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Roll No. 01
Class: MA English
Semester: 4th
Session: 2013-2015
Robert Frost
“I am drowsing off”
Though Robert Frost insists that the poem is written purely in context
of a rural aspect and it shows nothing more than the beauty of nature
prevailing upon human mind, intellect and will, yet the poem does
allude to certain extended meanings. As Cleanth Brooks says:
“The concrete experience of apple-picking is communicated firmly
and realistically, but the poem invites a metaphorical extension.”
Therefore after the poem was published in the year 1915, it has been
interpreted in several different ways, and has even caused a lot of
debate among experts about what the theme of the poem really is. So
the poem appears to be the extended metaphor .As Frost himself says:
“There are many other things I have found myself saying about
poetry, but the chiefest of these is that it is metaphor, saying one
thing and meaning another.”
Then its elevated diction (quite distinct from anything else in the
book) as well as its images, mood and theme, all suggest a greater
affinity with Keats': Ode to a Nightingale." In that weary, drowsy
poem the speaker longs to escape through art, symbolized by the
nightingale, but here in the poem the poet wants to escape in the
world of sleep. So like the speaker of Keats’ poem, the speaker of
Frost is also seemed to be suffused with the drowsy numbness.
As the apples are gathered - and the poem written - he becomes both
physically and mentally exhausted. However according to another
interpretation, in the last line of the poem the author is hinting about
his approaching death. He no longer wants to pick his apples or live
his life; he is tired and knows it is coming to an end. As Cleanth
Brooks says:
“The poem suggests that the sleep is like the sleep of death.”