Critical Appreciation of Robert Frost Poems

                               Critical appreciation of 'Mowing'

                  As the speaker labors in his farm field on a quiet, hot day, he can't helpbut notice that his scythe seems to be whispering as it works. He can't exactly hear what the scythe is saying, and he admits that there is a chance that the whispering sound is simply in his own mind because of the qitetness of the day or perhaps due to the heat of the sun playing tricks on him. The speaker realizes that the scythe is teaching him a lesson about the value of work and happiness in the world. Instead of dreaming about inactivity or reward for its labor as a person would, the scythe takes its sole pleasure from his hard work.
                 It receives satisfaction from its dedication and hard work in the field. As the poem ends, the narrator reaches the realization that internal fulfillment can be found in an honest day's labor. This poem is very unique in many ways, but none as much as in the style it is written. Frost had a dream of becomingAmerica's most influentialand prominent poet. He accomplished this throughout his career by breaking molds that had been set by previous writers. In 'Mowing', Frost combines the elements of a Shakespearean and Petrarchan sonnets along with his own unique rhyme scheme to increase the readers ability to feel the poem.
                    It is Petrarchan in that it has two distinct halves: "an octave of eight lines followed by sestet of six lines". The poem also contains a very strong "concluding couplet more characteristic of the Shakespearean sonnet". This is combined with a unique rhyme scheme indicative of a Frost sonnet. Instead of using the strict Petrarchan rhyme scheme (ABBAABBA CDECDE) or the Shakespearean rhyme scheme (ABAB CDCD EFEF GG), Frost creates a hybrid of both: ABC ABDEC DFEH DF.
                    Keeping in tradition with other poems he had written, Frost employs very common and easy to understand language so that his poems could be enjoyed by all. In "Mowing" Frost is able to provide an aural sense of the scythe working across the farm through his use of specific sounds, syllables and repetition of the word such as the use of the term "whisper" in lines 2, 6 and 14. He also effectively uses the swaying motion of the meter between certain lines such as "Perhaps it was something... Something perhaps",providing a visceral sense of the long scythe moving back and forth as it cuts the hay in the field. Frost is able to further the impact of his poem on the senses by providing effective uses of imagery. One is able to envision the perfect silence of working next to the woods and feel the "heat of the sun", bearing down on them. He is able to further intrigue the reader by personifying the scythe and making the scythe a companion during the day of work as opposed to a tool by which to carry out your tasks.
                   As the scythe whispers "to the ground", the farmer is no longer alone in the field. He now becomes a third party to a conversation between his tool and the ground, merely an observer, privy to an intimate line of thoughts. As the poem comes around full circle back to the speaker's original thoughts, he now seems moved and enlightened by the lesson taught to him by his simple farming tool. He seems to realize now that joy and satisfaction are not found in distant fantasizes and will not be handed to you for nothing.
                True happiness and fulfillment can be found in the simple task of performing the job you were meant to do. The scythe would not be content milling the grain nor would the farmer be happy as a banker. As Frost finalizes his poem, "The fact is the sweetest dream that labor knows. My long scythe whispered and left the hay to make", he is saying that the only dream that we have is to do what we were meant to, just as the scythe cuts the grass and the farmer leaves it in rows to make hay.

        Critical appreciation of 'Stopping by Woods on a Snowy                                         Evening

               "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" was included in Frost's volume New Hemisphere, for which he won the first of four Pulitzer prizes. Critics generally agree that its central theme is the speaker's dilemma in choosing between the allure of nature and responsibilities of everyday life in human society. However, the ambiguity of the poem has lead to extensive critical debate.Some conclude that the speaker chooses, by the end of the poem, to resist the temptation of nature and return to the world of men. Others, however, argue that the speaker's repetition of the last line. "And miles to go before I sleep", suggests an indecisiveness as to whether or not he will, in fact, "keep" the "promises" by which he is obligated to return to society. Many have pointed that this "ambiguity" is in part what makes the poem great. Another standard interpretation is that the speaker is contemplating suicide - the woods, "lovely, dark and deep", represent the allure of death as a means of escape from the mundane duties of daily life. Still others, however, such a Philip. L .Gerber, argue that "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" is most importantly a "lyric" poem, which should be appreciated in terms of its formal, metrical qualities, such as the complex, interlocking rhyme scheme, rather than its content or "meaning". Gerber notes that "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" is "widely regarded, metrically, as Frost's most perfect poem." Critics also point to the mood or tone of the poem, as created by its formal properties, as one of a person caught up in a reverie; the hypnotic quality of the repeated closing lines, in particular, suggests a chant or spell. James Hepburn noted that the inability of critics to secure a particular meaning of the poem is due to the quality by which "It is a poem of undertones and overtones rather than of meaning". Critical debate over the meaning and significance of "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" rages on, but few question the status of the poem as one of the greatest in American literature Donald .J. Greiner has observed of poem that "Its deceptive simplicity, its ambiguity, and its interlocking rhyme scheme have been so lauded that it is now one of the most explicated American poems". The extent to which this poem has been discussed - perhaps over analyzed - by critics who, tongue-in-cheek, surmised that the speaker is in fact none other than Santa Clause, the "little horse" who rings its harness bells representing a reindeer, and the "darkest night of the year",during which the poem takes place a reference to the winter solstice, which is only a few days before Christmas. According to this interpretation, the "promises" that the speaker must keep refer to Santa Clause's responsibility to deliver presents Christmas Eve.