Life and Nature
Amanda Orcutt
ENC 1102
7 December, 2011
Table of Contents
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Introduction --- Page 3
Transcendentalism --- Page 5
Robert Frost --- Page 7
“After Apple Picking” --- Page 10
Modernism --- Page 12
W.B. Yeats --- Page 14
“The Lake Isle of Innisfree” --- Page 16
Romanticism --- Page 18
Robert W. Service --- Page 20
“My Cancer Cure” --- Page 22
Works Cited --- Page 25
Images Cited --- Page 28
Introduction
“Your deepest roots are in nature. No matter who you are, where you live, or what kind of
life you lead, you remain irrevocably linked with the rest of creation.”
--- Charles Cook, Awakening to Nature, 2001
Life and Nature exist simultaneously, no matter what the medium is or location.
Life is what makes Nature grow, but Nature is what gives us Life. One completes the
other, no matter who the person is, or where the Nature grows. The three poets and
poems selected for this anthology reflect on what Nature means to them, as well as their
interpretations on Life‟s relationship to Nature. Natural poetry does not always have
to be about how beautiful a flower is or the sound of birds. It is more than that. It
embraces everything all at once; the wind whistling through the trees, the sun rising and
setting over the land exposing the farmer‟s harvest, the sensation you get when the
person of subject interacts with the nature as if they are one person. Poems are not
about what is on the surface; they are about what lies beneath the words and its hidden
meaning. Poems that include these side-by-side themes are filled with interpretations,
metaphors, personification, symbolism, and so on, and that is what makes them so
powerful and meaningful.
Interpretations and hidden meanings were not the main point for early nature
poetry. The use of Natural poetry back in the 3rd Century started when “the Greek
poet Theocritus began writing idylls…to glorify and honor the simplicity of rural life”
(“Nature Poems”). Some modern poets, like W.B. Yeats, are able to incorporate hints
of this glorified rural life with symbolism and human life into their poems.
Introduction
As the years move on, more poets, such as Dante and Petrarch, begin using
another form of natural poetry called eclogue, which was created by Virgil in 37
B.C.E. This poetry incorporates peace and serenity into rural places where
shepherds can converse. This poetry “become something of a requirement for young
poets [because it was a] form they had to master before embarking upon great original
work” (“Nature Poetry”). Traditional nature poetry took a different turn and had the
strongest influence on transcendentalists like Thoreau and Frost when William
Wordsworth proposed that poetry “takes its origin from emotion recollected in
tranquility (qtd. in “Nature Poems). The best way to find this tranquility is by going
“into nature [to] observe the world… and translate…emotions and observations into
verse,” which is exactly what Frost did (“Nature Poems”).
Romantics are also keen in the wonderfulness of nature and its effect on life.
From a Romantic‟s point of view, nature is a source of healthy feelings. “It is therapy
for a diseased, overcivilized heart” (“Understanding of Nature”). Nature helps humans
to find their emotional health, which can lead them to clarity, whether it is moral or
spiritual. Self-identification is also a part of it. “Romantic „nature‟ is a vehicle for selfconsciousness” that either drives or carries a person to discover one‟s identity
(“Understanding of Nature”). Robert W. Service is a poet that focuses on this in
some of his poems, “My Cancer Cure” in particular. Nature can be a person‟s
pathway to recovery and living a potential life, and Romantics are the ones that know it
the best.
Transcendentalism
American Transcendentalism is a movement rooted from Immanuel Kant, a
German philosopher, and began to branch out and impact religion, literature,
society, and philosophers in New England from 1836-1860. This movement
started with a reform approach in the Unitarian church, developed from the views
of William Ellery Channing, and protested against the culture and society.
Other than believing in the goodness of human and nature, transcendentalists
believed that materialism, organized religion, and politics tainted individuals. “For
the transcendentalists, the soul of each individual is identical with the soul of the
world and contains what the world contains” (“American Transcendentalism”).
“Unlike the Unitarians: they wanted to rejuvenate the mystical aspects of New
England Calvinism…and to go back to Jonathan Edwards' "divine and
supernatural light," imparted immediately to the soul by the spirit of God”
(“American Transcendentalism”). One famous literary work of this time that
sums up transcendentalism is Nature (1836) by Ralph Waldo Emerson. This
essay demonstrates Emerson‟s appreciation towards all forms of nature,
whether it is human nature or the natural world around him. Transcendentalists
took everything out of society that corrupted individuals, and left what was
beautiful and divine, that being nature.
Transcendentalism
Robert Frost‟s work is the ideal work of a transcendentalist. His work helps
to find refuge in a greedy world, as well and heal and find a common relationship
with man and nature by using metaphors for one or the other. Even though he
has poems that do not necessarily involve nature, his works ranging from “Out,
Out” to “Mending Wall” to “After Apple Picking” all depict the philosophies of
life lessons from finding common ground and experiencing something greater than
themselves. According to Nan Sisemore at Southeast High School, Frost
takes common people in common places and puts them into his poems filled with
nature and metaphors about the human condition and restores their “spirit
through vigorous activities and communion with nature” (“Frost Lecture”). Frost
filled his poems with New England nature and settings typically in the winter, fall,
or at night, because it causes his subjects to create “their own resources for
survival” when isolated instead of reaching towards a materialistic society that
would not understand them or what it means to work towards something (“Frost
Lecture”). Frost, though he did not live during a transcendentalist time, was
unquestionably a transcendentalist poet that found a unique writing style to
accompany what he stood for, believed in, and thought was pure form of reality in
a tarnished society.
Robert Frost
Robert Frost was born in San Francisco, surprisingly, on March 26, 1874. The
famous New England writer did not move to Massachusetts until after his father died
when he was 11. Frost reminisced that his train ride to the other side of the country was
“the longest, loneliest train ride” ever (qtd. in Ho “Robert Frost”). This displayed “the
impact of the loss of a vital figure in Frost‟s childhood” (“Robert Frost”). As a child in
school, his mother would read him works by many famous authors, one being Emerson,
who became his favorite author, and possibly sparking his attraction to nature. The
person who inspired him to start writing poetry was a high
school friend, Carl Burell, who was “interested in botany [and]
also an aspiring writer” (“Robert Frost”). Both Burell and
Frost wrote for the High School Bulletin and contributed
verses and prose, one of which was a poem by Frost entitled,
“La Noche Triste.” Between 1892 and 1893, Frost spent a
difficult time trying to figure out where to go to college.
According to Ho, he had his hopes on Harvard, which was “his
father‟s alma mater,” but his grandparents objected because
they did not want him to “revolt against his puritanical heritage,
reject religion, and behave wildly” like his father (“Robert
Frost”). He ended up going to Dartmouth and staying there
for less than a semester because he hated the conservatism.
Robert Frost
Up until 1895, Frost spent his time with multiple jobs including a cobbler,
teacher, and farmer. One day after climbing up long, twisted ladders at the mill he
worked at, Frost wrote his first “real” poem, “My Butterfly” (“Robert Frost”).
Tragedy from either his illness or the death of a few of his children played an
important role in his life and impacted the tone of some of his writing. Moving to
England was a turning point for Frost and his family. He “considered the nation to
be a birthplace of great literary tradition and
poetry” (“Robert Frost”). There he met a man
named Ezra Pound who helped him to complete “ A
Boy‟s Will, a collection of mainly autobiographical
poems published in 1913” (“Robert Frost”). These
poems were the building blocks to later poems that
included popular “natural elements, such as…stars,
clouds, and leaves” (“Robert Frost”). North of
Boston (1914) was his next published work in
England that represented “New England as more
that just Boston‟s industrial, cultural, and shipping
center” (“Robert Frost”).
Robert Frost
Even though Frost did not want to
leave England, he did in 1915 and moves to
New England once again where he publishes
another collection, Mountain Interval, which
contains themes of isolation, loneliness, and
fear. Some of his popular poems from this
collection include “Birches” and “The Road
Not Taken.” In 1961 Frost had the honor of
reading one of his poems at the inauguration of
President Kennedy, as well as travel to the
Soviet Union for a diplomatic exchange
(Meyers 181-2). Some other works include, but
do not limit to, New Hampshire (1924),
Collected Poems (1930), A Further Range
(1937), and A Witness Tree (1943), all of
which won Pulitzer Prizes. Two years later on
January 29, 1963, Robert Frost passed away
from infected blood clots and pulmonary
embolisms.
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“After Apple Picking”
My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still,
And there's a barrel that I didn't fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.
I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight
I got from looking through a pane of glass
I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough
And held against the world of hoary grass.
It melted, and I let it fall and break.
But I was well
Upon my way to sleep before it fell,
And I could tell
What form my dreaming was about to take.
Magnified apples appear and disappear,
Stem end and blossom end,
And every fleck of russet showing clear.
My instep arch not only keeps the ache,
It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.
*The theme of this poem is that life will always lead to
death. However, he tries to explain this in a more subtle
tone by using “sleep” instead of “death” and “apples” in
nature as something that is familiar with everyone.
Everyone has dreams, memories, etc. For Christians,
the apple started it all with Adam and Eve, and for
Frost, it is the end of it all. Because death is a part of
human and mother nature, Frost uses nature to describe
human death.
1-2: The poet starts the poem by including a Biblical
Allusion to Jacob‟s ladder towards Heaven in Genesis
28:10-19. This automatically represents that the
speaker is making his way towards death the further up
the apple tree he gets.
3-6: The speaker shows how human nature can get in
the way of dedication and cause one to give up.
7-8: The speaker seems to be entering a dream-like
state similar to hibernation since winter is just around the
corner.
9: This would be a metaphor to waking up and rubbing
the sleepiness away.
14-20: Even though the poem talks about sleep, it is
about dying and become a part of nature, which is what
the apples represent.
“After Apple Picking”
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I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend.
And I keep hearing from the cellar bin
The rumbling sound
Of load on load of apples coming in.
For I have had too much
Of apple-picking: I am overtired
Of the great harvest I myself desired.
There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,
Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall.
For all
That struck the earth,
No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble,
Went surely to the cider-apple heap
As of no worth.
One can see what will trouble
This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.
Were he not gone,
The woodchuck could say whether it's like his
Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,
Or just some human sleep
27-29: The speaker repeats what he said
before about “having enough” and “being
overtired,” putting emphasis on the words.
Picking apples all day everyday might become
tedious for the speaker, which is why he is
tired of doing it. He has lost his passion.
30-36: In the previous lines, the apples were
literal, but now they are figurative. They
represent the dreams, memories, experiences
a person has over time. At first you are gentle
with them and cherish them, but after years
and years, it becomes much easier to let a few
of them fall here and there because not all
dreams can come true or some memories wear
out.
40-42: This refers back to the hibernation in
the beginning of the poem. The speaker
does not know when exactly he will die, so he
wonders that when he goes to sleep next if it
will be like hibernation and never wake up, or if
he will wake up.
Modernism
Because Modernism expands all over the world, its range of dates can be skewed. To
keep the movement as small as possible, the main focus will be on Western Modernism
approximately between 1915 to the late 1940s. Modernism has a few key, defining points
that separate it from other movements. According to Paul P. Reuben on his “Perspectives in
American Literature” website, Modernists tend to center around “stylistic innovations –
disruption of traditional syntax and form; artist‟s self-consciousness about questions of form
and structure; obsession with primitive material and attitudes; [and] international
perspectives on cultural matters” (“American Modernism”). Artists, poets, and generally all
workers of the time dealt with matters such as WWI, and it changed their way of thinking. As
acknowledged by Professor Glanville from State College of Florida, after WWI, “life
began to be viewed as mechanized and dehumanizing, and war and economic constraints led
people to be alienated from each other, society, and God” (“Literary Movement Lecture Modernism”). It was a rough time to live in, so poets found a way to take their frustration and
disappointment and artistry and blend it all together to produce poems unlike anything else.
A few literary achievements were sparked during this time as well. Reuben explains
that “dramatization of the plight of women; creation of a literature of the urban experience;
continuation of the pastoral or rural spirit; [and] continuation of regionalism and local color”
were some of the life-changing events in literature as well as the people (“American
Modernism”). A few examples of themes that relate to these achievements include: The
Jazz Age, Harlem Renaissance, women‟s rights - specifically to vote, and the economic
downfalls from prohibition and the stock-market crash of 1929.
Modernism
Though it is usually clear what the related theme is for most modern
poems, there are a few things that stagger the flow of the reading, one being
the stream of consciousness. CNDLS from Georgetown University
defines “stream of consciousness” as “a method of narrative representation
of „random‟ thoughts which follow in a free-flowing style” (“Stream of
consciousness”). The writing style for this goes back to the disruption of
syntax previously stated. It often lacks “correct punctuation” and favors a
“more incomplete style” (“Stream of consciousness”). William Butler Yeats
is one poet that defies the traditional aspect of modern poetry. As stated
by Wikipedia, “unlike other modernists who experimented with free verse,
Yeats was a master of the traditional forms” (“W.B. Yeats”). Modern
poetry is accustomed to the free verse style because that was a way for
poets to go against the norm, but Yeats was the opposite and occasionally
wrote with a typical modernist approach, but other than that he preferred to
have a traditional style with modernist themes.
W.B. Yeats
W.B. Yeats, or William Butler Yeats, was born in Sandymount, County Dublin, Ireland on
June 13, 1865. He spent some time in England as a child, but always had Ireland in his heart
throughout the rest of his life. Because of that love, Yeats earned the honor of being called “the
preeminent Irish poet of the twentieth century” by Alison Booth in The Norton Introduction to
Literature (1171). Booth also believes that he is “regarded as one of the greatest lyric poets in the
English language” (1171). Yeats attended art school to further embrace his interest in “Irish history,
folklore, [mythology], and politics” (1171) before moving on to writing “dreamy and ethereal” poetry
(1171). His involvement with Irish nationalism caused his work to become more “tighter, concrete,
direct, and passionate” (1171). In a way Irish nationalism shaped Yeats and the work he produced.
Other influences on his work were Maude Gonne (an actress), Friedrich Nietzsche (German
philosopher), and Ezra Pound (American Poet). Along with
supporting Irish nationalism, Yeats was a part of the Irish, or Celtic,
Revival to “rejuvenate…Irish literature and culture” (1171). His culture
was an important part of his life as an Irishman, which is why “his early
poetry and plays [drew] heavily on the oral folk traditions” (1171). As
the years passed and Modernist movement grew, Yeats became more
and more interested in subjects outside of Ireland, “including WWI, the
spiritualist movement, and… psychology” (1171). He also took a very
modernist approach when he tried to “rejuvenate the Protestant
Christianity of his ancestors,” which was a common reaction to artists
of the time towards the materialistic and rationalistic spirit of the age
(1171-1172).
W.B. Yeats
The turning point from Irish nationalism to mythology, mysticism, and spiritualism started
after Yeats began to believe in the “collective unconscious” by Carl Jung, which branches from
“stream of consciousness.” Jung and Yeats believed “collective unconsciousness” was “a sort of
universal memory shared by all human beings” (1172). Religion began coming back into Yeats‟ life
after discovering this term because he had the notion “that the poet, like the priest, the prophet,
and the magician, tapped into the collective unconscious” and could move his audience through
symbols (1172). Art, including poetry, should involve a quasi-religious function. He declared that
he “made a new religion, almost an infallible church of poetic tradition” (qtd. in Booth 1172).
As for his writing styles and works, Yeats “eschewed the free verse popular with his
contemporaries… [and] experimented with various meters and verse forms, ranging from ballad
stanza to ottava rima” (1172). Ballad stanzas, known as quatrains, are frequently found in folk
ballads. Ottava rima is an Italian rhyming stanza form consisting of eight lines in iambic
pentameter. These different shifts can be found in multiple poems, such as “The Lake Isle of
Innisfree” (1890) from his early works, to mid works such as “All Things Can Tempt Me” (1910)
and “Easter 1916” (1916), to later works like “Leda and the Swan” (1923), “Sailing to
Byzantium” (1923), and “Byzantium” (1927). Many poets like Emily Dickenson and Henry
Thoreau became famous and were awarded for it after they had died, but by the age 58, Yeats
had already won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1923 “for his always inspiring poetry, which in a
highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation” (qtd. in “The Nobel Prize in
Literature 1923”). On January 28, 1939, W.B. Yeats passed away in Menton, France. He was
initially buried at Roquebrune-Cap-Martin in France, but was moved to Drumcliffe, County
Sligo in eastern Ireland in 1948.
“The Lake Isle of Innisfree”
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I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee;
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.
“The Lake Isle of Innisfree”
Title • Innisfree is a real location. It is an island that Yeats traveled to as a kid, which is 2 miles away from
County Sligo, a popular vacation spot for Yeats. This poem is about Yeats remembering the
island whenever he hears the lapping of water because it is such a beautiful and peaceful place,
which is clearly represented in the poem by the following notes.
2 • Wattles = stakes or poles interwoven with branches and twigs, used for walls, fences, and roofs
(Encarta Dictionary)
1st stanza • alliteration = gg, cc, hhh, llll
4, 5, 8, • These lines all contain words that portray peaceful sounds, sounds of nature. i.e. “bee-loud
10 glade”, “cricket sings”, “linnet‟s wings”, & “water lapping.” These words represent the tranquility at
Innisfree, which is why the speaker wants to go back there.
6, 11 • “Veils” is used to show the pureness of the isle, compared to the busy streets of the city, which
can be represented from the “roadway” in line 11.
6-8 • There is imagery for each time of day. “The veils of the morning” can represent the dew and mist
of the morning that veil the land. “Midnight‟s all a glimmer” represents the stars twinkling at night.
“Noon a purple glow” can represent flowers glowing from the sunlight. “Evening full of linnet‟s
wings” represents the birds flying around finding their dinners.
Theme • The theme about this poem is all about the peacefulness of nature on a secluded island in Ireland
where Yeats visited throughout his boyhood. Yeats imagines himself building a house and growing
crops and keeping a beehive. Nature has all the sustenance that he needs in life, whether it is from
growing crops, or having shelter from a hand-made home. It is also a place that he can fully claim on
his own. If he were to move the Innisfree to get away from the hub of the city, then he can have the
gratification of building his own home and not having to depend on anyone else for survival.
Romanticism
C. Hugh Holman and William Harmon define Romanticism as: “a movement
of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that marked the reaction in literature,
philosophy, art, religion, and politics from neoclassicism and formal orthodoxy of
the preceding period” (“Definitions from A Handbook to Literature”).
Professor Glanville from State College of Florida found another way to
describe Romanticism: it “focused on novelty of experience, extreme emotional
highs and lows, and the glorification of nature. Romantic writers and characters
view the world around them through the lens of emotion and subjectivity”
(“Literary Movement Lecture – Romanticism”).
There are many ways to describe and define Romanticism, but when it
comes to Canadian poet Robert W. Service, the second definition is more
relatable because of his “glorification of nature.” In Alfred Drake‟s words from
California State University, “Romantics consider „nature‟ as the antithesis of
inherited and institutionalized practices of though, self-self alienated ways of
making sense and assigning values and priorities” (“The Romantic
Understanding of Nature”). Nature can overcome the traditional religious
aspect of a Romantic‟s life because when there is religion, there is always
“doubt,” and nature takes that “doubt” away.
Romanticism
There is also a spiritual part of nature in Romanticism, somewhat similar to the
Modernist‟s “stream of consciousness,” and the Transcendentalist‟s connection of
the human soul to the world‟s soul. The Romantics believe that there is a “natural
phenomena…[that] searches for the true self, for one‟s identity” (“The Romantic
Understanding of Nature”). Drake believes that “nature makes people know what
they truly are, [and] what God wants them to be” (“The Romantic Understanding of
Nature”). When a person becomes one with nature, they reach a sort of “spiritual
clarity” that becomes therapeutic for a person‟s health and emotions (“The
Romantic Understanding of Nature”).
Robert W. Service‟s poem, “My Cancer Cure,” involves all of these aspects
of nature through Romanticism. His poems after WWII depict a more
autobiographical tone and include very serious issues “as poetry, politics, human
nature, and religion,” all of which have a Romantic common ground (“Robert W.
Service”). According to Carl F. Klinck and W.H. New, Service faced many
challenges growing up at his private school from defying his drillmasters, so “he
responded warmly to such romantic poets as Lord Alfred Tennyson, Edgar Allan
Poe, and Coventry Patmore” (“Robert W(illiam) Service”). That inspiration stayed
with Service until he was an old man and helped him to create poems such as “My
Cancer Cure,” which shows how faith in nature can cure you of you greatest
misfortunes in health.
Robert W. Service
Robert William Service was born in Preston, England on January 16, 1874.
Though he was born in England and lived in Europe until he was 20, Service lived in
Canada for many years and is widely known as “the Canadian Kipling” (qtd, in “Robert
W. Service). Wars were a big part of Service‟s life, specifically the Balkan War of 19121913, WWI, and WWII. He went from being educated in Scotland to working at multiple
bank branches in Vancouver and the Yukon Territory to being “a war correspondent for
a Toronto newspaper during the Balkan War” (“Robert W. Service”). After that he
spent some time in France during WWI “as an ambulance driver” (“Robert W. Service”).
The years he spent in Canada and France were his most successful years when it came
to writing. While in Yukon, “his first volume of verse, Songs of a Sourdough (1907), was
published…and was an instant success” (“Robert W. Service”). The money he earned
from his first volume gave him the opportunity “to publish more verse and his first novel,
The Trail of Ninety-Eight: A Northland Romance (1910)” (“Robert W. Service”).
Two of his “widely memorized parlor ballads…„The Shooting of Dan McGrew‟ and „The
Cremation of Sam McGee‟” were poems written to describe the people from Yukon in a
comedic and ironic way (“Robert W(illiam) Service”). His popularity grew from France as
well after he published “one of his best-known books of verse, Rhymes of a Red Cross
Man (1916), [and] it was this volume that enabled Service to gain a degree of distinction
as a poet in his own right” (“Robert W. Service”). One of his other works from his time in
France, The Pretender: A Story of the Latin Quarter (1914), was “based on his
experiences in the bohemian circles of Europe before World War I” (“Robert W.
Service”).
Robert W. Service
After years of living in France and Canada with his family and publishing novels
and autobiographies, Service competed his another collection of verse “after the
Second World War [that were] more autobiographical and opinionated than any of his
previous collections,” making it his “first postwar book of verse (“Robert W. Service”).
Songs of a Sun-Lover (1949) took a different turn compared to his other works that
were more comedic, ironic, or even grime when it came to the wars or Yukon. This work
focused on more “serious issues as poetry, politics, human nature, and religion” (“Robert
W. Service”). Up until his death on September 11, 1958 in Lancieux, France, Service
wrote and published works and volumes of verse. Some of these include “ Rhymes of a
Roughneck (1950), Lyrics of a Lowbrow (1951), Rhymes of a Rebel (1952), and
Songs for My Supper (1953)” (“Robert W(illiam) Service”). His later poems, similar to
those from Songs of a Sun-Lover,
“declared his commitment to compassion,
humor, and the virtues of nature” (“Robert
W(illiam) Service”). Throughout his life,
Service faced mixed reviews about his work
and film adaptations to various novels, but
Service continued to write. “Service‟s
verse is widely anthologized and continues
to find a large and receptive audience,” even
after his death (“Robert W. Service”).
“My Cancer Cure”
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"A year to live," the Doctor said;
"There is no cure," and shook his head.
Ah me! I felt as good as dead.
Yet quite resigned to fate was I,
Thinking: "Well, since I have to die
'Twill be beneath the open sky."
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And so I sought a wildsome wood
Wherein a lonely cabin stood,
And doomed myself to solitude,
And there was no one I would see:
Each morn a farmer brought to me
My food and hung it on a tree.
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Six eggs he brought, and milk a quart,
Enough for wretches of my sort
Whose life is fated to be short.
At night I laid me on the round,
In robe of buffalo wrapped round . . .
'Twas strange that I should sleep so
sound.
Rhyme Scheme: aaabbbcccdddeeefffggghhhiiijjj
1-2: Speaker starts off with something dramatic as his
doctor telling him he only has “a year to live” to get the
reader‟s attention and make an impact.
1st Stanza: Introduces the topic and gives background
information: that the speaker is going to die and that he
wants to spend his final time with nature “beneath the
open sky.”
7-9: These lines include negative words like wildsome,
lonely, doomed, and solitude. The poet does this
because those are words that can describe how a cancer
patient is feeling. The speaker is still in the begin phase
of hearing about the bad news, so the words, and tone,
will be similar to how the person is feeling.
16-17: These two lines demonstrate how closely the
speaker is bonding to nature. He is lying on the ground
under the stars wrapped in buffalo fur to keep warm. He
wants to get away from the materialistic world and like a
nature life until he dies, so that means surviving in the wild
by only having nature on his side.
“My Cancer Cure”
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23
24
The farmer man I seldom saw;
I pierced my eggs and sucked them raw;
Sweet mil refreshed my ravaged maw.
So slowly days and weeks went by,
And always I would wonder why
I did not die. . . I did not die.
25
26
27
28
29
30
Thus brooding on my grievous lot
The world of men I fast forgot.
And in the wildwood friends I sought.
The brook bright melodies would sing,
The groves with feathered rapture ring,
And bring me strange, sweet comforting
31
32
33
Then all at once I knew that I
Miraculously would not die:
When doctors fail let Nature try.
21: The speaker is becoming so in-tune with mother nature that
he is eating “sweet mil” to refresh his “ravaged maw.” The poet
uses “maw” instead of “mouth” because a “maw” is more used to
describe animals more than humans.
22-24: The tone starts to shift here because of the subject
change, particularly the last line that repeats, “I did not die…I
did not die.” The speaker is baffled as to why he is still alive,
even though he knows that it has not been a year yet. Even
though the speaker is enjoying his time in the wild, knowing that
he has terminal cancer and is not exactly sure what day will be
the last, he is questioning when death will come so he does not
have to get anxious and be unprepared.
6th Stanza: This stanza justifies lines 16-17 because the
speaker admits that he forgot about the outside world for a
while because the melodies of animals and the brook comforted
him the past few weeks.
7th Stanza: The tone of this stanza is similar to a person having
an epiphany. He realized that nature cured him and he will not
die. This is similar to the saying, “An apple a day keeps the
doctor away.” In this scenario, mother nature cured him of his
cancer. There is a good chance that the speaker is not actually
cured, but the poet wants the readers to be sympathetic
towards the speaker and feel like he has hope.
“My Cancer Cure”
Theme: The theme of “My Cancer Cure” is that even the most
unfortunate events can turn around and become good. The speaker of
the poem finds out in the beginning of the poem that he had cancer, and
by the end of the poem he realizes that spending time “beneath the open
sky” has cured him of his terminal illness. Mother nature plays the most
important role in this poem because without mother nature, the speaker
would not have had such a revelation. Mother nature and human life
thrive off of one another, which is why the speaker was able to connect
with the wilderness so well. We are born from human biological nature,
but when we die, we become part of mother nature. We would not be
able to survive as well if we did not tend to mother nature, lengthening
and spreading human life. Both of these topics are connected by a
continuous circle, which the poem demonstrates.
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Images Used
• Slide 1:
Orcutt, Amanda. Shadows. 25 Nov. 2011. Photograph by Author. 5 Dec. 2011.
• Slide 2:
Orcutt, Amanda. Piedmont Park. 25 Nov. 2011. Photograph by Author. 5 Dec.
2011.
• Slide 3 – 4:
Human_Nature. 14 Sept. 2011. Flickr.com. Online image. 5 Dec. 2011.
<http://www.flickr.com/photos/justbeyondthelenshp/6146667957/>
• Slide 5 – 6:
Orcutt, Amanda. Black and White. 9 June, 2009. Photograph by Author. 5 Dec.
2011.
• Slide 7 – 9 (Background):
The Mysterious Road. N.d. Wikispaces. Online image. 5 Dec. 2011.
<http://thelanguageartsplace.wikispaces.com/Robert+Frost>
• Slide 7:
Young Frost. 1910. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Online image. 6 Dec. 2011.
<http://thelanguageartsplace.wikispaces.com/Robert+Frost>
•
Slide 8:
Images Used
Old Robert Frost. N.d. Pbworks. Online image. 6 Dec. 2011.
<http://calverleyparkside.pbworks.com/w/page/13178303/ROBERTFROST>
• Slide 9:
Müller, Rolf. Frost Grave. 5 Aug. 2006. Wikipedia. Online image. 6 Dec. 2011.
<http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Robert_Frost_Grave_Bennington_20
06.jpg>
• Slide 10 - 11:
DeLaratta, Kelly. After-Apple Picking. N.d. N.a. Impression by Design. Web. 6
Dec. 2011. <http://www.impressionbydesign.com/oil_paintings.html>
• Slide 12 – 13:
Orcutt, Amanda. Reflection. 25 Nov. 2011. Photograph by Author. 6 Dec. 2011.
• Slide 14 – 15 (Background):
Stott, Allyn. Slane Hill, Co Meath, Ireland. 12 Jan. 2006. Fkickr.com. Online image.
6 Dec. 2011. <http://www.flickr.com/photos/allynthestott/275621936/>
• Slide 14:
W.B. Yeats. 1906. Nobel Times Four. Online image. 6 Dec. 2011.
<http://www.lib.unc.edu/rbc/n4/yeats.html>
Images Used
• Slide 16 – 17:
Steinberg, Hauke. Lough Gill & The Lake Isle of Innisfree. 6 Feb. 2010. Flickr.com. 6
Dec. 2011.
<http://www.flickr.com/photos/madrarua/4346782748/in/photostream/>
• Slide 18 – 19:
Schulz, Florian. Northern Lights. N.d. Wyofile. 6 Dec. 2011.
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• Slide 20 – 21:
Alsek River, Yukon, Canada. N.d. Wallpapers Wide. 6 Dec. 2011.
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• Slide 21:
Robert W. Service. N.d. Poetry Foundation. 6 Dec. 2011.
<http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/robert-w-service>
• Slide 22 – 24:
Wenzlau, Willie. The Woods at Night. 6 March 2010. Flickr.com. Online image. 6 Dec.
2011.
<http://www.flickr.com/photos/13835909@N02/4418759253/sizes/l/in/photost
ream/>