Literary Analysis Essay

When ones reads a poem by the famous American poet Robert Frost, a beautiful, simple, and unique image of nature starts to be articulated in their thoughts, maybe of a mountain with a storm at its peak, or a incomplex stream running through the woods. This is because of frost’s use of nature imagery. Nature imagery in Robert Frost’s poems are one of the most misunderstood aspects of his poems, a famous quote by Robert Frost explains just this, “I am not a nature poet. There is almost always a person in my poems” (Frost and Nature.) The two poems: "Spring Pools" and "A Winter Eden" are two rare exceptions to this rule, nature imagery in Frost’s poems are not necessarily just about a cute bunny sitting in a grass meadow; they will start out with an image of nature which later connect to some human footing or idea. Frost’s poetry uses nature as a metaphor; he will observe and write about something in nature and leave the reader to make the connection. An example of connection may be the image of a storm rolling in, and the anticipation of rush time traffic hitting the interstate at five in the evening. From the poem “A Winter Eden” Frost writes: “It lifts existence on a plane of snow/One level higher than the earth below,/One level nearer heaven overhead,/And last year's berries shining scarlet red.” (A Winter Eden.) Visualizing this poem, the reader could picture a beautiful snowy landscape with bushes covered in red berries in the background, but Frost is trying to tell the reader more than just just majestic image he is creating. The nature imagery in this poem are relating this image to being heavenly, that while viewing something as extravagant as this, one is a step closer to heaven, or what their interpretation of what heaven looks like. Likewise in Frost’s poem “Spring Pools” he writes: “And like the flowers beside them, chill and shiver,/Will like the flowers beside them soon be gone,/And yet not out by any brook or river,/But up by roots to bring dark foliage on” (Spring Pools.) In these lines Frost in contrasting the human situation with nature. In this poem spring has just arrived, the snow is melting and new life is coming soon. But just as fast as the water is feeding the new flowers they will also soon “chill and shiver” (die). Babies are born, not necessarily in spring like flowers, but they are brought to life, and will someday chill and shiver just like the flowers, this is the human condition being demonstrated in frost's poems. This does not have to be a harsh reality brought out in in these poems, frost talked about how nature and human existence are intertwined in one another, human realities are brought out similarly in nature as well portrayed in Frost's poems (Hass.)
A deeper meaning is revealed in “Spring Pools” when Frost transforms a simple act of nature into an important message of life. He illustrates the cycle of life when he speaks of the flowers and trees soaking up the water “from snow that melted only yesterday” (Spring Pools). This use of symbolism portrays the way even the beauty of a snowflake can vanish to become a resource for another form of life, like the oil our cars burn today, from the decomposed remains of life before us. That is not a very pretty picture, and it is hard to think of it that way, but when frost describes it in the way he did, a connection to humanity is made in a poetic, relatable, and understandable way.
Nature interacts in ways humanity does, and Frost demonstrates this well in both poems. First, in “A Winters Eden” Frost writes: “So near to paradise all pairing ends:/Here loveless birds now flock as winter friends,/Content with bud-inspecting. They presume/To say which buds are leaf and which are bloom” (A Winter Eden). Nature imagery here shows birds during summer inspecting flowers and collecting nectar. Something that is normally looked past, and seemingly insignificant is flip flopped in this poem. During winter birds don't do anything but feed, nest, and

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