"A Drama of Man in
Nature": A Comparative Study of Robert Frost and William Wordsworth.
Robert Frost is a nature poet and his love for nature is primarily
ascribed not only to his temperament but also to his background of Boston in which he lived a
major part of his life. He as a poet and man loves to live in nature to become
one with it. He mainly focuses on nature and a man in it. The nucleus of his poetry
is therefore "a drama of man in nature".
Frost is a nature poet but he is not a nature poet in the tradition of
Wordsworth. The Romantics like Wordsworth love nature for its music and color
and go to it enthralled and engrossed. Wordsworth worships nature and adores
its charms and gets absorbed into it for perpetual bliss. Frost's contact with
nature is different from that of Wordsworth for he has enthusiasm for nature
and so he willingly has contact with nature and consequently gets pleasure in
its contact. His contact with it refreshes and rejuvenates him to face life's
hardships with new vigor and enthusiasm whenever he gets tired of monotony of
daily routine living. He goes to nature to have a momentary contact with it for
rejuvenation unlike Wordsworth and other Romantics who go to it enthralled.
Though Frost mainly deals with nature, Alwarez does not regard him as a nature
poet. The critic calls him a poet of country life but not a nature poet.
Frost himself makes the view transparent in a television interview: "I
guess I'm not a Nature Poet. I have only written two poems without a human
being in them".
Frost's inborn love as well as innate zeal for nature is so profound
that he craves for elaborate nature descriptions and the descriptions are
successfully integrated and interwoven into the texture of his poetry but his
nature-descriptions never reflect the emotional involvement of Wordsworth and
other Romantics in nature. He is crowned a nature poet on account of his love
and enthusiasm for nature, persisting throughout his poetic career .
Frost's nature descriptions mark accuracy, picturesque and minuteness.
‘Birches’ reflects the fact:
When I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of stranger, darker trees,
I like to think somebody's been swinging them.
But swinging does not bend them down to stay
Ice storms do that. Often you must have seen them
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain… They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many colored.
As the star cracks and crazes their enamel
Soon the Sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells
Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.
'Birches'
(Ten Twentieth Century Poets, 81)
On the poetic scene, the reader witnesses the birches and experiences
their reaction to a storm as Frost's nature-descriptions are graphic and
realistic as his accurate and minute observation results in the fidelity of his
description. The reader is bound to share the experience of the poet in
swinging and watching birches.
Wordsworth in contrast with Frost wants to have perpetual contact with
nature and bears experiences to recall in pensive and lonely moods and escape
from the stress and strain of daily routine. When Frost gets tired of the
monotony of routine living, he goes to the birches, swings with them to the top
and gets back on to the ground.
When I'm weary of considerations
And life is too much like a pathless wood
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it.
'Birches'
Here the theme Frost portrays is interwoven with lovely descriptions of
nature to highlight the situation rendering it dramatic effect.
Frost's nature poetry is concerned with a man in nature. His readers
glimpse a common man watching apple-picking, birch-swinging, snow-covered woods
in the lap of nature. V.Y. Kantak in 'Poetic Ambiguity in Frost' says,
"Frost's nature poetry is more centered in man and in quite another sense
than Wordsworth's". Both Frost and Wordsworth are deeply concerned with a
common man in nature.
Wordsworth as a mystic seeks harmony between the soul of man
and that of nature whereas Frost harps on the boundaries that separate man from
nature. Wordsworth finds ecstasy and solace when he is enthralled by his
contact with nature as depicted in 'Daffodils'. He revives the memories of the
bounteous forms of beauteous nature:
And then my heart with pleasure fills
And dances with the daffodils
'Daffodils'
Wordsworth gets engrossed into the beauty of nature that bestows on
perpetual bliss,
A poet could not but be gay
In such a jocund company
I gazed-and grazed-but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought.
'Daffodils'
For Wordsworth, nature serves as a source of perpetual joy. Daffodils
flash upon his inward eye whenever he is in a 'vacant' or 'pensive' mood:
And then my heart with pleasure fills
And dances with the daffodils
'Daffodils'
Wordsworth romanticizes nature unlike Frost. The latter seeks to have a
momentary contact with nature to forget the stress and strain of reality and
daily routine. He both as man and a poet goes to nature when he gets tired of
this daily routine and mundane monotony. As a result, he gets rejuvenated and
attends his daily routine with new vigor and enthusiasm. He is a poet of
boundaries that separate man from nature for he draws a line between man and
nature and so he never crosses the line to trespass into nature's pasture.
He dreads that the call of dark woods is however compelling him as
portrayed in his poems like 'Come in' and 'Stopping by Woods on a Snowy
Evening'. The thrush continues to pour out its music in the dark words as if it
were calling someone to join it to share its moods. Frost does not enter the
woods to remain outside at the edge of the woods and enjoy the beauty of starry
heavens:
But in, I was out for stars
I would not come in
I meant not even it asked
And I hadn't been
'Come
in'
Frost seeks to have momentary contact with nature that refreshes him. He
is attracted by the woods covered with pure white snow in the sunlit evening. He
stops the horse to enjoy the beauty of snow-clad woods. Meanwhile the horse
shakes his harness bells to know if there is any mistake when he is likely to
lose in the idealistic meditation or the enchanted reverie;
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is in some mistake
The only other sounds the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake
'Stopping by Woods on a Snowy
Evening'
The shaking of the harness bells is the only way for the horse to
confront the speaker with a question. He springs into the world of reality from
the reverie and realizes not only the sounds of 'easy wind' and 'downy flake'
that enrich the beauty of woods but also the promises he has to keep and the
obligations he has to fulfill:
The woods are lovely, dark and deep
But I have promises to keep
And miles to go before I sleep
And miles to go before I sleep.
('Stopping
by Woods on a Snowy Evening' 81)
Here nature has a dramatic function to sub-serve as it makes Frost
engrossed into its charms. Had the horse not given a shake to his harness
bells, he would have been lost in the beauty of the woods. So the poem seems to
have been written in the tradition of the Romantic nature-lyrics like
Wordsworth's 'Solitary Reaper', 'Daffodils' etc.
Wordsworth is attracted by the beauty of the song of the solitary reaper
though he is unable to understand the theme of the song sung in Gaelic
language. He forgets the world of reality and goes to the realm of ideas. As a
result he asks his absent follower not to disturb him but to -
Behold her single in the field
Yon solitary Highland
sans
Reaping and singing by herself
Stop here, or gently pass
Alone she cuts and binds the grain
And a melancholy strain
O! listen for the vale profound
Is overflowing with the sound.
'Solitary
Reaper'
He in the idealistic meditation enjoys the music of the song as long as
the solitary reaper sings and its beauty rings in his mind,
I listened motionless and still
And as I mounted up the hill
The music in my heart I bore
Long after it was heard no more
'Solitary
Reaper'
Had the horse not given Frost his alarm, he would have been as much
absorbed in nature as Wordsworth.
Frost does not probe into the dark mystery of the woods which symbolize
the dark depth of human consciousness, evil and temptation. He, therefore,
prefers to stay outside or at the edge of the woods to enjoy the music of a
thrush,
For in the pillared dark
Thrush music went.
'Come
in'
In the finest nature lyrics, he insists on barriers that separate man
from nature. In spite of Frost's stopping and staying at the edge of nature,
his love for nature is more comprehensive than that of Wordsworth.
Frost portrays not only the sensuous and beautiful nature but also the
barren and sinister which is more characteristic of his nature description.
John F. Linen is of the opinion;
"Even in Frosts most beautiful nature sketches, there is always a
bitter-sweet quality... none of the nature poems is free from the hints of
possible danger. Under the placid surface there is always the unseen presence
of something hostile".
Frost feels that the woods are no doubt lovely but their beauty cannot
detain him long as he has promises to keep and miles to go. Though he has
desire to enjoy the beauty in nature, he as man sacrifices the desire to perform
his duty. Of course, the sense of beauty presents him new vigor and enthusiasm
on his momentary contact with nature, the sense of duty has inevitable role on
his part as man to bestow on him real happiness. As man after apple picking in
his sleep he does not dream of something fantastic but the act of apple picking
to reflect his sense of duty. In ‘Mowing’, the scythe voices man’s dutiful concern,
‘The fact is the sweetest dream that labor knows’. In ‘Stopping by Woods on a
Snowy Evening’ ‘I have promises to keep’ reflects man’s bounden responsibility
to the sense of duty. Thus there is a bare reality or bitter actuality ever
evident in his nature poetry. He swings on birches to the top and comes back to
realize the ground realities.
Earth is the right place for love.
'Birches'
Frost has a strong tendency for personification. He speaks of the
objects and creatures of nature in human terms as man has much animal-like and
vegetable-like in him. He explores much resemblance between man and animals or
plants and comments at length in the funny manner and ironical tone. He does
not find harmony between man and nature unlike Wordsworth.
In ‘Departmental’, he seems to be interpreting the ants in human terms.
Linen says, "The whimsical effects of the comparison are of the very
essence, for the poem is funny” because it explores a resemblance between ants
and men thoroughly.
It couldn't be called ungentle
But how thoroughly departmental.
‘Departmental’
"Departmental" reflects the detailed analysis of the behavior
of society of ants which is an implied comment on departmentalism and mechanism
of human life. In like fashion, Frost draws a human parallel to the nonhuman
world. In ‘At Woodward's Gardens’, he refers to monkeys' actions in relation to
human actions.
They might not understand a burning glass
They might not understand the man itself
It's knowing what to do with things that counts
Frost directly speaks to the objects of nature as Wordsworth does, but
there is a clear-cut difference in their ways of addressing. Wordsworth's
addressing to the objects of nature is characterized by high seriousness but
Frost's ways of addressing is done by humor. Frost directly speaks to a tree in
'The Tree at My Window'. He compares the state of the tree and its being tossed
by the winds outside to his own state with a clear-cut contrast.
That day she put our heads together
Fate had her imagination about her
Your head so much concerned with outer
Mine with inner weather
The weather that baffles them is ‘outer’ for ever. They trail their foliage
before them like the drying of women's hair in the sun.
Frost humorously reads the animal and vegetable natures in man but
Wordsworth reads man's nature into the animal and vegetable worlds with
seriousness. He finds the natural world impersonal but Wordsworth finds it
personal. Frost does not feel any fraternity or brotherhood for natural
objects.
Frost achieves to explore resemblances between man and nature while
insisting on definite boundaries that separate man from nature. He successfully
establishes as a poet of nature in a unique way unlike Wordsworth who
spiritualizes nature while stressing a harmonious relationship between man and
nature.
TRIVENI,
Vol,81, No.1,Jan-Mar, 2012
Dr. Katta Rajamouly,
Professor
of English(S&H Department)
Ganapathy Engineering College,
Warngal.
