On occasion, I am fortunate; I find that an essayist heard on National Public Radio has written a commentary and published the text for all to read. Thus far, I have yet to locate the transcript for “‘Good Fences’: Misreading Poetry,” an essay I heard this evening on All Things Considered. However, I will keep searching. Until then, I am offering a link to the story so you might listen to the author himself.
Jay Keyser, Professor of Linguistics at MIT is baffled and distressed by the use of a Robert Frost verse in defense of building walls between borders. He speaks of how the oft quoted poem, “Mending Wall” is misunderstood, if analyzed at all.
The poem closes with the line we all recall “Good fences make good neighbours.” When people speak of immigration, or more accurately segregation, they use this declaration to justify their stance.
However, as Professor Keyser so aptly points out the elegy begins,
“Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.”
Mr. Keyser offers, Robert Frost thinks there are walls that function as “walls.” They are practical parapets, or purposeful buttress. However, sadly, according to the poem, Frost recognizes walls and fences can be barriers.
Keyser, reflecting on history and using the verse to support his belief, surmises countries build “walls” to “keep out the unwanted and keep in the unwilling.” They build barriers that fight against the blending of people.
Linguist Keyser objects to these fortifications, as he states Frost does. The academician argues, Frost is questioning the reason for such ridiculous artifacts. So too is [Samuel] Jay Keyser. I hope that after listening to his commentary and reflecting upon the famous Robert Frost poem, you too will ask why would we wish to build a wall. Frost does . . .
“Before I built a wall I’d ask to know,
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down.”
I certainly have no desire to create fences; I do not love a wall. I love my [thy] neighbors.
References for your Review . . .
- National Public Radio
- All Things Considered
- “‘Good Fences’: Misreading Poetry” The Xenophobic School: Misreading Poetry
- “Mending Wall,” By Robert Frost
- Robert Frost
- Samuel Jay Keyser, Professor of Linguistics at MIT
- Samuel Jay Keyser, Bibliography
Betsy L. Angert Be-Think
I am a lover of great poetry and a supreme lover of Robert Frost’s poetry. I have found this example of the misinterpretation of his poetry to be the most egregious mistake I know of in the wide realm of misunderstood poems. To quote the one line out of context is not only antithetical to the poem itself, but to the entirety of Frost’s body of work.
I am extremely pleased that someone has written and spoken of it to a wide audience. I constantly correct this misinterpretation whenever and wherever I encounter it. Kudos to you for sharing this diary. Please cross-post everywhere.
In fact, in the poem, Robert Frost is outright mocking the simple-mindedness of the neighbor who parrots his father’s use of the line “Good fences make good neighbors” and the neighbor’s unwillingness or inability to consider what he is merely repeating and accepting.
Frost’s thrust is that only dumb people think that good fences could possibly ‘make’ good neighbors. I agree with him.
Dear blueneck . . .
I appreciate your comments and your name.
I did cross post this and placed it on the front page of My-Left-Wing. I hope that more read it than commented. I too find the use of this one line troubling, particularly because it is the antithesis to the theme.
I am grateful for readers such as you.
I check MyLeftWing regularly, and saw that you got a good deal of feedback over there. This and shannika’s recent diary on Malcolm X made me wanta sign up there. But I have enough to do to keep up here, so I’ll probably just continue to be a lurker over there.
Once again, thanks for posting this diary here.
Dear blueneck . . .
It was my pleasure.
Shanika is quite a writer and a thinker; is she not?
Lurking is good too. See you here and there.
May you live long, learn much, and feel fulfilled . . . Betsy