Kidd. The poet's journey toward the night, his familiarity with the night, both represents the poet's search for "complete self-knowledge" and his willingness to explore unknown - again, mysterious - territory.
In the second stanza, Amano conjectures that Frost is putting the persona into the reader's consciousness in the form of a denial of others. The "watchman" is the only other human in this poem, of course, but beyond that, it may be that the speaker looks down rather than at the watchman because the speaker feels some guilt, or indifference. The watchman might be a timekeeper, as well, and the poet / speaker is reluctant to face the reality that his time is running out on this earth.
I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet / When far away an interrupted cry / Came over houses from another street..." Frost writes in the third stanza. That cry, it seems, as readers learn in the fourth stanza, is not to try to coax him into returning or showing courtesy; it is likely to show him that nothing will prevent him from discovering the new possibilities, Amano conjectures. Other scholars have written about this poem in the sense that it is really just Frost explaining that there are many choices one must make when preparing to write a poem. If that is true, and therein lies part of the mystery alluded to earlier, then the line "...an interrupted cry" might be Frost's image of creative writers who struggle to find originality and meaning in their poetry.
That suggestion having been covered, and even if Frost's poems are about the nature of poetry itself, when he writes of the "luminary clock against the sky" in the fourth stanza he is returning to the first line, as poems...
Robert Frost, "Acquainted with the Night" Robert Frost's "Acquainted with the Night" is not a traditional sonnet. Although it has the traditional fourteen lines and tightly rhymed stanzas associated with both Petrarchan and Shakespearean sonnets, Frost's rhyme scheme here is unusual: he uses the interlinking rhymes structured around successive tercets that is known as terza rima, whose greatest proponent was probably Dante in The Divine Comedy. But Frost takes the radical
Robert Frost wrote, "I have written to keep the over curious out of the secret places in my mind both in my verse and in my letters." In a poem, he wrote, "I have been one acquainted with the night." Those unfamiliar with Robert Frost's life story might not realize the significance of those words. Frost was born in a nearly lawless city and grew up in a highly dysfunctional
Robert Frost's adulthood was also riddled with loss. He often felt jealous and resentful that the quality of his poetry was slow to be recognized. Unable to support his family with his writing, for many years he had to work at various jobs, often as a teacher until his grandfather finally gave him land to live on and an allowance with on which to live (Meyers, p. 52). In addition,
Frost's piece "Fire and Ice" is also rich with metaphors about the human condition. Frost begins his piece with "Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice." Again at first glance, frost appears to be discussing the end of the world. However, his next line "From what I've tasted of desire, I'll hold with those who favor fire." Frost appears to be discussing the end of
Acquainted with the Night, by Robert Frost (1874-1963) The poem Acquainted with the Night was written by Robert Frost and first printed in a collection called West Running Brook published in 1928. Robert Frost's poetry painted a classic picture of life in America. We get glimpses of every day scenes featuring every day people. We also get a picture of the very troubled and depressed Frost himself. When reading Frost's poetry,
To be "acquainted with the night" is here obviously to have an experience of the darker and more profound regions of the human mind. All the images in the text indicate that the poet crosses the boundaries of consciousness, entering a world of veiled darkness, beyond the "furthest city light": "I have been one acquainted with the night. / I have walked out in rain -- and back in
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