Robert Frost's "Mending Wall": A Marriage of Poetic Form and Content

• Review the lesson plan. Locate and bookmark suggested materials and other useful websites. Download and print out documents you will use and duplicate copies as necessary for student viewing.
• Review the EDSITEment-lesson "Poems that Tell a Story: Narrative and Persona in the Poetry of Robert Frost."
• Read the brief biography of Robert Frost from the EDSITEment-reviewed Academy of American Poets website.
• Read the Heath Online Instructor's Guide: Robert Frost, a link from the Academy of American Poets.
• Browse the Frost Exhibit at the EDSITEment-reviewed Modern American Poetry website from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Be sure to note the stone wall at Frost's farmhouse in Derry, NH.
• Read the online versions of "Mending Wall," from the EDSITEment-reviewed Academy of American Poets website.
• Watch the PBS video of former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky reading "Mending Wall."
• Listen to the audio clip of Frost reading "Mending Wall."
• Browse the critical commentaries about "Mending Wall," from Modern American Poetry. George Montiero and Lawrence Raab both offer commentary on "Mending Wall" that would be quite useful in the classroom.

Activity 1. Reading Frost Aloud

To enhance the poem visually, first show students pictures of the actual stone wall about which Frost writes in "Mending Wall." The pictures of Frost's farmhouse in Derry, NH, are available at the Frost Exhibit at the EDSITEment-reviewed Modern American Poetry website from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. If you haven't done so already, share with students some details of Robert Frost's life; the EDSITEment-reviewed websites the Academy of American Poets and Modern American Poetry both have excellent biographies of his life.

Perhaps the most important first step for students in closely analyzing a poem is to hear and/or read the poem aloud. Play for students the audio clip of Frost reading "Mending Wall." Then ask a student to re-read the following excerpt to the class (note: if possible, have students number the lines in order to more easily facilitate class discussion). Before this reading, ask students to pay attention to any difference in the poem's rhythm.

Something there is that doesn't love a wall, 1

That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it, 2

And spills the upper boulders in the sun;3

And makes gaps even two can pass abreast. 4

Ask students to describe the rhythm of the first three lines, reminding them that lines of poetry are often comprised of stressed and unstressed beats. For students new to rhythm and meter, have them visit this review of rhythm and meter in poetry, available at Emory University via the EDSITEment-reviewed Academy of American Poets Ask the students to consider the following questions:

• Did you notice a change in rhythm at any point in the poem?
• Why does this change in rhythm happen in line four?

Despite the lack of rhyme, students should note the regularity of the iambic pentameter (blank verse) lines. If necessary to elaborate on iambic pentameter, ask for student volunteers to scan the lines on the computer or at the board. If students have difficulty remembering, remind them that iambic pentameter is comprised of five sections of two syllables each; the first is unstressed and the second is stressed.

The poem's rhythm changes in line four as this line falls out of the use of iambs. It's enough for students to notice that the monosyllabic words help to account for the change in rhythm; in other words, there is no need to scan this line formally. From a content perspective, this line introduces the gaps in the wall. The form of the line, which projects a rhythmically more unruly line that those preceding it, itself has breaks (gaps) in rhythm. Here is our first glimpse of Frost's marriage of form and content. This activity is meant to prepare students for their own in-depth analysis.

Activity 2. Student Analysis of Form and Content

After introducing students to this initial example of the intricate relationship between form and content, break students into five or six small groups to have students conduct in-depth analysis of the poem's form and content. Hand out the "Frost's Form and Content" student worksheet to each group. Ask each student group analyze the remainder of the poem in small groups and to complete the worksheet as a group, which should take about 20 minutes.

Activity 3. Class Analysis and Discussion of "Mending Wall"

Regroup as a class and review the worksheet in order to answer the question, "How does Frost marry form and content?" Note that the teacher version of the worksheet includes analysis of selected lines. As the class progresses, introduce some of the following questions to encourage student discussion of the broader themes of the poem:

• How would you describe the speaker and his tone? How would you describe the neighbor? How would you compare them?
• What is the meaning and significance of the word "mending" in both the poem's title and in the action carried throughout the poem? Notice that the word can be both an adjective and an action. In what way(s) does Frost directly and indirectly use this word? Does anything else in the poem need mending?
• In what ways do "walls" become metaphorical and/or symbolic in the poem?
• Why does the neighbor think that "good fences make good neighbors"?

Next have students focus on the poem's form in relation to themes they have identified and discussed. Throughout the poem, Frost plays with form to convey underlying meaning. Ask students, for example, how the gaps serve as a metaphor throughout the poem (i.e., a metaphor of the "gap" between the neighbors and their relationship and even their conversation. Specifically, the neighbor doesn't understand the nuances of the speaker's comments throughout the poem, and the speaker doesn't understand his neighbor's attachment to what the speaker considers provincial clichés).

Continue analyzing the poem, turning to the next seven lines:

The work of hunters is another thing: 5

I have come after them and made repair 6

Where they have left not one stone on a stone, 7

But they would have the rabbit out of hiding, 8

To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean, 9

No one has seen them made or heard them made, 10

But at spring mending-time we find them there. 11

After re-reading these lines, ask students if they hear any changes in the poem's consistency. Students might note that the rhythm changes at "not one stone on a stone" and "The gaps I mean." Students might also point out how line 9 itself visually emphasizes the gaps with a sentence ending mid-line, creating a visual gap between "dogs" and "The".

Have students argue either in class or in writing the following questions:

• As the poem draws to a close, does the form of the poem continue to include gaps (rhythmic gaps? Spaces within lines?) or has the poem's form "mended" itself?
• Do we have a complete wall standing by the poem's end (formally speaking) or do the gaps remain?
• How does the final form of the wall influence our reading of the poem's thematic dispute between the two neighbors?

Have students write a short argumentative essay on Frost's marriage of form and content in "Mending Wall." Students may use examples from the student worksheet.

Ask students to choose a single passage from another Frost poem (possibly "The Road Not Taken," if the extension is not used) and write a brief essay discussing the relationship of form and content from a single line or short group of lines.

If time allows, incorporate a discussion of Frost's famous poem "The Road Not Taken." To prepare for this extension, browse the critical commentaries about "The Road Not Taken," from Modern American Poetry. In class, students may listen to an audio clip of Frost reading "The Road Not Taken," available at the EDSITEment-reviewed Academy of American Poets website. Ask students to explore the rhythm and meter of this poem, and then look for other formal elements, such as end-stops and enjambment, and their effect on the poem's interpretation.

Selected EDSITEment Websites

• Academy of American Poets
  • "Mending Wall"
  • Brief biography of Robert Frost
  • Heath Online Instructor's Guide: Robert Frost
  • Review of rhythm and meter in poetry
  • "The Road Not Taken"
  • audio clip of Frost reading "The Road Not Taken"
• Modern American Poetry
  • Frost Exhibit
  • Frost reading "Mending Wall"
  • Critical commentaries about "Mending Wall"
  • "The Road Not Taken" critical commentary