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Posted by Sophus on April 25, 19101 at 20:26:49:
In Reply to: I need to be "Acquainted With the Night"... posted by Liana Flynn on February 16, 19101 at 23:42:38:
: Hi! I desperately need any information anyone has regarding "Acquainted With the Night." If anyone out there has previously explicated, or can help me out in any way--I would really be grateful! My email address is 007@yahoo.com
: Thanks!
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Hello Liana
I have recently accomplished a thesis on Frost for my graduate studies. Although I am no expert, I can offer you an educated interpretation of the poem "Aquainted with the Night."
The poem is written in the form of what is called a terza rhima. It is one of the most difficult rhyme schemes to develop. Look at the poem and its rhyme scheme; it goes: a,b,a, b,c,b c,d,c d,a,d a,a. Also the beat of the poem is in perfect iambic pentameter. Each line has ten beats. This is important because, as you study more and more poetry, you will learn that the most important element in poetry is sound. The rythym,beat, and sound Frost creates is incredible, and sheer genious.
Now, I am only guessing, but it seems like you are probably more concerned with the poems' meaning rather than its rythym or sound. My interpretation is this, and this is something a college professor has told me. The poem is about lonliness and isolation. Let's take it from the top.
The first hint that this poem is about lonliness and isolation is conveyed in the first quatrain. The speaker indicates that he is currently in the city where it is raining. Knowing what we know about Frost, that his poems usually reflect rural and pastoral New England landscape, we immediately begin to see his alienation in the city,- a landscape he is not at home in, nor is happy with: "I have walked down the saddest city lane." (4) Another indication that the poem is about lonliness and isolation is indicated by the speaker's confrontation with "the nighchman" in line 5. The speaker momentarily ociates himself with the nighchman, who is alone on his beat. And what do we know about nighchmen Liana? They usually work alone, in the night. The spaker's lonliness is conveyed further and the most explicitly in line 7, when he states: "I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet." "Get it?" If he was standing still he would still be able to hear others walking around him, but there is no one else there but himself. He is completely alone, in solitude,-in isolation.
The speaker's lonliness is further conveyed in the imagery of "an interrupted cry" that neither calls him back, nor says goodbye.(8-10) The speaker does not know anyone there. He has not connected with anyone on a social level. Although he hears someone, or something in the distance, we come to realize that it is not intended for him. There is no one there who knows him, no one whom he is communicating with on a personal level,thus conveying his true lonliness and isolation from society. His only company is the "luminary clock," (the moon)indicated in the 4th quatrain.
On a philosophical level, I believe that the poem is really a reflection of Frost's mystical submergence in to self. Frost believed that to find truth, you must submerge into the self beyond all confusion. (see "Into My Own, Frost's first poem in A Boy's Will).Thus, the truth Frost conveys about lonliness, isolation, and alienation, come from our connection to the social world, and the world of nature--that the world of nature that the speaker misses in the poem destroys the alienation that city life often encrues. And, the social world, is really our only preservation from lonliness and isolation.
I hope this helps you Liana.
GOOD LUCK!!
sophus