In Review: American Literature Series - Robert Frost

This week in class, we had to choose three out of five poems and tell about the ways in which the poets demonstrate the complexities and dynamics of how nature is depicted in American literature. Though I do enjoy poetry analysis, this was a tough week for me. I couldn’t coonect with one of the poets at all, which left me with Frost’s After Apple Picking, Emerson’s Song of Nature, and Hass’ Meditation at Lagunitas. Today I will talk about the first of my selections, since it is such a classic and I have wanted to get to know Frost better.After

Apple-Picking by Robert Frost

My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree

Toward heaven still,And there's a barrel that I didn't fill

Beside it, and there may be two or three

Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.

But I am done with apple-picking now.

Essence of winter sleep is on the night,

The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.

I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight

I got from looking through a pane of glass

I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough

And held against the world of hoary grass.

It melted, and I let it fall and break.

But I was well

Upon my way to sleep before it fell,

And I could tell

What form my dreaming was about to take.

Magnified apples appear and disappear,

Stem end and blossom end,

And every fleck of russet showing clear.

My instep arch not only keeps the ache,

It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.

I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend.

And I keep hearing from the cellar bin

The rumbling sound

Of load on load of apples coming in.

For I have had too much

Of apple-picking: I am overtired

Of the great harvest I myself desired.

There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,

Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall.

For all

That struck the earth,

No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble,

Went surely to the cider-apple heap

As of no worth.

One can see what will trouble

This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.

Were he not gone,

The woodchuck could say whether it's like his

Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,

Or just some human sleep.

I should say, that besides a few of his most well-known poems, I am not as familiar with Frost’s background or ideals, which, in my opinion leaves me at a handicap in seeing where he comes from. In Frost’s first image, he shows us a ladder pointed not just up, but up to heaven. Is this supposed to symbolize the beginnings of America, the settlers hope for a new Eden? Maybe. Of course his greatest symbol in the poem is the apple itself, and as most people would agree, this is an American symbol. I have never been quite sure why, but it is. You know – as American as apple pie. I believe that frost gives us the images (in line three through five) of the barrel with room still left in it and the few apples still left on the bough and states that he is done with apple picking for now, to mean that there are a few American ideals which he chooses not to adopt. It feels to me as if Frost is torn about how he feels about being an American – if this is the case, I feel you, brother. I feel you. Indeed, I would have to say that in my case there are more apples I choose to leave than take. “Of apple-picking: I am overtired/Of the great harvest I myself desired.” I feel that he had so many hopes for his nation, and now they are waning.

He goes on to show us an image of the bruised apples falling in the heap to have no future except to become cider. Frost also clearly tells us winter is nearing, and that he must sleep – not an ordinary sleep, but one much deeper. Both of these things symbolize death. Does Frost feel the American dream dying before his eyes? I have to make it a point to read more by and about Frost, because now I am intrigued. I wonder how close I was with my analysis.

~ Peace and Love, Tracey

© Tracey Love, 2015. All rights reserved.

Works CitedFrost, Robert. “After Apple Picking” Poetry Foundation. Web 17 Nov. 2015.