapeliness, and fitness to the content of the poem. Form is structure.
Frost believed that common verse forms are themselves metaphoric. A blank verse line lays down a direct line of image,
thought or sentiment. The couplet contrasts, compares or makes parallel figures, ideas and feelings. The quatrain
combines two couplets alternatively. The sonnet gives a little drama in several scenes to a lyric sentiment. There are
three types of form in terms of how the poem is laid out on paper:

Stanzaic, Fixed and Continuous. Overlapping these forms, poetry falls into 3 main groups: Lyric, Narrative and
Dramatic, as noted above. Frost wrote in all of these forms. (Go back to Table)
Stanzaic: A division of a poem made by arranging the lines into units separated by a space, usually of a
corresponding number of lines and a recurrent pattern of meter and rhyme. A poem with such divisions is
described as having a stanzaic form. The division of lines can be:
Couplets - 2 lines - Couplets must rhyme. Frost was very fond of them.
Tercets - 3 lines - Used rarely
Quatrains - 4 lines - Most commonly used by Frost
Quintets - 5 lines - Used occasionally
Sestets - 6 lines - Used occasionally
Septet - 7 lines - Never used
Octave - 8 lines - Used occasionally

Definition of Quatrain Poetry Type

A Quatrain Poetry Type or literary term is a stanza or poem of four lines. Lines 2 and
4 must rhyme. Lines 1 and 3 may or may not rhyme. Rhyming lines should have a
similar number of syllables

Fixed: A form of poetry in which the length and pattern are prescribed by previous usage or tradition, such as a
sonnet. In English poetry, the sonnet is the primary fixed form. The limerick is also a fixed form. Frost never
published this limerick he wrote just for fun:
Mary had a little lamb
His name was Jesus Christ
And God, not Joseph, was the ram
But Joseph took it nice.
The Sonnet. A fixed form consisting of 14 lines of five-foot iambic pentameter having a rhyme scheme.
In the English (or Shakespearean sonnet), the 14 lines are grouped in three quatrains (with six alternating
rhymes) followed by a detached rhymed couplet which is usually epigrammatic. (Go back to Table)
In the Italian (or Petrarchan sonnet), the 14 lines are divided into an octave of two rhyme-sounds
arranged abba abba and a sestet of two additional rhyme sounds which may be variously arranged.
The octave presents a situation and the sestet a comment, or
the octave an idea and the sestet an example, or
the octave a question and the sestet an answer.
Robert Frost wrote many sonnets, however most of them could be called irregular, not exactly
following the rules of either form. Frost followed the rules and broke the rules. He demonstrated
technical skill and freedom of his material. His sonnets include Into My Own, A Dream Pang, The
Vantage Point, Acceptance, Once by the Pacific, Meeting and Passing, Putting in the Seed, The Oven
Bird, Range-Finding, Acquainted with the Night, A Soldier, The Investment, The Birthplace, The
Master Speed.

Blank Verse. Unrhymed iambic pentameter. Frost wrote quite a bit of blank verse, which is not the same as
free verse (tennis with the net down). Blank verse is metrical (Review Meter). Using Birches as an example,
we can see how structured it is:

- ! - ! - ! - ! - !
When I / see birch / es bend / to left / and right (5 feet, or 5 accents all iambic)

- ! - ! - ! - ! - !
A - gainst / the lines / of straight- / er dark- / er trees (ditto)

- ! - ! - ! - ! - !
I like / to think / some boy's / been swing - / ing them (ditto)

- ! - ! - ! - ! - !
But swing - / ing does- / n't bend / them down / to stay (ditto)

Generally Frost lays in his first lines in the meter and form he wants to follow. His
variations on that style keep the reader guessing and off guard. By combining tone with
meter, the poem becomes easy and conversational. But regardless how tight his poetics are,
Frost's intention is to "trip you into the boundless." (Table)
 Continuous Form The lines of the poem are written without formal groupings. The only breaks are contained
by the meaning, which may be a series of analogies.
Examples:
Storm Fear - The loose iambic pentameter which establishes itself in the first four lines as the metrical
pattern, is intermittently broken into nervous and jerky fragments, as though the speaker interrupted
himself to hold his breath, to listen. And the structural nervousness heightens the tension of meaning.
After Apple-Picking - There are irregular rhymes and although the predominant meter is iambic
pentameter, there are quite a few irregular lines.
Mending Wall - Here the continuous pattern of the poem mimics the wall - all in one piece. The metrics
also mimic the wall with the accents coinciding with the meaning.

The poetry of Robert Frost comes mostly from his life experiences and the influence of living in New England.
His family moved there when more people were moving out than in, and as he was growing up, he lived through a sort
of regeneration of nature as it came back to fill in what had been domesticated land. Frost's family wasn't exactly well-
off, and he learned certain values and ideals by living in this New England, not quite the land of opportunity. When he
grew up, Frost raised his family there, and also farmed for a while. He had no sure career besides the typical New
England farming until he started to bring his New England values into his poetry and publish it. His first two volumes of
poetry are especially expressive of his life in New England, but throughout all his poetry, it is evident that Robert Frost's
New England background influenced the style of his writing, the themes in his poetry, and the topics of his poems.
The style of his writing is very simplistic, using colloquial diction. Frost wrote dialogue in his poetry using
natural speech patterns, with aspects in it recognizable as New England in their form and phrasing. His poetry was also
very natural in its wording, using words that most people can understand and that make his poetry seem practical and
ordinary. There is nothing complicated about the structure of Frost's poems; they seem to be mere translations of
everyday events into poetry. Instead of using elaborate phrasings in the lines, his poems speak in a natural, easily
comprehensible manner. This simple way of writing is an effect of living in New England, where Frost lived a relatively
simple life. That way of life is brought into his poetry in his laconic speech, which allowed him to convey more
elaborate ideas and thoughts without stating them outrightly.
The subjects of Frost's writing are also simple, a reflection of his life in New England. He wrote of woods,
birds, and other parts of a simple life in New England. His works, however, are not only applicable to New England
because they can be seen as universal interpretations of common situations. Many people can relate to Frost's subjects
because of their overall simplicity; the situations Frost portrays could essentially happen anywhere. However, the
inspiration for these subjects came to Frost from living in New England, and the reactions of the people in his poems are
often characteristic of those who live in New England.
Frost's writing, simple though it may seem, is also formal in its verse. Frost was very strict in following the
meter of his poems, as well as the general connections in content. To Frost, form was essential, and he balanced his
rhymes in a controlled manner, the same way he controlled his portrayal of ideas. His rhyme scheme is often so blatant
that it seems he must have carefully planned it out to make each line work with every other; one is able to discern the
pattern of a poem after having read some because of the adherence to form.
The tone of Frost's writing is also very formal; he emphasizes, in his own words, speech rhythms and the "sound of
sense". His poems often reflect self-restraint, with careful attention to reproduce the diction and rhythms of actual
speech of New England farmers.
There is a certain artistry to Frost's style as well, stemming from the effect of New England on Frost's sense of
poetry. The language is often lyrical, blending thought and emotion with symbolic imagery in his New England speech.
The greatness of Frost's poetry lies in his artistry in language and depiction of New England life, using delicately formed
phrases of description. The artistry in Frost's poetry goes beyond the simple ways of life it portrays to bring them out
with a certain mark of individuality.
Frost brings out contrasting images regarding nature in New England, from the simple depiction of nature to the
intrusion of man-made objects. The New England that Frost depicts is the regrowth of nature over the land after having
been taken over by man; there is an image of nature reclaiming its property and rejecting the intrusions of man. Frost did
not address the subject of war very much in his poetry, but he felt its effects and considered it a sin against nature,
ruining its beautiful landscapes. More often, Frost considered the effects of civilization and its urbanization on nature. In
"Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening," Frost presents many contrasting images, a few of which occur in the
second stanza:
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year
The conflicting images of nature and man-made objects consist of the woods and frozen lake against the
expected farmhouse. The horse is used to man-made facilities and can't understand why they're stopping someplace
where there's just pure, unbounded nature. The woods in which they pause are owned by someone who lives in the
village closeby, and who apparently doesn't care for nature. The narrator knows he probably won't be seen because the
owner will not venture out into his woods unless he has some practical purpose there; the owner can't appreciate nature
for itself as there is a man-made fence between man and nature.
The natural beauty of New England is also incomprehensible to mankind; there is a natural barrier between
man and nature that prevents mankind from penetrating the mysteries of the natural world. In Frost's "Stopping by the
Woods on a Snowy Evening," he mentions that "the woods are lovely, dark and deep," which shows that he believed
there is a connection between natural beauty and mystery. The narrator was not able to see into the woods very far, even
though there was lots of white snow on the ground, because the woods were dark, which suggests a certain
incomprehensibility in nature.
These New England settings were carried further in Frost's use of the countryside and rural New England. Frost wrote of
New England's valleys, pastures, wildlife, and farms, conveying a sense of natural beauty in New England. However,
there was also a certain bleakness, which Frost showed in the more pathetic characters in his poetry. Frost's background
of social and economic uncertainty led him to show this side of New England as well, which gave his work a sense of
transience and finality.
Frost's background is also brought out in his attention to responsibility. In several of his poems, he brings out
the idea of obligations and duties to be fulfilled. This conveys a sense of economic need as well, which Frost
experienced early on in life. He was impressed by the fact that after hardships of this sort, the people of New England
still had some life in them, and this can be seen in his poetry as well.
Frost dealt with the topic of choices, that having been something he learned a lot about growing up in New
England. In Frost's New England, people were very affected by life decisions, where they had to make hard decisions
and deal with whatever consequences their choices might bring. He called this "Trial by Existence" in one of his poems,
emphasizing the idea that nothing happens to us except what we choose. Frost's characters must consider their choices
carefully and become aware that their course of action must fit with their life and that any decision could have life-
altering affects. They often do not realize, though, just how all-encompassing their choices are and at times only see the
immediate effects of any decision they might make. Frost portrays his belief that choices have to be made, and that they
are irrevocable and come with irrevocable consequences. His characters may be aware of the implications of choosing
badly, but they know that the choice cannot be avoided, so when all is said and done, the fact that a choice has been
made "has made all the difference".
Frost also learned much about human nature through living in New England, especially his own nature. He saw
man's condemnable qualities and sometimes wrote poems to sarcastically point out these human fallacies. He observed
how "man runs roughshod over nature" by building over it and completely rejecting it, and Frost often rejected these
qualities in his poems. He had a deep-rooted respect for nature and held that man is essentially a stranger in the world
and can never adapt to nature. He hoped for a sort of truce between man and nature with mutual respect of boundaries
and principles.
In New England, Frost's hope was realized for the most part, as nature had free reign over inhabited land, showing a
civilization reformed in regards to nature. In "Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening," this is taken to another
extreme when the horse seems to assume the human quality of impatience, giving his harness bells a shake, and the
narrator wants to pause and appreciate nature for a moment. Often in Frost's poetry, man finds refreshment in a brief
submission to the isolation of nature, something Frost experienced himself when living in New England.
Thus we can see that New England life played a major role in Frost's writing, from his poetry's actual structure
to the content and social commentary it contained. There is a certain simplicity in the way Frost writes, brought out in
his subjects and his wording, as well as a contrasting formality in the way he structures the lines and the words within
the lines of his poems. Frost's tone can range from steady and constrained to flowing and artistic, which brings a sort of
controlled lyrical elegance to his poetry. This is especially seen in Frost's portrayal of nature, which he sees as
enchanting and comfortably isolating. The intrusion of man-made objects into Frost's New England upsets him, and he
comments in his poetry on the unappreciativeness of man. According to Frost, man should accept nature and its
mysteries, respecting the beauty of the natural world. Frost's New England surroundings influenced these ideas
especially because of the rural beauty he grew up in, but also because of the endurance of people who could not afford to
reject nature, as it made up the very livelihood of New England farmers. Frost's experience in this aspect taught him
about responsibility, and his lessons area apparent in his poems dealing with duties that must be upheld for financial and
moral reasons. Choices and human nature both were a part of Frost's life in New England, where he learned the value of
good decisions and the importance of the actual making of choices. Frost's New England is brought out in his poetry
through all of these things, and it is hard not to see the deep-rooted influence that his life there had on Frost's poetry.

Robert Frost's poem "A Soldier" is a fascinating combination of the English and Italian sonnet. It offers an
insightful testimonial on the meaning of a soldier's duty.
The rime scheme of Frost’s “A Soldier” is a variation on the English sonnet, ABBA CDDC EFFE GG; it can be
sectioned into three stanzas and a rimed couplet, as the English sonnet is, or it can be divided into the octave and sestet,
as is the Italian sonnet.
The function of the octave presents a claim about the subject, while the sestet offers further explanation; therefore, the
function of the Italian octave and sestet works in the sonnet. Yet if sectioned into quatrains and couplet, the sections
function equally as smoothly.
Octave: First and Second Quatrains
The speaker begins his drama by likening metaphorically the “fallen soldier” to a lance that has been “hurled.”
The lance is lying on the ground, and no one retrieves it. It, therefore, is allowed to gather “dew” and “rust.” But
still the lance points to a target. The dead soldier, although gone, still represents the goal for which he died, as the
lance still points to some direction as it lies still on the dirt.
The speaker then draws the reader’s attention to those for whom the soldier has died, and claims, “If we who
sight along it round the world, / See nothing worthy to have been its mark.” The speaker assumes that if is
difficult for many citizens to understand the purpose of the death of soldier, so he is going to explain why that
difficulty exists: “It is because like men we look too near, / Forgetting that as fitted to the sphere, / Our missiles
always make too short an arc.”
Many ordinary citizens cannot see the bigger picture in the cosmic scheme of things: they “look too near.” Using
the same dramatic metaphor of the lance, the speaker evaluates the average citizen’s ability to grasp the life and
 death issues that nations have to face. They throw their lances, and they can never throw them far enough. They
look at the world through stunted lenses.
Sestet: Third Quatrain and Couplet
Continuing the lance hurling metaphor, the speaker dramatizes the shortness of imagination and vision by
asserting, “They fall, they rip the grass, they intersect / The curve of earth, and striking, break their own.” The
paltry imagination and lack of foresight make smug citizens think only in terms of selfish, immediate aims.
They fail to realize that soldiers do their work out of a sense of duty and mission just as others make sacrifices in
their professions. Soldiers are professionals, not merely pawns in a chess game of politicians, as the ignorant are
fond of portraying them.
In the couplet, the speaker makes an insightful observation that as the soul of the dying soldier leaves the body, it
soars beyond any “target ever showed or shone.” The soul of the soldier who dies in service to his country is like
a hurled lance that does not meet an impediment but continues into the spiritual sphere where it finds its true
home.

Desert Places of Robert Frost

Robert Frost's 1934 poem, Desert Places, speaks on the loneliness and solitude that a person often feels, and
relates this loneliness to nature. In this poem Frost uses snow much the same way that he uses desert to show how
loneliness is a major part of human life for most all human beings. Frost uses snow and desert in the same way in this
poem because they both seem to cover up the colors and the beauty of nature. The snow takes away the beautiful
kaleidoscope of colors that nature has and the desert seems to kill every plant that is in it except for a select few. In both
of these part of nature everything tends to look the same and is hostile to the life in nature that shows multitudes of
colors. The reason that Frost uses these two aspects of nature to describe loneliness is because when a person is lonely
they tend to also be a bit depressed and sad. When a person is depressed and sad they do not really care too much about
the world and often do not try to see the beauty in nature because to them the beauty does not really matter. A snow-
covered field and a desert have much the same characteristics in their ability to isolate a person.
In this poem the author also uses animals and humans to show that humans have a harder time dealing with the
world and a harder time being lonely. Animals do not have the ability to reason, they do not have too many more cares
in the world other than to eat and sleep, and often do not have the same intimate relationships that humans have with one
another. When it is cold, animals go into their homes and hibernate or to keep warm, they have no other worries than to
stay warm. Simply put, animals have a simple life without the complexities of modern civilization. Humans have a
harder time living in the world because humans have a far greater amount of things to worry about. Humans can reason
and therefore they have made the world far more complex than it is for animals and have created a lot more difficulties
that have to be dealt with. Also, a human has to worry about being lonely in the world whereas animals often are lonely
hunters and the fact of loneliness seems not to bother them. The problem of loneliness seems to be only a human
problem, but it is sort of ironic that the author uses nature, such as deserts and fields, which are homes of animals, to
show that he is a lonely person sometimes.
The tightly controlled form of this poem gives the poem sort of a trudging, or walking feel to show that no matter
what happens the author will continue to walk along. The first three stanzas of the poem do not really relate the
loneliness of nature to the speaker walking as much as the last stanza does. When the last stanza comes along the reader
then finds out that the poem is for sure about the author's own solitude and loneliness. The trudging feel that is given to
this poem first of all shows the author's depressed sort of state and secondly the feeling also lets the reader understand
that life will go on. The speaker is strong enough to endure his depressed loneliness and will continue to endure life
through and through. This poem is not a poem about giving in to the world but instead is a poem about continuing to live
life no matter how hard it becomes.