1. Loneliness in Robert Frost’s Poems Zhang Yan

2. What is Modernism?

3. The Definition of Modernism The term modernism is widely used to identify new and distinctive features in the subjects, forms, concepts, and styles of literature and the other arts in the early decades of the 20 th century, but especially after World War Ⅰ (1914-18). The specific features signified by “modernism” vary with the user, but many critics agree that it involves a deliberate and radical break with some of the traditional bases not only of Western art, but of Western culture in general. --M.H. Abrams& Geoffrey Galt Harpham, A Glossary of Literary Terms, p.201-02

4. Robert Frost’s poems represent the combination of tradition and modernism. –He takes advantage of metrical forms and free verse and makes some changes on the conventional rhythm. –Besides, with the description of human’s rural life (such as brook, woods, apple picking, fence mending, etc), he writes in colloquial language to reflect modern themes.

5. Loneliness--one of his modern themes –Loneliness of human’s inner world –Estrangement among people –Relationship between human and nature

6. Desert Places Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast In a field I looked into going past, And the ground almost covered smooth in snow, But a few weeds and stubble showing last. The woods around it have it--it is theirs. All animals are smothered in their lairs, I am too absent-spirited to count; The loneliness includes me unawares. In the first stanza, the snowy night and the desolate ground create a cold and bleak atmosphere. In the same atmosphere, there are great differences between the nature and “I”, a human being. The woods, the ground, and the animals form a whole natural world, while the human feels alienated from the natural world. Animals can hibernate together in their lairs, while the human has to taste the imponderable loneliness in his own world.

7. And lonely as it is, that loneliness Will be more lonely ere it will be less-- A blanker whiteness of benighted snow With no expression, nothing to express. They cannot scare me with their empty spaces Between stars--on stars where no human race is. I have it in me so much nearer home To scare myself with my own desert places. The first two lines expresses human’s strong feeling of loneliness and the loneliness seems hardly to alleviate but to deteriorate. And the natural world in the snowy night will not understand the human’s inner loneliness because it seems indifferent to the human, according to the words “with no expression, nothing to express”. Here the “stars” is a metaphor of the snowy empty spaces, where is desolate and inhabited. In the last two lines, “it” stands for the wasteland and “home” means human’s spiritual world; so the most dreadful thing is that the loneliness of one’s inner landscape.

8. There are two worlds in this poem--one is “theirs” natural world and the other is “my” lonely world. Through the comparison between them, it strengthens human’s feeling of loneliness.

9. Mending Wall 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.' 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 （ line,23-31 ） In this poem, the “wall” signifies barriers that impede human’s communication and mutual understanding. “I” don’t like the wall but the neighbor sticks to the fusty view and doesn’t think about whether it is right or necessary to mend the wall. It also reveals the alienated relationship among people in the modern society, which is reflected by mutual suspicion, indifference and even hostility. The sentence “There where it is we do not need the wall” manifests its theme, i.e. to dismantle the wall among people rather than mend the wall.

10. Through describing the wall-mending activity in spring, it tries to represent the invisible wall among people in the modern society and expresses the wish to eliminate the estrangement and isolated living state.

11. The Tuft of Flowers I went to turn the grass once after one Who mowed it in the dew before the sun. The dew was gone that made his blade so keen Before I came to view the leveled scene. I looked for him behind an isle of trees; I listened for his whetstone on the breeze. But he had gone his way, the grass all mown, And I must be, as he had been—alone, “As all must be,” I said within my heart, “Whether they work together or apart.” “I” walks in the grassland and searches for the mower, but he has already left. So “I” am alone in the spacious land and have the feeling of loneliness

12. But as I said it, swift there passed me by On noiseless wing a ’wildered butterfly, Seeking with memories grown dim o’er night Some resting flower of yesterday’s delight. And once I marked his flight go round and round, As where some flower lay withering on the ground. And then he flew as far as eye could see, And then on tremulous wing came back to me. I thought of questions that have no reply, And would have turned to toss the grass to dry; But he turned first, and led my eye to look At a tall tuft of flowers beside a brook, A leaping tongue of bloom the scythe had spared Beside a reedy brook the scythe had bared. The mower in the dew had loved them thus, By leaving them to flourish, not for us, Nor yet to draw one thought of ours to him. But from sheer morning gladness at the brim. A butterfly breaks the static scenery and leads “me” to find a tuft of flowers, which is reserved by the mower perhaps because of his love for beauty. It manifests the harmonious relationship between human and nature

13. The butterfly and I had lit upon, Nevertheless, a message from the dawn, That made me hear the wakening birds around, And hear his long scythe whispering to the ground, And feel a spirit kindred to my own; So that henceforth I worked no more alone; But glad with him, I worked as with his aid, And weary, sought at noon with him the shade; And dreaming, as it were, held brotherly speech With one whose thought I had not hoped to reach. ‘Men work together,’ I told him from the heart, ‘Whether they work together or apart.’ The twitter of birds and the sound of mowing seem incompatible but here are harmonious, because the mower pays attentions to the tuft of flowers and tries to protect it, which is identical with “my own” spirit. The consensus between the mower and “I” on this point alleviates the loneliness in human’s heart.

14. The loneliness among people is caused by the lack of mutual understanding and communication. In the poem, when the person finds the resonance with the mower, he says “Men work together.”

15. Thank you!