'Dust of Snow'- a Poem by Robert Frost
Hello Friends...
Sure, we all are doing well... Be careful, we must stay fit and shouldn't fall ill getting our studies affected. We shall eat and drink healthy, exercise regularly, and won't avoid our domestic and social responsibilities. And whatever time we get for ourselves at the end of the day, we must study hard for most of the time, so that we learn to think... and learn. We simply cannot afford to stop thinking, for we are learners, and we are the chosen ones who got the scope to learn...
Let's learn to think first...
This Discussion
Today, we meet again to discuss a poem,- 'Dust of Snow' by Robert Frost. Many among you are already acquainted with the poet and his works, and those who will be reading Frost for the first time now are likely to appreciate this introduction to the poet through this poem.
Listening First
Why don’t we spend a few seconds listening to the poem before we read it on our own? If you already know how to read a text after identifying the sense groups following the grammatical structures and punctuation, you can skip this step. Else I would strongly suggest that you listen to the poem first, for the intonation of the reading/recital may help you to identify the sense groups in the text, and may thus help you further in the process of negotiating the meaning:
Did you find the poem too brief for a satisfactory negotiation of meaning? Then it’s time to study the text on your own now, halting at every hurdle you identify, and thinking about the probable possibilities of negotiating the meaning of those problematic portions of the text:
Dust of Snow
 |
Robert Frost |
The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree
Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.
The Title
Shall we begin with the title? Well, you know, that’s the convention of reading a text...
‘Dust of Snow’- What insight into the poem do we get from this title?
What is the primary association [meaning] of the word ‘dust’ that comes to your mind as soon you come across this word?
For me, it is ‘earth’, or ‘mud’, or ‘dirt’.
Do you think these meanings will work fine for this poem? Probably not, for these meanings hardly make any sense when associated with snow as we find it to be in the title.
Why don’t we think of some other meanings associated with ‘dust’?
Have you hit it by this time? Yes, 'dust', when used as a noun, also refers to an insignificant amount, or powdery form.
Grammar is necessary to get to the meaning of a text. ‘Dust’ when used as a verb refers to some other meaning. Isn’t it so? But here in the title, it can be said without hesitation that ‘dust’ is being used as a noun and not as a verb. And it may refer to both of these meanings in the poem as well.
The Text
The Characters
The Speaker
Let’s go through the text now with this primary reading of the title. Here in the poem we do have a speaker. Don’t you think so? Why don’t you check the last line of the poem if you’re not sure? It is essential for us as readers to understand who is/are trying to communicate with us through the text.
Yes, it is the first person narrator [‘I’] speaking throughout the poem. Shall we call it a monologue then? By the way, you may very well study the difference between a monologue and a dialogue on the internet.
The Listener
Do we have any reference to any listener? Active, or passive? No? Then what are we, the readers?
Aren’t we the supposed listeners of the monologue? Don’t you feel getting included into the action of the text as you go through it?
The Crow
The speaker seems to share a very personal experience with us, the readers here in this poem. S/he tells us how some part of one of her/his days [‘day’ may refer to a time period spanning over 24 hours as well] full of regrets and repentance was saved by a crow [won’t you consider it to be another organic character in the poem apart from the speaker?] that shook down some dust of snow on her/him from a hemlock tree as this particular incident changed [actually uplifted, as evident from the fact that some part of the day was saved] her/his mood thereafter.
Other Factors Defining The Action
But we have just spotted the characters referred to in the poem primarily. In order to comprehend the setting of any action, we need to understand some other aspects apart from the characters as well. How can we ignore factors like time and space?
Time
What is the time described here? Winter, most likely, for you have reference to snow. And it must be daytime, for we have a crow here shaking down some snow from a tree. Rarely you’ll come across a crow in the night time.
Place
What is the place? Any mountainous region, for we have a hemlock tree here referred to in the poem. Hemlock trees tend to grow in cold and moist mountainous regions. You need to look for such facts as soon as you come across anything new to you.
A Deeper Dig
As we have already decided upon the space, time and characters implied in the poem primarily, now certainly we feel to ask how can such an incident bring upon a change in the mood of the speaker. Well, there's no direct answer in the poem, but don't we have abundant clues to get the answer?
Looking for the Metaphors
Let's think about the agent, or the character that brings in the change of mood of the speaker. It's a crow. Crow is often believed to be the harbinger of death. The crow shook down some dust of snow upon the speaker. Snow again is associated with death. And the crow shook down the snow from a hemlock tree, which may be again a metaphorical reference to death. Do you think that actually the speaker somehow got reminded about her/his chance to die soon?
The Confusion
Do you feel confused now as a threat/reminder of death is not very likely to uplift someone's mood? It leaves me happier, for now you have to think your way out of the puzzle. And as soon as you start thinking, you start learning the process itself…
Going beyond the Text, Looking for the Context
Why don’t we look for any available context? See if you can find the name of the anthology where the poem was published. The reference to the anthology may give you some additional clue about the subject of the poem...
I’m pretty sure that you’ve already managed to learn that the poem was published in New Hampshire: A Poem with Notes And Grace Notes, the anthology that brought the poet his first Pulitzer. And yes, as you must have gathered in your course of looking for the context of the poem, the poet has composed upon the country life of New Hampshire, his native place, in many of his poems.
Negotiation of Meaning
Now let’s think of a farmer in some village waiting for the harsh winter to get over so that s/he might start her/his farm work again. S/he had been forced to stay off the farm the whole of the winter by the extreme harsh weather. What can be of more welcome to her/him than a crow shaking down the snow off the branch of a tree while preparing to nest at the end of the winter? [Did you miss the information that our poet was actually a farmer poet himself?] You may check the link below to find out the nature of crows as particularly observed in New Hampshire region if you feel interested:
And at the same time, you must have learned that hemlock trees growing on the mountains are not at all poisonous [the poisonous hemlock is actually a herb, and never a tree], and hence, should not be associated with death. You are again on your own to get the facts verified from the uncountable resources available on the internet if you have not come across these yet.
Cultural Limitation of the Readers
So, now you need to understand that our earlier interpretation of ‘crow’, ‘snow’ and ‘hemlock tree’ as associates of death was basically a culture-specific reading, and it can not be granted universality. However, if you choose to stick to this interpretation of the ‘crow’, ‘snow’ and ‘hemlock tree’, you are free to conclude that the speaker might have felt inspired to live her/his life to the fullest rather than wasting it upon futile brooding when s/he was reminded of the brevity of the course of human life by these associations of impending death. But, anybody may counter your conclusion pointing it out that you ignore the fact that hemlock tree is not poisonous and hence is not associated with death, that the poet himself has described the mesmerising beauty of snow and frost in many of his poems instead of considering them as associations of death, or that a crow is hardly considered to be the harbinger of death in the culture of New Hampshire.
Readers' Responsibility
Any text is open to multiple versions of reading, and so is this one. But as a reader, it is also our responsibility to comprehend the meaning intended by the author. It is only after this communication between the author and the readers is realised successfully, we may enjoy our liberty to opt for our own versions of reading the same text and thus, end up being the new author.
An Amazing Version of Reading the Text
Would you mind checking the link below just for once? Here you’ll find another interesting version of reading the poem. However, this version is as much valid as our reading the text as a sign indicating the end of harsh winter. This interpretation has totally avoided studying the elements like ‘snow’, or ‘hemlock tree’ in particular as opposed to ours and has reached an amazing conclusion. But it has neither ignored nor violated the time and culture of the poet in any way. Why don’t you find it for yourself?-
Back to the Title to Substantiate Our Reading
If you want to discuss the interpretation of the text as you find it here, I would like to hear from you first. I myself would rather like to get back to the title of the poem once again now that you’ve known that the same poem was published under the titles ‘Mercy’, ‘A Favour’, ‘Snow Dust’ and ‘Dust of Snow’ at different times. Do you feel all these titles to be justified the same way? Do all of these help the readers to get the desired clue to the text itself? Do you know any other instance of changing the title of a published text for so many a time? Why do you think the poet had attempted to change the title of his poem so many times? Don’t you feel the first two titles directly refer to the ‘mercy’ or ‘favour’ shown by nature towards farmers at the end of the harsh winter time whereas the last two titles are more indirect and subtle, more open to multiple readings, and therefore, more poetic? Do you feel that you could have read the text following Lawrence Perrine if the poet had decided to stick to any of the first two titles?
Study of Grammar/Structure for Meaning
Let’s have a methodical look into the grammar of the text now. Grammar often helps to negotiate the meaning of the text. Structurally, the whole poem seems to be composed of a single sentence. Interestingly enough, the poem, which is actually a single sentence itself, is further divided into two stanzas. Why do you think that the poet didn’t feel to split the sentence into simpler and shorter ones, but had chosen to split the text of the poem into two stanzas?
The sentence that composes the whole of the poem is a complex-compound sentence. It refers to a particular feeling of the speaker, which being the result, is in a complex union with the other incidents occurring around her/him almost simultaneously. There are four verb phrases in the whole sentence, indicating that it was possible to get the sentence split into four shorter ones. However, the whole sentence conveys the notion of co-occurrence of the cause and the effect better when not split into separate ones.
However, by the stanzaic division, the poet seems to foreground/highlight the fact that it is ‘the way’ marking the change of time which is the most important aspect in the poem. The change of time, referred to in the whole of the first stanza, as reflected quite early in nature through the activity of the crow, when observed by an eager farmer, is bound to uplift her/his mood. The first stanza, you’ll find, is the subject of two verb phrases,- ‘has given’ and ‘saved’. Have you noted how these two verb phrases render notional superiority to the first stanza of the poem? To give and to save, - aren’t both the actions notionally superior than shaking down [some snow] or rueing [over some time]? Moreover, the first stanza, being the subject of ‘give’, a di-transitive verb, and ‘save’, a transitive verb, serves a total of three objects. Both of the other two verb phrases have organic/living subjects. Don’t you feel, however, how less significant are these two subjects in their actions, the crow shaking down snow and the speaker rueing over some time when compared to ‘the way’ that gives the speaker’s heart a change of mood and saves a part of her/his day?
Have you missed by any means that ‘the way’ gives the speaker’s heart a change of mood instead of changing the speaker’s mood. Do you find the use of the verb ‘give’ particularly useful for the purpose of rendering meaning to the text? Don’t you feel that some donor agent who ‘gives’ sound to be superior than an agent who just ‘changes’?
The End-note
And, before we conclude this session, how about some tune to listen to? A change [an uplift, if you agree,] of mood is very likely to make a tune within audible to others. Well, I admit that opera style doesn’t suit everyone, but at least it helps you judge the lyrical quality of the text we have been reading for so long:
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