Discussion Questions:
1. What are some words you would use to describe the mood or feeling or tone of this poem?
2. What words does Frost use to achieve the mood/feeling/tone you just described?
Wednesday, November 5, 2025
"Acquainted with the Night"
I memorized this Robert Frost poem in college. I'd thought until then that he pretty much always wrote poems about nature and farming and the joys of rural life. But he spent most of his life in cities, and he did write about them too -- maybe not as often, but just as interestingly.
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1. Lonesome, unnatural, antisocial, depressing, morbidly interesting...
ReplyDeleteQuite the collection!
Delete2. Lonesome: The whole poem oozes loneliness; being only "acquainted" with the night, not knowing it. He only says "I", never "we". Walking in rain, and walking away from the people in the city shouts out lonely.
ReplyDeleteUnnatural: ""unearthly" height".
Antisocial: passing another human being, and not acknowledging them? ""unwilling" to explain".
Depressing: ""saddest" city lane"
Morbidly interesting: "interrupted cry", "neither wrong nor right".
I don't know if that's how we were supposed to do it, but I did my best! 😅
Such an interesting take! I especially like your idea of only being acquainted with the night meaning he doesn't know it/isn't friends with it. Not how I've read it myself, but it works.
DeleteAnd yeah, that was a good way to show what words in the poem evoked your description.
1. It's kind of dark, but not in the dark humor sort of way, just the darkness sort of way. Gray. Lonely. Eerie.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely.
Delete2. He talks about outwalking the furthest city light, and also being "acquainted with the night" which, unless you live someplace with extreme light pollution, is dark.
ReplyDelete"I have walked out in the rain - and back in rain". I always think of rain being kind of gray, because it's usually darker and gray when it's raining.
You get the impression that he's alone, since when he stands still he stops the sound of feet. It's written in a way where all the descriptions give off a kind of lonely feel.
And with the eerie... you have a "luminary clock against the sky", and as someone who is very visual when reading poetry or anything else, that is a kind of eerie image in my mind. (Especially because I see it as the moon with a clockface on it, and I'm not sure if the moon is supposed to be the luminary clock. Is it?)
All really good examples of the words he uses that make you get a specific vibe from it.
DeleteI think the "luminary clock against the sky" is actually supposed to be something like this. But the moon and stars do let people tell time, if they know how, so it works to imagine it as a bright, full moon with clock hands on it, too.
Because I like adding random asides all of a sudden, this poem reminds me of a novel I wrote, about vampires in a dark, rainy city
ReplyDeleteI literally rewrote this poem to be about a vampire. When you get about three years older, you're going to LOVE the show Angel.
Delete