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Robert Frost's 'Range-Finder'

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Robert Frost, one of the most celebrated poets and writers in American history, is known for poems laced with metaphors and similes that are not always easy for readers to digest. Each poetic verse stands for a different reason, meaning, and purpose. One of Frost’s more complicated poems, “Range-Finding,” is actually quite simple. However, its meaning is not taken at face value. “Range-Finding” is an extremely metaphorical poem that surrounds the meaning of finding oneself. In another perspective, it could be about a way to discuss relationships, using nature. However, another way to interpret the poem is looking at war from the point of view of nature. Regardless of how it is interpreted, “Range-Finder” is full of literary techniques and …show more content…

Petrarchan sonnets are composed of an octave and a sestet. “Range-Finder” is made up of two stanzas: three quatrains and a couplet. In the octave of the poem, a very distressing, heartbreaking scene of nature’s beauty being destroyed is introduced. The following sestet illustrates what comes after – the disappointment nature feels after it has been destroyed. The rhyme scheme of the poem goes by ABBAABBA – CCDEED. “Range-Finder” consists of 14 enjambment lines that continue on with very few punctuation but no line breaks. When punctuation is used, it is simple; Frost uses periods and commas when necessary, and only when wanting to stop long sentences. Sometimes, he skips over periods. The word “and” is used multiple times to begin a line, making the poem grammatical. Although it follows English conventions, it does not flow as smoothly as most of Frost’s poems. For example, in the first stanza, Frost says, “A butterfly its fall had dispossessed / A moment sought in air his flower of rest, / Then lightly stopped to it and fluttering clung (Frost, 6-8).” The rhyme scheme of the poem is very irregular and inconsistent, but goes along with the form of a Petrarchan sonnet. In terms of organization, Frost is as complicated as ever. The poem does not necessarily go in order; however, it is divided into two scenarios: during the “war” and after …show more content…

The spider, unaware that her beautiful web had been struck by the bullet, ran to the hole, assuming it would find its next prey, but instead faced a wide and gaping hole that left her home destroyed. The disappointment of the spider embodies the disappointment of nature when it faces reality and the acts that humans bring into the world through their violence. Throughout the poem, informal language is used. While it cannot be said the language was a cacophony of words, it wasn’t entirely euphonic either. Frost says it how it is, and while there is personification (a fly “running” to greet a fly” (Frost, 13) and there are multiple metaphors (“The stricken flower bent double” (Frost, 4) and “O’ernight ‘twixt mullein stalks a wheel of thread” (Frost, 10)), the poem is full of difficult words and do not sound very

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In lines eight through twelve of the poem, the speaker states “I don’t ask myself what I’m looking for. I didn’t come for answers to a place like this, I came to walk on the earth, still cold, still silent.” The speaker says that the earth is cold and silent, illustrating how he or she sees the world as dead and cold. As readers go through the poem they can tell how the speaker was expecting life to turn out the way it did. By the speaker stating in lines thirteen through eight-teen “Still unforgiving, I’ve said to myself, although it greets me with last year’s dead thistles and this year’s hard spines, early blooming wild onions, the curling remains of spider’s cloth” it shows how he views the world as a bad place that never produces anything good.

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The spider is referenced again in the second stanza, were we would think the speaker would transition to the bullets target, it actually explains the frustration on the spider because the bullet strikes its web, and the spider believes it has caught a fly, but to is surprise finds just hole that has destroyed its home. A metaphor is used describing the spider as humanized in that

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Frost’s composition ‘Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening’ epitomises the unpredictable nature of revelations as reveals an individual realising their purpose. Frost’s process of discovery begins when the persona appears to “stop… between the woods and frozen lake” to contemplate his existence, curious for a life without obligations. The process continues as the persona experiences a compelling draw towards nature, expressing “the woods” as “lovely, dark and deeply”. The use of antithesis and paradox augments the connection he feels with nature by contrasting the qualities that are used to describe their appeal. His willingness to consider the oblivion of the woods suggests that he is weary of his chores.

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However, it is difficult to define what the “night” means to the speaker at the beginning. In this stanza, the narrator walks in the rain and see the city light. The narrator wanders in the night, feeling that he is isolated from the world, despite the fact that he is in the city. The rhyme in the first stanza is obvious because the narrator starts five lines with the same pattern “I have”. Frost uses the first person perspective in order to emphasize the narrator’s loneliness.

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In Robert Frost’s poem

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Michael R. Little says that the poem, ¨is a meditation on loneliness and isolation, centering on one man 's lonely nighttime wanderings and suggesting that his individual experiences represent the human condition.” Born on March 26, 1874, Frost didn 't always know he wanted to be a poet. He loved to write and did not decide to

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Robert Frost, a celebrated American poet, frequently wrote about settings relating to the rural lifestyle he grew up in and the surrounding nature to convey the themes embedded in each of his literary works. His style of writing includes emphasis on the aesthetics of language and on the use of literary techniques to develop poems with multiple layers, portraying various universal ideas. Upon analysis, Frost’s style of writing appears to be consistent from piece to piece; he utilizes the same literary devices and aspects of figurative language in similar ways. This concept is recognized when comparing Frost’s poems Nothing Gold Can Stay and A Passing Glimpse.

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Frost talks about spring and the beauty of it in this whole poem. He does tell us it does not last for very long when he says, “But only so an hour” in line 4. Frost uses a rhyme scheme of AABBCCDD. Which means he started rhyming in couplets starting from the beginning of this poem, for example when he states “Nature’s first green is gold/ Her hardest hue to hold.” When Robert says in line 7, “So dawn goes down to day”

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The poem has many different lines that illustrates the simplest beauties of nature and its seasons. For instance, line 6 says, “I am the gentle autumn rain.” The way it captures these images draws comfort into my mind and soul. It makes me feel secure and protected, knowing that the speaker is around in my surroundings.

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This is also called a Spenserian stanza. Spenserian stanzas are very famous for their form so Frost uses two well known elements, fire and ice, to match the reputation of the poem's form. Interestingly, when reading the poem out loud it is noticeable that each line ends with either an 'ire' for fire or desire, an 'ice' for ice, or 'ate' for hate. Also, each line either contains four or eight syllables. The question that Frost implies in his poem also has a distinct structure.

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The poem consists of a conversation between Warren, a farmer, and Mary, his wife, about their former employee Silas, who has come “home” to die. Through the conversation between Warren and Mary, and the death of Silas at the end of the poem, Frost attempts to remind the general public to be more sympathetic and compassionate toward people who do

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Throughout this poem, Robert Frost uses extended metaphors to convey that every human has a path that causes them to constantly make choices that will continue to shape their lives. In the first lines of the poem, Frost states, “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood/ And sorry I could not travel both” (Lines 1-2). Immediately, the idea is established that the speaker has to make a decision.

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Frost also uses this poem as a medium to depict his views on the adversity and injustice of young, sometimes

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Also, a main objective of this unit was learning how to write original poems, and simply replicating a different poet’s way of writing is not fulfilling that objective. The is a significant difference between mirroring a poet’s way of writing and being inspired by a poet’s works. I was influenced by Frost’s decision to use minimal grammar and structure the poem with four lines within each stanza, so I incorporated those elements in my poem. However, I did not feel as if my poem was complete with only six stanzas so I decided to include

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This writing style is used to represent different emotions fire and ice can be. In “The Mending Wall," there are examples of diction that portray Frost 's word choices. Frost’s writing style highlights the parallels between the discussion of desire(ice) and hate(fire). He uses sensuous verbs to describe these two factors by saying, “I think…. I know…”, it means that the poet is confused and his life experiences have influenced the poem.

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