2. Q uick H istory
Full Name: Robert Lee Frost
Life: March 26, 1874 – January 29, 1963
He is highly regarded for his realistic depictions of rural
life and his command of American colloquial speech.
His work frequently employed settings from rural life in
New England in the early twentieth century, using them
to examine complex social and philosophical themes.
One of the most popular and critically respected
American poets of his generation, Frost was honored
frequently during his lifetime, receiving four Pulitzer
Prizes for Poetry.
Teacher, mill worker, newspaper reporter
Poems about country life and the beauty of landscape
Poet of deep thoughts with spiritual meanings
3. Q uick H istory
Nationality – American
Lifespan - 1874 – 1963
Father - William Prescott Frost Jr.
Editor of the San Francisco Daily Evening
Post Education – Harvard
Career - Poet, essayist, educator, and critic
Born in San Francisco but lived in a farm in New
England
DarthmouthUniversity and later Harvard without a
degree
4. Q uick H istory
Four-time Pulitzer Prize winner
Author of Fire and Ice, Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy
Evening, The Road Not Taken and A Question
Poem ~ Mending Wall
Wrote just before World War One in England
Reminded him of his home in America
Relationships about anyone anywhere
Unites rural description with deep thinking
5. STRUCTURE
Structural Description of the Poem
45 - line consists of one verse paragraph = like a wall of words
'I' = story with narrator; monologue; dramatic speech
Present tense = idea happens as the reader reads the poem
contractions, 'oh' = space filler, everyday speech, immediate
emotion
Full stops in the middle of lines = common in everyday
speaking, adds a natural feel
ex: 'He said it for himself. I see him there.’
6. CONCEPTS
setting = countryside in spring
border between two farms
writes about both a physical wall and the character
of his neighbor
compares the neighbor to himself
What makes a good neighbor?
7. INCEPTION
a country scene where the walls need to be
repaired
a farmer’s pride in the wisdom passed down to him
by his father.
stubbornness in a conservative farmer who blindly
follows tradition
examines how humans deal with each other and
live isolated lives.
8. THEMES
barrier building
[Sisyphus ~ Greek Mythology; push a boulder
up the hill only to have the boulder roll down
again] (segregation in its broadest sense)
the doomed nature of this enterprise
Our persistence in this activity
9. MENDING WALL
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
10. MENDING WALL
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
11. MENDING WALL
"Stay where you are until our backs are turned!"
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across:
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, "Good fences make good neighbors."
12. MENDING WALL
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
"Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down." I could say "Elves" to him,
13. MENDING WALL
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors.”
14. LINES FO R THOUGHT
a respectful distance between neighbours is the recipe
for harmonious relationships (27/45)
a farmer’s pride in the wisdom passed down to him by
his father (43)
portrays an unusual and dour country character (40)
co-operation between neighbours (12)
people need their own space (15)
explores the futility of a country custom (21)
15. LINES FOR THOUGHT
suggests there are mysterious forces at work in
nature (35-36)
different types of agriculture in the locality (24)
the way some people keep to themselves, no
matter what (41)
the mental struggle between two neighbours who
appear to co-operate on a physical task while they
are very different in outlook (23)
