Wednesday, November 11, 2015

Does the poem "My November Guest" by Robert Frost suggest that sorrow can make people see beauty where they did not see it before? "My November...

In My November Guest, Frost is
suggesting that sorrow allows people to see different kinds of beauty or beauty in
different places and events than what had been the case before they became acquainted
with sorrow.


The poem is filled with descriptions of sights
and sounds that are not usually associated with beauty - "the desolate, deserted trees,
the faded earth, the heavy sky." Most readers would associate these images with sorrow
and sadness, the bleakness of a November day. Sorrow, the new presence being described
by the speaker in this poem, appreciates these as being "beautiful as days can be" and
delights in being out in the weather, observing what many would characterize as dreary
rather than beautiful surroundings.


However, the last
stanza tells us that the speaker in the poem has come to understand "the love of bare
November days" and recognizes the beauty of its own kind contained within the sorrowful
time that brought November into his life. While he is sad, he acknowledges the beauty in
some aspects of his situation.

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