G11U4_ST_Frost_267-271.fm Page 267 Tuesday, April 1, 2008 4:15 PM
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Robert Frost’s Poetry
Literary Analysis: Blank Verse and Pastorals
Robert Frost was a versatile poet equally skilled at writing in rhymed and unrhymed formats.
In his poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” for example, he uses the technique of
rhyming first, second, and fourth lines until the final stanza, which has end rhymes on all four
lines:
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
Despite this formal rhyme scheme, the poem has an unforced musical quality that reveals
both the speaker’s joy at the beauty of nature and his wistfulness at the many obligations he
must fulfill before his day is done.
However, in “The Gift Outright,” “Birches,” and “ ‘Out, Out—’,” Frost writes in quite a
different style. These poems are written in blank verse, which is composed of unrhymed lines of
iambic pentameter. The basic unit of this type of meter is the iamb, which is made up of one
unstressed syllable immediately followed by a stressed syllable. In iambic pentameter, there are
five iambs per poetic line. This meter re-creates the flow of human speech patterns. Poems
written in iambic pentameter, therefore, lend themselves to being read aloud.
While Frost uses both rhymed and blank verse for the poems in this group, all the poems are
pastorals. Pastorals are poems that deal with rural settings. Traditionally, pastorals idealize
rural life, evoking the beauty and gentleness found in natural settings. Frost incorporates this
tradition in poems like “Birches” and “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.” However, he
does not hesitate to introduce a realistic element into his pastorals. In poems such as “Out,
Out” and even in “Birches,” Frost acknowledges that rural life can also be violent and
unpleasant.
A. DIRECTIONS: Read the following excerpt from Robert Frost’s poem “Birches.” Underline each
stressed syllable. Then, read the excerpt aloud to observe the poem’s rhythm.
And so I dream of going back to be.
It’s when I’m weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig’s having lashed across it open.
B. DIRECTIONS: Identify elements of the pastoral in the excerpt above. Which elements are not
traditional?
Unit 4 Resources: Disillusion, Defiance, and Discontent
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