Question

Known for his narrative poems set in New England locales, Robert Frost may seem like a simple poet. Many people young and old can relate to his oft-read verse, including "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," "The Road Not Taken," and "Mending Wall." A second or third reading of Frost’s poems reveal, however, that his poetry is far from simple. Frost creates poems that are just as complex as they are accessible to the everyday reader. The effect is that they’re deceptively simple.

"Mending Wall," published in 1914, is a perfect example of this. Frost's lines read easily on the surface. This belies how masterfully crafted the formal lines really are. This poem is about two neighbors' springtime ritual of repairing a stone wall that has been damaged both by the natural forces of winter and deliberately by hunters. The poem’s famous saying, "Good fences make good neighbors," is quoted in many different contexts.

The poem’s first line, "Something there is that doesn't love a wall," shows from the beginning that Frost’s lines have a formal purpose. The lines have a literal meaning, but this meaning is reinforced by the way Frost constructed the lines. Frost’s use of inversion, wherein he writes the line in a turned-around way as he does instead of saying the more natural sounding, "There is something that doesn't love a wall," creates a sense of mystery and questioning, just as the first line of "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" does: "Whose woods these are I think I know."

What type of essay is this?

A.
expository
B.
descriptive
C.
narrative
D.
persuasive

Answer 1

C narrative is the answers