An Analysis of Mending Wall Essay -- Mending Wall Essays

An Analysis of Mending Wall Robert hoarfrost formerly said that Mending Wall was a poetry that was spoiled by being applied. What did he mean by applied? Any song is damaged by being misunderstood, but thats the risk all rimes run. What Frost objects to, I think, is a reduction and distortion of the poem through matter-of-fact use. When President John F. Kennedy inspected the Berlin Wall he quoted the poems first line Something thither is that doesnt love a wall. His audience knew what he meant and how the quotation applied. And on the different side of that particular wall, we can find another example of how the poem has been used. Returning from a visit to Russia late in his life, Frost said, The Russians reprinted Mending Wall over there, and left that first line off. He added wryly, I dont see how they got the poem started. What the Russians needed, and so took, was the poems other detachable statement Good fences make sincere neighbors. They applied what they wanted. I couldve done better for them, probably, Frost said, for the generality, by tell Something there is that doesnt love a wall, Something there is that does. Why didnt I verify that? Frost asked rhetorically. I didnt mean that. I meant to leave that until later in the poem. I left it there. Mending Wall famously contains these two plain conflicting statements. One begins the poem, the other ends it, and both are repeated twice. Which are we supposed to believe? What does Frost mean? The secret of what it means I keep, he said. Of course he was being cagey, but not without reason. At a reading given at the Library of Congress in 1962 Frost told this anecdote In England, two or three days ago, Graham Greene said to me... ...ating a similar moment each conviction it is encountered. Works Cited and ConsultedBarry, Elaine. Robert Frost. New York Frederick Ungar Publishing Co. 1973.Robert Frost. Mending Wall. Making Literature depend An Anthology for Readers and Writers. Ed. John Schilb and John Clifford. New York Bedford/St. Martins, 2000. p106-107.Gerber, Philip L. Robert Frost. Ed. Kenneth Eble. Boston Twayne Publishers. 1982. 124-125Lentricchia, Frank. Robert Frost Modern Poetics and the adorn of Self. Durham Duke University Press. 1975. 103-107.Zverev, A. A Lovers Quarrel with the field Robert Frost. 20th Century American Literature A Soviet View. Translated by Ronald Vroon. Progress Publishers. 1976. 241-260. Rpt. in World Literature Criticism. Vol. 2. Ed. James P. Draper. Detroit Gale Research Inc. 1992. 1298-1299.