Robert Frost's "The Figure A Poem Makes"

In “The Figure a Poem Makes,” Robert Frost expresses his impression on poems and the nature behind them. He views poetry as an art, frequently comparing it to an aspect of life such as love. He highlights the similarities between both love and a poem’s figures, stating that they both “begin in delight and end(s) in wisdom” (177). Like love, poetry begins with delight, before going through a series of events and as a result gaining knowledge and wisdom.

Frost had a growing popularity by the late 1930s, as a well-known poet with a large, famous collection of poetry. This allows his audience to find credence in both his works as a poet and a critic on poetry.

The essay, being the preface for Frost’s “1939 Collected Poems,” is aimed towards people that read his poetry. Through the essay, Frost’s audience to understand what poetry is before reading Frost’s collection of poems. He uses several rhetorical devices, one of the most prominent ones being analogies. He uses an overall analogy between poetry and love, stating that like love, “a poem may be worked over once it is in being, but may not be worried into being” (178). By using an analogy such as love, the audience is able to grasp a better understanding of what Frost feels that poetry is. Love is an emotion that everyone has experienced and knows what is like, so comparing that emotion with poetry helps the audience to relate to how Frost feels about poetry and how he thinks poetry should make people feel. Frost also compares poetry with art. He explains how artists, unlike scholars, “differ most importantly in the way their knowledge is come by” (178). He then goes on to explain how like artists, poets do not obtain knowledge through “projected lines of logic,” but instead gain knowledge through experience and writing.

Frost successfully delivers his purpose to his audience that poetry is much more than writing. It is instead comparable to love an art, for it allows for wisdom and obtains knowledge in different ways. He uses analogies and figurative language to grasp the audience’s hearts and minds in an effort to have his readers better understand the nature of poetry.

As Frost stated, poetry is an art.
This image is a drawing of an eye made up of lines from famous poems.