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To be "acquainted with the night" is here obviously to have an experience of the darker and more profound regions of the human mind. All the images in the text indicate that the poet crosses the boundaries of consciousness, entering a world of veiled darkness, beyond the "furthest city light": "I have been one acquainted with the night. / I have walked out in rain -- and back in rain. / I have outwalked the furthest city light."(Frost, 8) The actual description in the poem suggests a nocturnal walk somewhere beyond the borders of an inhabited city. The poet thus symbolically goes past the watchman, "unwilling to explain," that is, refusing communication with the only other human character in the poem, and moves ahead without being deterred by the cry that came from another street. The imagery thus suggests a moving forward away from light, civilization and human companionship, deep into a darker world. The journey is thus evidently a descent into the poet's own self, somewhere beyond the immediate, everyday experience. Moreover, the use of the Present Perfect indicates the connection...
This fact, together with the employment of the participial form "acquainted" indicates that the poet has not only traveled to the deeper regions of his own consciousness, but that he has also gained knowledge from the experience. The last lines of the poem are even more suggestive. The "luminary clock" is obviously the moon, the only source of light in the darkened landscape. The comparison of the moon to a clock that however tells the poet that the time is "neither wrong nor right" indicates that the speaker has gone beyond the relevance of time to human experience: "A luminary clock against the sky / Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right. / I have been one acquainted with the night."(Frost, 9) Thus, form and content are interlocked in Frost's poem so as to create the atmosphere specific to the experience of the deeper layers of the self.
Works Cited
Frost, Robert. New Enlarged Anthology of Robert Frost's Poems. New York: Washington Square,…
Works Cited
Frost, Robert. New Enlarged Anthology of Robert Frost's Poems. New York: Washington Square, 1971.
Kidd. The poet's journey toward the night, his familiarity with the night, both represents the poet's search for "complete self-knowledge" and his willingness to explore unknown - again, mysterious - territory. In the second stanza, Amano conjectures that Frost is putting the persona into the reader's consciousness in the form of a denial of others. The "watchman" is the only other human in this poem, of course, but beyond that,
Robert Frost, "Acquainted with the Night" Robert Frost's "Acquainted with the Night" is not a traditional sonnet. Although it has the traditional fourteen lines and tightly rhymed stanzas associated with both Petrarchan and Shakespearean sonnets, Frost's rhyme scheme here is unusual: he uses the interlinking rhymes structured around successive tercets that is known as terza rima, whose greatest proponent was probably Dante in The Divine Comedy. But Frost takes the radical
Robert Frost's adulthood was also riddled with loss. He often felt jealous and resentful that the quality of his poetry was slow to be recognized. Unable to support his family with his writing, for many years he had to work at various jobs, often as a teacher until his grandfather finally gave him land to live on and an allowance with on which to live (Meyers, p. 52). In addition,
Robert Frost wrote, "I have written to keep the over curious out of the secret places in my mind both in my verse and in my letters." In a poem, he wrote, "I have been one acquainted with the night." Those unfamiliar with Robert Frost's life story might not realize the significance of those words. Frost was born in a nearly lawless city and grew up in a highly dysfunctional
Frost's piece "Fire and Ice" is also rich with metaphors about the human condition. Frost begins his piece with "Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice." Again at first glance, frost appears to be discussing the end of the world. However, his next line "From what I've tasted of desire, I'll hold with those who favor fire." Frost appears to be discussing the end of
Acquainted with the Night, by Robert Frost (1874-1963) The poem Acquainted with the Night was written by Robert Frost and first printed in a collection called West Running Brook published in 1928. Robert Frost's poetry painted a classic picture of life in America. We get glimpses of every day scenes featuring every day people. We also get a picture of the very troubled and depressed Frost himself. When reading Frost's poetry,