AP Lit pd 3a
November 16, 2016
Poetry Explication
Robert Frost’s lyric poem “Reluctance” explores the inner conflict related to aging and death. Now home, it seems as though his journey through life is at its end. However, he refuses to simply accept his fate and expresses reluctance to go. Frost uses an extended metaphor, specific diction and parallelism to convey the speaker’s unwillingness to accept the continuity of life.
Throughout the first stanza the speaker recounts a life full of travel and adventure. The terms “fields” and “woods” suggest the wilderness; “fields,” “walls,” and “highway,” reflect civilization. This juxtaposition suggests that he has led a long life and has experienced all that life has to offer. The phrase “climbed the hills” refers to the difficulties and obstacles that he overcome and “descended” foreshadows that the end of his journey is near; he “looked at the world” and then he went down, having seen all that there was to see. The speaker has been all over the world; he has loved and lost, succeeded and failed, obtained a rich and full life. Transitioning from a reflective to melancholy mood, Frost uses the dying nature that accompanies winter to represent the inevitable reality of life. He has returned home and finds that everything has died or is near death. This tone is emphasized by his choice of words such as, “dead” and “crusted.” The only leaves that have not died are entrapped by the oak tree, which is letting them go one by one. The word “ravel” is used to describe this action creates a very eerie mood that twists the simple action of leaves falling off of branches. The personification of the leaves let go one by one, “scraping and creeping/ Out over the crusted snow” suggests that the changing season is meant to parallel the imminent change in the speaker’s life. “Scraping and “creeping” are examples of both consonance and internal rhyme. The dying season, marked by the end of harvest and beginning of winter, a season that nothing can …show more content…
There are many examples of consonance throughout this piece such as, “wended” and “descended;” “scraping” and “creeping;” “hither,” “thither,” and “wither;” and “treason” and “reason.” These examples of consonance emphasize these words and add to the overall dreary mood of the poem.
True to the fashion of a typical lyric poem, the ABCBDB rhyme scheme creates a very melodic rhythm that parallels both the nature of the leaves and the travels of the speaker. Leaves are often described as floating through the air; similarly, Frost makes the man’s travels very ____ (as seen by the lines, “I have climbed the hills of view/ And looked at the world, and descended.”) Frost paints a picture of the man traveling up and over the rounded hills, a very continuous, flowing image.
The unique meter also enhances the flow of this poem; the final line is shorter than all of the other lines in each stanza. In each stanza, five lines are in trimester with three beats per line and the final line is in dimeter with only two beats per line. Besides stressing these last lines, it creates a very methodical piece that contrasts the stark imagery. Instead of writing sharp lines, his smooth diction alludes to hope within this