Robert Frost is often misread as a "Currier and Ives" poet, a verbal painter of pretty scenes with his focus on rural New England. His poems are much more than pretty pictures, and Frost himself speaks often about the symbolic meanings and underlying elements present in his poetry. Some of his pieces are sorrowful, pictures of characters who are emotionally estranged from life. Even his most optimistic poems are tempered by tension, anxiety, and uncertainty. "Birches" is an up-beat piece reflecting the emotions of a narrator who would gladly exchange heaven for a series of earthly lives, all because "Earth's the right place for love" (52). Yet "Birches" is a lonely piece, as the only human figures present are the narrator and the boy of his imagination, both alone among the trees with no one in sight to share in either the poet's wonder or the boy's accomplishments.
The poem begins with a description of birch trees leaning in a New England forest, and a narrator's wistful dream......
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Approximate Word Count: 458
Approximate Pages: 2 (260 words per double-spaced page) |