Robert Frosts’, “Mending Wall”, presents itself as a blank verse poem using simple words and phrases to explain the love and hate for a wall separating two neighbors that come together to reconstruct the falling wall. Robert Frost uses simple word choice but critics have examined the poem in extraordinary detail and have discovered how deep Frost goes in his poem “Mending Wall”.”
Born on March 26, 1874, Robert Frost spent his first forty years of his life as an undiscovered poet. Robert Frost lived with his journalist father in San Francisco, California until he was eleven years old. Frosts’ father passed away from tuberculosis and he was forced to move in with his mother and sister in Lawrence, Massachusetts. In Frosts’ early years he attended Lawrence High School where he would eventually meet his future love, Elinor White. Both Frost and Elinor graduated from Lawrence High School in 1892. Shortly after high school Frost attended Dartmouth College, one of the two colleges he would attend in his lifetime. In 1894, Frost had his first poem published in Then Independent, a literary journal based in New York City. Not many year later Frost attended Harvard University but had to cut his education short to only two years due to health issues. He soon returned home to join his wife, Elinor (biography.com).
Frosts’s health issues faded and he moved his wife and new child to a New Hampshire farm in 1900. This was a bountiful time for his writing, but it was also a very difficult time in his personal life. In the next seven years he would have four more children with Elinor White. Frosts firstborn child would die of cholera not long after the family moved to New Hampshire. The other four children would pass away before they were forty years old. Despite all of the hardship in Frosts life, he kept writing. In 1912, Frost and Elinor decided to sell the farm in New Hampshire and move to England where they assumed there would be a better chance for Frost to find more publishers accommodating to take a shot on new poets (biography.com).
Within a few months of being in England, Frost found a publisher who agreed to printing his first book of poems. After getting is first book of poems published, he met comrade poets, Ezra Pound and Edward Thomas. These two men would affect his life tremendously. With the help of these men Frost became more popular and would accept more than forty honorary degrees in his lifetime (biography.com).
Frosts’ writing exploded after he returned from England with his family during World War I. During the war poems, diaries, letters, and stories about war were quite popular (biography.com). Frosts’ famous poem “Mending Wall” was published in 1914 right when the war started. “Mending Wall” was a simple blank verse poem that was easy for readers to understand and interpret in unique ways. This allowed the poem to remain relevant in uncertain times (letterpile.com). “Mending Wall” is much like all of Robert Frosts Poetry. It makes the reader tempted to match the meaning with judgements about two characters (go.gale.group.com).
“Mending Wall”, by Robert Frost is a simple yet complex poem. Frost uses easy to understand and easy to manipulate words and phrases. The poem tells about two backwood neighbors that meet one spring day each year to walk along side of the wall that separates their properties and the two continue to repair what is needed (letterpile.com). The speaker of the poem is a modernized individual who starts to wonder what is the purpose of such wall separating him from his neighbor. The speaker does not like nor sees the purpose for the wall. The neighbor on the other side likes the wall, and says there does not need to be a reason for the wall because “Good fences make good neighbors.” A wall seems useful to keep livestock safe and to make a necessary boundary, but there is no livestock and the two neighbors but heads because one does not see the need for such boundary (letterpile.com).
Although one neighbor loves the wall, and the other despises it, they both come together each year in the spring to repair the broken pieces in the wall that were left from the seasons before. Frost makes this process of mending the wall more like a game. There are physical holes and emotional holes that always get mended (letterpile.com). No matter how much one neighbor hates the wall, the speaker always gives in and mends the broken pieces. The language of this poem is beyond simple, but it means more than it seems.
Modern American Poetry goes more in depth with how Frost uses irony in “Mending Wall.” There is much irony in this poem. The speaker complains about the wall and his neighbors unkindness yet he still continues to help his unfriendly neighbor mend the wall that he does not want. Both neighbors know that the wall is going to break apart more and more each year, but they continue to mend the wall. The neighbors have no reason to continue working on the wall each year, but both of them do, like it is some kind of game. The wall shields the neighbors from something that they are hiding from one another. The wall somewhat represents a mental barrier that the neighbors do not want to take down, as well as a physical barrier (english.illinois.edu). Ironically the speaker does more work than the neighbor when it comes to mending the wall. Lines five and six read, “The work of hunters is another thing: I have come after them and made repair”. In these few lines it explains how the speaker has continued to do more work than the neighbor by repairing the wall after hunters came through and broke pieces apart. The speaker did not have to do this extra work because it was not part of the yearly ritual of mending the wall. The ironic part of this is that the speaker is the one that does not want the wall, but he is the one that is putting more work into keeping the wall in place.
Crisis Magazine explains the true meaning of the “something” that does not love a wall. The speaker of the poem does not find the necessity for fences or walls. The “something” that is stated in the first verse of the poem, represents something bigger than what most people believe. The “something” is not an imaginary creature but more common sense. The “something” is believed to be or the human instinct telling the neighbors that there is indeed something more that does not love the wall. If the wall falls apart each year, there has to be a greater force than just hunters walking through (crisismagazine.com). The man’s human instinct is to be social and friendly to thy neighbor. This represents the feeling the speaker of the poem has towards the false barrier the men rebuild every year. The neighbor that does not love the wall strives to have a personal relationship with the other neighbor, but the wall divides property, and it also restrains the natural interaction the heart wants. The “something” represents the heart that unknowingly seeks a bond with someone, even if it is just a rude, unfriendly neighbor (crisismagazine.com).
Although Robert Frost was an unknown poet for almost half of his life, he went down in history as an inspirational writer. In 1960, Congress awarded Robert Frost the Congressional Gold Metal. Frost was also asked to write and recite a poem for John F. Kennedys’ inauguration just a year later. Frost was eighty-six years old. During this time Frosts’ vision was not at the best, and he was unable to see the words therefore he substituted his writing with one of his poems, “The Gift Outright,” which he had memorized. In 1962, Frost traveled to the Soviet Union on a tour. Nonetheless, Frost accidentally undid much of the good he had intended by accidentally misrepresenting a statement said by the Soviet Premier. There is also a library in Amherst College, where Frost steadily taught during 1916 to 1938, named in his honor. Frost would also be awarded four Pulitzer Prizes in his lifetime (biography.com). Robert Frost remains a well known poet throughout the world but especially in England where students are taught all about Frost and his success with his poetry.
In Frosts own words about himself he seems to be an optimistic person. When asked about about his life he stated “ In three words I can sum up about everything I've learned about life: it goes on.” Frost seems to be a very simple straight forward man, just like most of his writing. When asked about his writing he stated “The ear does it. The ear is the only true writer and the only true reader.” Frost is simple, yet he has a larger meaning behind his words.