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Robert FrostA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
The form here is deceptively simple. Despite being part of a generation of poets who disdained the inherited conventions of tight form, that is rhythm and rhyme itself, and endorsed the daring exploration into open verse, Frost never rejected the structure of poetic form. The ten-line poem is made up of two sentences. The first states the problem; a friend approaches along the road and hails the speaker for a chat, and the second (beginning at Line 6) responds to the problem and offers a simple solution, stop working and enjoy an interlude away from chores to feel the rich reward of simple human contact.
What is of interest in the form Frost selects is the apparently casual rhyme scheme. Known for tightly constructed formal poetry that worked around and with a clear and steadying rhyme scheme, this poem at first read seems carelessly open, dangerously free, just like the open road.
The rhyme scheme that defines the form is subtle, yes, but it is there. It is unconventional—ABCADBCEED—but it is there. The rhyming scheme defines a poem as carelessly lackadaisical, as wonderfully unscripted as the conversation these two New Englanders are about to have.
By Robert Frost
Acquainted with the Night
Robert Frost
After Apple-Picking
Robert Frost
Birches
Robert Frost
Dust of Snow
Robert Frost
Fire and Ice
Robert Frost
Mending Wall
Robert Frost
Nothing Gold Can Stay
Robert Frost
October
Robert Frost
Once by the Pacific
Robert Frost
Out, Out—
Robert Frost
Putting in the Seed
Robert Frost
Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening
Robert Frost
The Death of the Hired Man
Robert Frost
The Gift Outright
Robert Frost
The Road Not Taken
Robert Frost
West-Running Brook
Robert Frost