“Robert Frost: Man and Nature Intertwined” by Phin Upham (Part 6)

February 6th, 2012 by admin

Phin Upham, Literature, Robert Frost

This article appeared in full on SuperPhilosophy.com

 

            The contrast in mood between “There Was a Boy” and “The Most of It” is made self evident in the very first lines of the two poems and this different is indicative of their different views of nature.  In “There Was a Boy” Wordsworth addresses the cliffs and islands of Winader in recalling the boy.  A gentle intimacy among the three is suggested.  The first line of “The Most Of It,” on the other hand, evokes a vastness and solitude by the use of words like “universe” and “alone.”  Each poem sustains and gradually intensifies the mood established at the very beginning.  Wordsworth proceeds to describe, in blank verse, the young boy who, making an instrument of his fingers calls out to a responsive world around him.  They are all one – the poet, the boy, the cliffs, the vales and the hootings.  And the poem is gentle as well as responsive.  Even the word “shock” in the nineteenth line is flanked by the mollifying adjectives “gentle” and “mild.”  There is nothing harsh about this world, just occasionally a sweet and joyous wildness as the orchestra of sounds rings out – “the quivering peals,” “the long halloos,” the “screams” and the “echoes” which “redouble and redouble.”  Then the crescendo of sounds suddenly ceases and there is a moment of exquisite stillness during which the visual impact of the scene peaks.

 

About the Author

Phin Upham was the Editor-in-Chief of the Harvard Review of Philosophy, where he helped compile “Philosophers in Conversation: Interviews from the Harvard Review of Philosophy.” He graduated from the Wharton Business School of the University of Pennsylvania with a PhD in Applied Economics and works as an investor in New York City and San Francisco. Read more from SuperPhilosophy contributor Phin Upham.

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