Robert Frost's Portrait of a Modern Mind: The Archetypal Resonance of "Acquainted with the Night"
2000; Pittsburg State University; Volume: 41; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
0026-3451
Autores Tópico(s)Rhetoric and Communication Studies
ResumoROBERT FROST ONCE said, like anything that penetrates mysteries. And if it penetrates straight to hell, then that's all right, too (Frost, 266). This statement underscores a mainstay of Frost's poetry: he places careful reader in direct, candid confrontation with mysteries, such as those of human conscience, of philosophical barricades and corridors, and of our mythical depths. In Acquainted with Night, Frost compounds all of these into a tightly structured poem depicting a modern mythological consciousness amid effusions of guilt, loneliness, and a desire for self-perpetuating vision. Frost's persona imaginatively enacts an attempt to penetrate mystery of his own nature. Framing a portrait of a modern mind, process of enactment taps into vital archetypal associations and opens poem for a reading that incorporates observations by Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell. The first two stanzas perspicuously establish a few things that will be developed as poem continues: I have been acquainted with night. I have walked out in rain--and back in rain. I have outwalked furthest city light. I have looked down saddest city lane. I have passed by watchman on his beat And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain. The predominance of `I' tells us that this poem centered in figure. Also, tercets and terza rima form draw attention to number three as a building block, reminiscent of way Dante's Divine Comedy is dominated by symbolic (Boorstin, 260). The triple terza rima rhyme aba bcb cdc and so on) interlocks and suggests an interdependency of content and form, as each stanza linked to its contiguous stanzas. In seeming ease of crafted rhyme, Frost masks fusion of content and form via superb technique. This unity multiplies in other things, such as joining of poetic forms in terza rima sonnet and trinity implicit in repetition of threes. The first stanza composed of three end-stopped lines that are dependent on others. Commencing poem with what will develop into its intrinsic ideas, three lines summon three archetypes, or symbols of things indigenous to our human condition. Night (darkness), rain (water), and promptly add deep dimensions to poem. Similar to Dante's use of terza rima, Frost's first tercet provides a trinity of its own. Evocative, familiar, yet magically unsettling, these archetypes present a universal human experience for reader. From these archetypes poem springs toward spiritual synthesis (Cirlot, 222) signified by number three. The first line sets an inescapable mood and aligns reader with a mythical conception of consciousness. The present-perfect tense indicates that persona's acquaintance with night began in past and continues into present. In accord with archetypal night, his acquaintance immemorial and ongoing, having no stated beginning nor a projected end. The use of one signifies a single person, a lone consciousness withdrawn from daylight and on periphery of conscious world of city. No Other (Sartre, 223) present. He now but one. No man-made meaning system surrounds him, and thus, he feels a need to create a form through artistry with Word. His frame of mind further described by word acquainted, which literally frames poem in lines and fourteen. The word conveys a sense of familiarity, a recognition, and a slight indifference, but not a complete affinity. The persona's conception of night ambivalent. In beginning of poem, he views himself as somewhat detached from night, yet at same time lured toward it as a suitable place for his loneliness. His acquaintance, as acquaintances are, lacks a clear identification with night but also urges him to explore it, else he would not go beyond the furthest city light (Frost, 3). …
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