Marko Veckov

Student’s Name Professor’s Name Course Number Date RESEARCH PAPER ON ROBERT FROST This paper’s main goal would be to provide rhetorical analysis of great American poet Robert Frost’s writings on a specific example of one of his poems, Bereft. Poem’s sounds, vivid descriptions and atmosphere, will all be equally examined. This poem with its dept tells a tale of men’s loneliness told through his relations to nature. Descriptions of nature are done with such intensity, that a reader must shiver at the sound of its force and brutality. It is at that sad and gloomy moment of isolation that men feels all, all alone standing naked against the bitter and fast realities of nature[ CITATION Asl14 \l 1033 ]. Through these manifestations of nature poet describes men’s loneliness. However, when a man looks inside himself, he finds out that he is not alone, but that he is in the presence of his creator. Nature is portrayed with dark, hostile tones and its description is rather impersonal. It is so immense and intense that man feels so insignificant in the face of it [ CITATION Bok18 \l 1033 ]. Man is here portrayed as a lonely individual with sour heart. He feels like all the nature’s great forces have teamed up against him. He sits all alone at his porch and whole universe seems like running towards him with destructive force. Nature becomes a medium, a tool which he can use to describe his feelings. Therefore, poet does not have spiritual relations to it, but rather impersonal, as its descriptions are used to portray everchanging moods of human soul. It is not the nature in the poem that’s harsh, but man’s own personality that makes it like that. Nature can offer a solace to man, but will he accept it, that is entirely up to him. It is his choice will he leave life through the eyes of morbidity or clear heart. Robert Frost wrote most of his works in an atmosphere of diminishing influence of nature on man and growing industrial development. Robert Frost comes from the other side of this development, and his poetry, along with his personal life in general, is noticeably thin on spirituality[ CITATION Pin17 \l 1033 ]. Frost is rather pessimistic regarding man’s connection with nature in the industrialized world and traces of this negativity we can find in Bereft, in the gloomy descriptions of “past summer days”. There is something scary and sinister in his descriptions of nature in Bereft, as if he alone feels not too optimistic about man’s life with accordance to nature. It is as if he feels that man is on the forsaken path towards total alienation from natural environment or is already there. However, traces of hope do exist, as man finds comfort in his creator and his presence and possibility to lead a meaningful life. In Bereft, Frost engaged with fear of being left to the mercy of nature’s unpredictable forces on one side and absence of God on the other. The former is the result of a perceived absence of the Divine while the latter stands for the warranted belief in the immanence of a Divine power in cosmos [ CITATION Els19 \l 1033 ]. The man in the poem, is left alone in his world, not just by others, but by God, also. This abandonment leaves him with loneliness and suffering of his soul. The last verse could be a call to a renewed faith in God. Descriptions of nature and feelings it evokes in the main subject of the poem echo long after finished reading. Inner doubt and conflict or the so-called “inner weather” dominate throughout the entire atmosphere of the poem. The loneliness of human life has found a spacious room in Frost’s poetry[ CITATION Bar19 \l 1033 ]. In “Bereft” it finds its place among inner sentiment of a man with regards to nature. Poet describes nature as a beautiful, but dangerous force, that can offer blessings to humans, but also curses. Vivid, but gloomy descriptions of nature are given in the impersonal tone and don’t insist on spirituality. Man’s own experience of nature is used to portray his loneliness or maybe his bitterness due to lost connection with nature. However, last verse seems like a light in the dark, a glimpse of hope, in a renewed interest for the Divine. Bibliography Aslam, Saima, et al. "Stylistical analysis of the poem "Bereft" by Robert Frost." European Journal of Research and Reflection in Arts and Humanities (2014). . Barman, Binoy. "Frost of Pessimism." 2019. . Bokhari, Syeda Samar Shahid, Sana Akram and Mahmood Ahmad Azhar. "The Terror-Myth of Robert Frost's Poetry-A Brain Strain." European Journal of English Language and Literary Studies (2018). . Elsanosi, Manroka. "'Nature is the symbol of spirit': the spiritual crtographies of Robert Frost's poetry." 2019. . Pinkham, Robert. "Conceptualizing Nature: New England Nature Writers." 2017. .