From: Saicho-AT-aol.com Date: Sun, 2 Nov 1997 14:39:41 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: PLC: On Frost While it is a serious mistake to treat Frost as superficial poet, I feel it is also a mistake to treat his poetry as a field of vast possibilities -- there are only a few, and he makes them rather clear, sometimes subtly and sometimes no so subtle. When he talks about God, he talks about God, as in his "Sitting by a Bush in Broad Sunlight." In "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" I doubt very much if this poem would have the fame and punch without the last verse -- until that point the poem is a quaint imagistic picture. I cannot believe that the woods are a metaphor for the attraction of death, but rather the attraction for solitude, mystery and perhaps inactivity which the poet is drawn to, as we all are from time to time. I receive his meaning with ease and comfort -- it sinks in like a melody and I am not driven to explication. This is to be contrasted with, say, the Metaphysical Poets. I bring them up because I took a course in them, years ago and discovered that to get a good grade all one had to do was to ferret out every conceivable reference and allusion -- especially those having to do with mythology, sex, politics, death, God, the scriptures, and the tears of Christ. Frost is "deep" without being laboriously so. It is not surprising that Frost said his poetry is about what it seems to be about. Saicho --- from list phillitcrit-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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