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Poet: Robert Frost (Robert Frost Art)
Poem: 12.
Once By The Pacific
Volume: West-Running Brook
Year: Published/Written in 1928
Poem of the Day:
Aug 14 2000
Comment 17 of 17, added on May 4th, 2009 at 6:34 PM.
I had to do this for class, and we discussed 3 main interpretations of the poem.
1. Frost was very big in his life on people being in harmony with nature, and this poem could be interpreted as nature releasing it's wrath on us for our mistreatment of it.
2.The Biblical aspect is that "put out the light" is a twisted form of "and then there was light", what God said in Genesis when creating the world. The idea would be that God said "put out the light" one last time, signaling the end of the world, which would make this poem apocalyptic. This is the most popular interpretation.
3. The lesser known interpretation could be that "put out the light" is a quote from Shakespeare's play "Othello", in which a man is convinced by a jealous man that his wife was cheating on him, so he killed his wife. Just before he suffocated her, he said "put out the light", therefore giving the poem a possible meaning of murder. The huge storm is in reference to God's wrath for a murder committed.
Rain from United States
Comment 16 of 17, added on February 26th, 2009 at 9:06 PM.
It is related to the Grapes of Wrath and the revenge that the tenant farmers will get.
Sam from United States
Comment 15 of 17, added on February 1st, 2008 at 12:29 AM.
the poem is a sonnet about the end of the world
taylor from United States
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Comments
I had to do this for class, and we discussed 3 main interpretations of the poem.
1. Frost was very big in his life on people being in harmony with nature, and this poem could be interpreted as nature releasing it's wrath on us for our mistreatment of it.
2.The Biblical aspect is that "put out the light" is a twisted form of "and then there was light", what God said in Genesis when creating the world. The idea would be that God said "put out the light" one last time, signaling the end of the world, which would make this poem apocalyptic. This is the most popular interpretation.
3. The lesser known interpretation could be that "put out the light" is a quote from Shakespeare's play "Othello", in which a man is convinced by a jealous man that his wife was cheating on him, so he killed his wife. Just before he suffocated her, he said "put out the light", therefore giving the poem a possible meaning of murder. The huge storm is in reference to God's wrath for a murder committed.
Rain from United States