Robert Frost's "Directive"
"The past is redeemable through memory, imagination and retrospection, and through these powers of mind, an order and continuity are given to one 's life". Such is the belief that Robert Frost adopted from Wordsworth and can be said to be the theme of Frost 's poem "Directive '.
The poem begins in the voice of a guide, directing us out of the present, the "now" that is "too much for us" and leading us to, or rather leading us to retreat to "a time made simple by the loss/ of detail, burned, dissolved, and broken off." (2-3) The speaker in the poem "Directive ' is the poet, Frost. He wishes to lead the reader to his "hippocrene, the origin of all language, thought and form". (The Hippocrene was the spring on Mount Helicon which was regarded as a source of poetic inspiration). Frost is going back in time to his literary roots, which center or revolve around the spring and the Grail-like goblet. These symbols are the monuments of both Wordsworth and the Bible, thus, the poem can therefore be seen as a tribute to Frost 's sources and inspirations. The poem "effectively summarizes Frost 's romanticism in advocating the esthetic wholeness that is integral to spiritual unity".
In every line and every detail, Frost is justifying the conception of his poetry and imagination with symbolism. The playhouse, for example, left standing because Frost believes that play and play-acting "make up the house of poetry".
Another example of symbolism used in the poem is the stream, which is associated with beginnings, endings and a source of knowledge and being. This stream is the reader 's destination and where the guide wants to lead you; to be so lost that you are able to find yourself.
What, however, does one mean when they say find yourself? Frost wishes for us, the readers, to lose ourselves, because it is only when we are lost that we can be found and it is only when "we lose our egotism" and "abandon ourselves to art and mediation" that we can "find ourselves in
The poem begins in the voice of a guide, directing us out of the present, the "now" that is "too much for us" and leading us to, or rather leading us to retreat to "a time made simple by the loss/ of detail, burned, dissolved, and broken off." (2-3) The speaker in the poem "Directive ' is the poet, Frost. He wishes to lead the reader to his "hippocrene, the origin of all language, thought and form". (The Hippocrene was the spring on Mount Helicon which was regarded as a source of poetic inspiration). Frost is going back in time to his literary roots, which center or revolve around the spring and the Grail-like goblet. These symbols are the monuments of both Wordsworth and the Bible, thus, the poem can therefore be seen as a tribute to Frost 's sources and inspirations. The poem "effectively summarizes Frost 's romanticism in advocating the esthetic wholeness that is integral to spiritual unity".
In every line and every detail, Frost is justifying the conception of his poetry and imagination with symbolism. The playhouse, for example, left standing because Frost believes that play and play-acting "make up the house of poetry".
Another example of symbolism used in the poem is the stream, which is associated with beginnings, endings and a source of knowledge and being. This stream is the reader 's destination and where the guide wants to lead you; to be so lost that you are able to find yourself.
What, however, does one mean when they say find yourself? Frost wishes for us, the readers, to lose ourselves, because it is only when we are lost that we can be found and it is only when "we lose our egotism" and "abandon ourselves to art and mediation" that we can "find ourselves in
Cited: 1 ) D 'Avanzo. A Cloud of Other Poets . (Maryland: University Press of America, 1991) 2 ) Fleissner, Robert F. Frost 's Road Taken . (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 1996)