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Robert Frost Poem Analysis

Decent Essays

When looking at both Robert Frost’s and Emily Dickinson’s poems about darkness and night, several things are brought to light. This includes the different point of views provided by the speaker, the imagery left for the reader to depict, the structure of each poem, and how both poems connect to each other. In each of the two poems, the speakers have contrasting opinions on the idea of darkness and the night. In Emily Dickinson’s poem, the speaker presents themself with optimism within the phrases, “The Bravest - grope a little-/ And sometimes hit a Tree/ Directly in the Forehead-/ But as they learn to see-” (ll 13-16). This is also present in the poem when the speaker describes, “Or Star- come out- within-” (l 12). In line 1 of Robert …show more content…

Suddenly they have reached the end of the city limits where everything past them is polluted by the darkness of the night. The imagery in both of these poems is very strong. In terms of the two poem’s structure, there are different literary elements at play as well as creative uses of the poem’s set up. In both of the two poems there are occasional rhymes, but no set rhyme scheme. As for punctuation in the two, there seems to be no pattern. In Emily Dickinson’s poem she uses hyphens to show an unfinished thought at the end of a line or within a line. In Robert Frost’s poem he uses a variety of literary elements to get his story across to his intended audience. One of the literary elements that he uses is anaphora, the repetition of a word, phrase, or clause at the beginning of two or more sentences in a row. Additionally, Robert Frost uses personification, a figure of speech in which something nonhuman is given human characteristics. This is present when the speaker says, “I have looked down the saddest city lane.”(l 4) This is an example of personification because the act or emotion of sadness is a human one that can not be expressed by a city lane. With all of this in mind, it is easy to conclude that the structure of the two poems are irregular. While analyzing the context of the two poems and their connection to each other, it is important to remember the central theme of darkness and of the night. Both poems have a heavy emphasis of

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