In Robert Frost’s Essay “The Figure a Poem Makes”, he discusses his view of how a poem should be perceived and read. That is that all poems should be distinct and have variety from one another, “The object in writing poetry is to make all poems sound as different as possible from each other…” (Frost). Frost also states that poems exist not only to entertain readers but give wisdom to the reader as well, “begin in delight and end in wisdom” (Frost). Frost’s purpose is that to educate the reader about the perspective a poem should be viewed by, the idea that poems are eternal and that a poem “will forever keep its freshness” and that “it can never lose its sense of a meaning that once unfolded by surprise as it went” (Frost).
Frost’s audience are those scholars who differ from artists (poets) “in the way their knowledge is come by” (Frost). Frost achieves his purpose in conveying his message by connecting this abstract idea of poetic variety through connecting it to different experiences the reader may have, such as love, “It begins in delight and ends in wisdom. The figure is the same as for love. No one can really hold that the ecstasy should be static and stand still in one place. It begins in delight, it inclines to the impulse, it assumes direction with the first line laid down … It finds its own name as it goes and discovers the best waiting for it in some final phrase at once wise and sad -- the happy-sad blend of the drinking song” (Frost). Through this connection Frost achieves his purpose in conveying to his audience, that each poem is unique and eternal in its truth and wisdom, and should be perceived as such.
No comments:
Post a Comment