This reading is obviously at odds with Poirier's, but cannot necessarily be considered wrong.
However, a third reading based on Frost's own assessment of the poem, as given to his poet friend Ezra Pound, may shed some light on another possible interpretation of the themes in "In Neglect." Pound states that there is a personal element to the poem that places it within the context of love and economy. According to Pound Frost's poem "is to his wife, written when his grandfather and his uncle had disinherited him of a comfortable fortune and left him in poverty because he was a useless poet instead of a money-getter" (Richardson 69). Such a biographical note gives the poem even more dimension. In this light, the theme of chastisement (as read by Faggen) becomes a theme of abandonment -- or rather a theme on the glad acceptance of abandonment. From this point-of-view, it appears that Poirier's reading of the poem may be closer to Frost's own understanding of the poem as he wrote it.
Yet, in conclusion,...
As a poem, it opens up the reader to part of the mystery of life, the contrast between freedom and structure, romance and pragmatism, love and discipline, and how all of these go together in one world. One thing may be said for sure, however: for all the complicated themes in Frost's poem, there does not appear to be any bitterness on the part of the poet. In fact, it appears that he looks on exile with a somewhat full, happy, and ironic heart. At the same time he acknowledges those who have dismissed him, thus allowing such contrasting interpretations to be made.
Works Cited
Faggen, Robert. The Cambridge Companion to Robert Frost. UK: Cambridge
University Press, 2001.
Poirier, Richard. Robert Frost: The Work of Knowing. CA: Stanford University Press,
1977.
Richardson, Mark. The Ordeal of Robert Frost. IL: University of Illinois Press, 1997.
