34 pages • 1 hour read
After Apple-Picking
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Further Reading & Resources
Related Poems
"The Cool Web" by Robert Graves (1927)
Published 13 years after “After Apple-Picking,” Graves’s poem “The Cool Web” (1927) fuses the fragility of humankind and nature with the brutality of war. Like Frost, Graves—a World War I veteran and poet—incorporated natural imagery into his poems and utilized it as metaphor for the human condition. Similar to Frost, Graves also used broken meter and rhyme in his poetry. Unlike Frost, however, scholars consider Graves a realist poet. Graves and Frost were not only contemporaries: During Frost’s time in England, Frost met, and was influenced by, Graves. Just as the American public continues venerating Frost, scholars around the world—though primarily in the U.K.—continue to acknowledge the contributions Graves made to the World War I literary genre.
"Wild Geese" by Mary Oliver (2004)
Published 90 years after “After Apple-Picking,” Oliver’s poem continues the nature poetry tradition. Different from Frost’s work in that Oliver’s poem focuses on a specific animal, “Wild Geese” continues Frost’s tradition utilizing metaphor to transport readers into the natural world. Like Frost’s poems, Oliver’s poems focus on the cycles of loss, grief, and despair and how that cycle parallels the life cycle. Oliver’s poem also focuses on the futility of humankind—a philosophy paralleling the futile tone appearing in “After Apple-Picking” as the speaker recognizes how they could not have ever accomplished all they wanted to accomplish. Just as “After Apple-Picking” incorporates the woodchuck as a symbol for incomprehensible experience, Oliver’s poem uses wild geese to represent what one must do in order to lead a good, fulfilling life.
Further Literary Resources
"Extracting the Woodchuck: Robert Frost’s “doubleness,” revealed in his letters--and poems" by Adam Kirsch (2014)
This article discusses the role of metaphor in Frost’s poetry as well as
its correlation to the American transcendentalists. Kirsch, a Harvard magazine reporter, opens with a portrait of a Frost unseen by the public eye: an odious, lecherous old man. Kirsch cycles through biographers’ various depictions of Frost, and eventually analyzes the natural imagery in Frost’s poetry as a mirror for the poet’s self. Well-researched and contemporarily informed, Kirsch’s writing explores Frost as a fallible human rather than an impenetrable poet who embodied the spirit of rural New England.
"Realism and Transcendentalism in the Selected Poems of Robert Frost: The Juxtaposition of Nature and Humanity" by K. M. Wazid Kabir and Reeti Jamil (2020)
Frost often cited his admiration for transcendentalist writers Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. Originally published in IOSR Journal of Humanities and Social Science, this 2020 journal article provides a modern take on Frost’s poetry. Initially focusing on the differences between transcendentalism and realism, the authors examine why Frost is sometimes considered a transcendentalist but other times considered a realist. The paper explores how some scholars deny Frost’s role in either tradition or classify him as a nature poet along with poets like Mary Oliver. Via in-depth examinations of the role of nature in Frost’s work, the authors then place Frost’s work in a contemporary context by analyzing Frost’s work as a rally cry against the anti-climate change movement.
Poetic Labor: Meaning and Matter in Robert Frost’s Poetry by Lina Pan (2016)
This undergraduate senior thesis discusses Frost’s reliance on metaphor and authenticity in his poetry. While examining Frost’s contradistinction with modernist poets like T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound, Pan explores how Frost “deemed life the true material, concern, and end of poetry.” Relevant to “After Apple-Picking,” the paper focuses on the role of labor in Frost’s work. With research from such literary critics as Sydney Cox, Pan captures Frost’s poetic philosophies and intentions.
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By Robert Frost
