Creative tensions
Robert Frost's poetry and politics
Archived article from Oct 26, 2001
By Phyllis Gottlieb
Politics and poetry make strange bedfellows. Aesthetic theories, after all, are rarely thought to have social implications. But when Tyler Hoffman, assistant professor of English on the Camden campus, began researching his new book, "Robert Frost and the Politics of Poetry" (University Press of New England), he discovered a writer who deliberately used his understanding of poetic form to probe some of the major issues of his day.
Frost, of course, is among the most widely recognized and popular poets this country has produced. On the simplest level, his poems, with their regional diction, pat aphorisms and colloquial turns of phrase, tell and retell the story of the rugged New England farmer drawing wisdom from the rocky soil.
In recent years, however, scholars have come to realize that Frost is not as simple as many high school teachers would have us believe. His well-known and frequently voiced disdain for free verse, his insistence on both the natural rhythms of the spoken word and the more formal strictures of poetic meter, were part of an elaborate theory of prosody that Frost put forth in letters to friends and critics and in his notebook, Hoffman says.
Take, for instance, what the poet labeled "the sound of sense," an oft-repeated conviction that writers could fix the tone of voice on the page for all time, and his insistence on the ear, rather than the eye, as the primary sense in conveying meaning. Listen to the line, Frost advised, with its adherence to the cadences of ordinary speech, and there is only one unambiguous way to hear what the poet wants to convey.
It's an interesting theory, and many critics have taken Frost at his word. But Hoffman thought there was more going on; indeed, he came to believe that Frost's poetry often flies in the face of his carefully crafted theories. As Hoffman demonstrates in his book, there are often many ways to read a line in Frost's poems.
Hoffman asks his readers to take a second look at the famous passage in "Mending Wall": "Good fences make good neighbors." The phrase is repeated twice in the poem and, Hoffman notes, Frost said it should be read differently at those different points in the narrative. But how, exactly, should it be read? "How much sarcasm is entangled in the speaker's quotation of his neighbor's statement?" Hoffman asks. "And at what in particular is the sneer directed? Is it at the statement itself or at the unthinking echo of the statement by the neighbor?"
The poem is further complicated by Frost's own relation to the views expressed. He seems to identify with the speaker who questions the reason for boundary walls, but then he seems to acknowledge that walls do, indeed, have their uses. "It is certainly the case that Frost is ambivalent about it," Hoffman notes. "On the one hand, he thinks, perhaps 'Good fences make good neighbors.' On the other hand, 'Something there is that doesn't love a wall/ That wants it down.' So he's playing both sides, identifying to an extent with both speakers. You can read the poem in various ways, with a lot depending on your intonation."
Maintaining balance
Indeed, it is Frost's ability to balance conflicting opinions, much as he balances the tension between the rhythms of ordinary speech and the demands of poetic meter, that most fascinates Hoffman and leads him to see Frost as deeply engaged in an intense political discussion.
Hoffman points out that Frost, in his later years, explained "Mending Wall" in larger terms as a debate between nationalists content to stay within set boundaries and internationalists anxious to eliminate borders.
Such a political approach, however, is far from usual when talking about Frost, who is most often considered a regional poet within the culture of New England. Hoffman asserts that Richard Poirier, Rutgers professor emeritus and author of the seminal book "Robert Frost: The Work of Knowing," did the most to broaden our understanding of Frost. But even Poirier "charged that Frost was lacking in 'historical vision' and 'blind to social systems,'" Hoffman writes. Indeed, many critics, if they discuss Frost's politics at all, label him a conservative with a rather unsophisticated grasp of larger public issues.
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