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| Critical Appreciation of Mending Wall |
The critical appreciation of a poem helps the reader to give some ideas on the poem. This type of discussion helps the readers to understand the poem well. If you are planning to read the poem Mending Wall by popular American poet Robert Frost then this article will help you a lot. The critical appreciation of Mending Wall is here.
Critical Appreciation of Mending Wall
It is one of the most famous of Frost’s poems, According to Untermeyer its fame rests upon a contradiction. The poem says “something there is that doesn’t love a wall. But it again says, “Good fences make good neighbours.” This contradiction is a necessary one because the statements are made by two people of opposite character and different age.
From their own point of view, both are right. Man cannot live without walls, boundaries, and self limitations and limits. But yet man resents all bonds, and he becomes happy if the boundary line or wall is removed. Boundary-line is rather useless in “Mending Wall”.
Some readers have found far-reaching implications : it states one of the greatest problems of our time. The problem is: whether national walls should be made stronger for our protection, or whether they should be done away with, because they shrink the scope of our progress towards mutual understanding and ultimate brotherhood.
Some other readers think that it is a symbolic poem. In the voices of the younger and the older men in this poem, we can discover the Clash of two forces. One is the spirit of revolt which challenges tradition, and the other is the spirit of restraint which demands that Conventions must be upheld.
There is something in nature that does not love a wall, that is, does hot accept any obstruction between two things. If something starts ‘icing up, some mysterious power makes it crumble down. Of course the work of a hunter is another matter; he does not leave one stone on another so that rabbits cannot hide. In spring time there are found ‘Some gaps in the wall. The speaker, a young man, informs his elderly neighbour about it; they meet, and set the wall between them again. But the speaker says he feels that they do not need the wall. “He is
all pine and I am an apple orchard.” Pine and apple trees do not run into each other. But his neighbour asserts the need for a wall saying ‘“Good fences make good neighbours.” The speaker argues that might be true if they had cows which might eat up crops of each other. His neighbour says again, “Good fences make good neighbours”. He brings a stone grasped firmly by the top in each hand, “like an old-stone savage armed.” He moves in darkness of ignorance, so it Seems to the young speaker.
There is something in nature which does.not accept any obstruction between two things. If something starts rising up, some mysterious power makes it crumble down. In the springtime, some gaps in the wall separating the gardens of the poet and his elderly neighbour are found. They meet at the wall to mend the gaps.
The poet, the youngman, says they do not need any wall between them because they have gardens of different trees—the poet’s garden is of apples, and his neighbor's is of pines, which cannot run into each other. And there are no cows to eat up the plants. But his neighbor insists that “Good fences make good neighbors' '. To the poet, his neighbor, sticking to the views of his ancestors, is in the darkness of ignorance.
Some critics have found far-reaching implications in the poem: it states one of the greatest problems of our time—whether national walls should be made stronger for our protection, or whether they should be done away with. They shrink the scope of our progress towards mutual understanding, and ultimate brotherhood.
Some other critics find symbolic meaning in this poem. In the voices of the young and the elderly man in the poem, we can! discover the clash of forces. One is the spirit of revolt which challenges tradition, and another is the spirit of restraint which demands that conventions must be upheld.
The poem is written in the form of a lyrical monologue. There are no stanzaic divisions of the poem, but it stands as a solid bloc. The poem is mainly in blank verse; in unrhymed iambic pentameter lines. Its lines do not rhyme. Blank verse is usually suitable for epic poems and poetic drama, and even small dramatic lyrics, because of its closeness to natural speech rhythms, its lack of rhyme and its rhythmic flexibility. Blank verse has been used for serious poetry more than any other English verse form. Frost has chosen blank verse for this poem; it lends seriousness to his theme.
To please/ the yelp/ing degs/ The gaps/ I mean/,
No one/ has seen / them made/or heard/ them made/
These two lines show blank verse in its absolute regularity. Each line has five feet of iambus, that is iambic pentameter. But there are many variations.
Oh, just/ anoth/er kind/ of éut / door game,
One on/ a side./ It cémes/ to lit/tle mére
Here, the first foot of the first line is a spondee; and the other four feet are iambuses. The first foot of the second line is a trochee, and the four other feet are iambuses. So, variations occur in many lines throughout the poem.
The use of some rhetorical figures like interrogation, synecdoche, personification, simile, metaphor, epigram, etc. is obvious. The ‘S’ sound created by the letter “S” repeated in the line “And some are loaves and some so nearly balls” create a pleasing, musical consonance.
The diction is characteristic of Frost’s poetic language. The words are simple, everyday words, but each sentence is loaded with meaning of great depth.
Conclusion
All factors considered, this is an excellent poem. The critical appreciation of Mending Wall makes you happy by providing some special information about this poem. If you have any more discussion on Mending Wall. We have some more articles on the poetry of Robert Frost. You may read them too.
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