unharvested by robert frost

M.N.SPIES

UNHARVESTEDBy

ROBERT FROSThttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M59lVUe_3r0

M.N.SPIES

Unharvested (Robert Frost)

A scent of ripeness from over a wall.And come to leave the routine road

And look for what had made me stall,There sure enough was an apple tree

That had eased itself of its summer load,And of all but its trivial foliage free,

Now breathed as light as a lady's fan.For there had been an apple fall

As complete as the apple had given man.The ground was one circle of solid red.

May something go always unharvested!May much stay out of our stated plan,

Apples or something forgotten and left,So smelling their sweetness would be no theft.

M.N.SPIES

IS THE POEM A SONNET?

• The form, supporting the poem’s thematic turn, suggests but does not completely match a traditional sonnet.

• The rhyme scheme is abacbcdade edff. • Most of the rhymes are strong, one-syllable

words, except for line 11; “unharvested” provides the poem’s only unstressed line ending. This line represents a turn in both meaning and form, leading into a separated stanza

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• Robert Frost is well-known for his use of natural imagery to convey wisdom about

life. • His poem "Unharvested" describes an apple tree whose fruit has been allowed to fall to the ground, a sight embraced

positively by the poem's speaker. • A simple, short poem, "Unharvested" uses

both rhyme and rhythm in unique ways.

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Fruit left on a tree is a waste, either someone had so much that they

didn't need the food and didn't want to

share it with others or someone was simply too lazy to harvest.

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A scent of ripeness from over a wall

And come to leave the routine road

And look for what had made me stall,

There sure enough was an apple tree.

M.N.SPIES

LINES 1-4• wall = a structure that divides (l. 1) (NATURE AND MODERN LIFE)

• “And” (l.2) and “And” (l.3)= the repetition empathise the effect the

amazing smell had on him (SHOCK AND SURPRISE= He broke routine (l.2)

and stalled(l.3).

• “There sure enough”: these words indicated that, from the smell, he

expected it, but to discover an unharvested apple tree was so abnormal

that he had to stop to see for himself, because it is not in the order of

the day to come across an unharvested apple tree: people are greedy,

and only unharvested fruit, starting to rot in the sun, could be smelled.

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M.N.SPIES

Cause and effect.  The speaker is on a "routine road” and then stops with the smell of

"ripeness"  -- presumably apples or something more.  The speaker

smelled something amazing (cause), and this made him to disregard his normal routine to

investigate (effect)

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“That had eased itself of its summer load,

And of all but its trivial foliage free

Now breathed as light as a lady's fan

For there had been an apple fall”

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• “that had eased itself of its summer load”=fruit-drop (ripe fruit falling from trees)

• Trivial=having little value or importance• Foliage=the leaves of a plant or tree• “Now breathed”= personification• “as light as a lady’s fan” = simile• Seasons changed from summer to fall:

double meaning of “fall”

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• Note the play of language coinciding with the seasons = “summer” (L.5) as the season, “fall”

(L.8) as the verb. • The "ripeness“(l.1) is from the end of cycle: the

last load of a tree. The tree “eased itself” (l.5).• It is now “free”!

• Alliteration: “foliage free”, “fan”, “fall”• And note how the simile is to a "lady's fan"

which points at heat/summer/relief that “fall” has arrived. (Change has occurred)

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“As complete as the apple had given man”

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Here the speaker is solid in his lesson:  •Note that the mention of man here can have implications to Genesis...•(the “fall” of man in Eden?)=fruit are ruined•(the apple doesn't “fall” far from the tree?)=We have become greedy/wasteful and future generations will continue in the same way.•... and the question can be what has the apple given man?

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“The ground was one circle of solid red”

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•Have you taken a walk, in an area you thought was purely natural and untouched, only to find evidence of previous habitation? •Where humans go, we leave our imprint. Very often that’s an unpleasant sight—candy wrappers or cigarette butts in an otherwise pristine landscape. •Nature is now leaving her mark, feeding the soil...•What is your connotation to “red”?

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•Some people hate the sight of deadfall/fruit-drop.. They see it

as sad, because the people are gone and the tree is producing

for no one. Or they see it as wasteful.

•Don’t see deadfall as sad or wasteful. The tree is doing what it

was designed to do and, even though the humans who planted

it are gone, the fruit is feeding innumerable birds and animals,

as well as re-feeding the very ground in which the tree grows.

And it provides an unanticipated sense of community to any

person who happens by, and recognizes the human hand

behind the tree’s existence on that spot.

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“May something go always unharvested!May much stay out of our started plan.”

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•“May” (l. 11) and “May” (l.12) sounds as if the speaker is praying...•Alliteration: may/may/muchSomething/stay/ stated/something/smelling/sweetness•Repetition:Something/something

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So, should we see it as deadfall, and a waste, or a lively, and

uplifting, lesson about being open to the unplanned and nature’s ability to catch us off guard?

Perhaps, our “stated plan” can also suggest that we plan and plan, but

our plans are not always in our own or in nature’s best interest.

M.N.SPIES

As humans, we plant and we harvest. We monitor the seasons and try to account for every little thing. We become difficult to surprise or

delight. The discovery of an unexpected deadfall, the sweetness

in the air and the colour on the ground, becomes our reminder that

nature still has the ability to outwit us and surprise us, and to outlast us.

M.N.SPIES

“Apples or something forgotten and left,”

(if we have no plans, if we allow nature and life to take its course)

“So smelling their sweetness would be no theft.”

(we can still enjoy life without sinning against ourselves and against nature)

M.N.SPIES

M.N.SPIES