It's unrecognizable. Anything goes.
Why does the speaker, the speaker seems to set up the neighbor as someone who's not
conscious. The speaker is very conscious of what he's
doing. He's our, he's our after modernist doubter
of modernism. Okay, I, I get it, I know why the neighbor
won't go behind his father's saying I know that this is a rhetorical device to create
an occasion for culture. >> But he's, sit.
He's, he's, he's setting up, the neighbor to be, dim and dark, and old fashioned.
Can we say a little more about the neighbor?
What does he say about the neighbor? >> He says specifically he moves in
darkness. >> He moves in darkness.
He's like, he's like a caveman an, an old stone savage arm.
He's got rocks. And he's coming.
He lives in darkness. What's that darkness?
>> I think it's the tradition of blind tradition.
Not thinking. >> Just doing things because our fathers
did it. And certainly in agricultural tradition
that Frost is commenting on. >> I think what.
>> So. >> He's saying too is that like, you know,
granted, he's going along with it, with the traditions, because of his traditions.
But I think what Frost is saying. I'm conscious of what the tradition means.
>> And I still want to use it. >> And I still want to use it.
Yes. >> That's what's so smart about this poem.
He's staking out a [inaudible]. What I would call a, a theoretical
conservative view of identity, and, subjectivity.
So that there's a clear distinction between, the subject and object.
In this case the object is a guy on the other side of the wall.
Does anybody want to push this a little further?
Who else might that neighbor be? I was thinking it could be a commentary on
political isolationism or something. Wow, I'm not sure we have time to go
there, but okay. Who could that?
Other be, this is about self and other. >> I mean, the.
>> Molly? I'm sorry.
Either one. >> I was gonna say a different type of
poet, like an old, an older fashioned type of poet.
Like Frost. >> It could even be a newer fashioned kind
of poet, you know? Like, some, he may argue that some
modernists just do the modern thing because it's modern.
>> Oh I think we're pushing pretty hard here, I mean.
>> Yeah it's really hard. >> But he talks about because.
>> I don't think the guy's a poet. >> You've been doing things because your
father's. No?
Okay. >> Who is he?
>> I don't know. [laugh] It's been, I think it's been
argued that the, that this is an alter ego, that this is a.
Another. This is version of.
This is Frost meeting himself. This is Frost, seeing, seeing.
>> Version of himself. >> But he's so disdainful of this other
person. >> Well, his...
>> [laugh] >> He likes having thought of it so well.
>> He's meeting a crusty, you know, he's meeting the guy who makes the poem so
great. The guy who comes up with the line that,
that's so great in this poem, he's meeting Mr.
Iamb, Mr. Iambic.
If good fences make good neighbors, he's meeting the man who creates the aesthetic
here. He, he's got more self consciousness than
he knows what to do with, the speaker does.
What do you think, so, [inaudible] before we wrap up what do, what do.
Do you like this? It's such a famous poem.
It's so smart. It's really about ...
>> It's really about this, the need for the wall.
Even though there's no practical need. There's a cultural and psychological need.
This is where beauty is. What do you think of all this?
>> I actually do like it. But I also thing that.
Yeah, and I agree with you that this is about the need for the wall kind of
aesthetically and formally in terms of poetry.
But I also think that there is. An ambiguity in terms of how, the speaker
feels about it. That's makes it very human.
And that's the part of the poem that I. >> Appreciate the most.
>> Dave what do you think? >> I do that completely the way that the
speaker is so mischievous as he calls himself.
And he's still questioning it but in the end he still goes along with it.
>> He certainly affirms it and he creates a beautiful poem.
So he's really not ready to question it to the point where the.
Where he says you know what screw it. Let's not built this.
Let's go and have a drink. Or let's not know each other at all.
We don't have anything in common. Why are we doing this?
We're doing it because it is a ritual. Our fathers have done this.
>> By the way, why are there stones at, in this?
Why are there stone walls in New England? Anybody know?
>> Are there stones in New England? >> [laugh] >> There are lots of stones in
New England. These are glacial.
Yeah, there are lots of stones. >> Does it, does it have something, does
it kind of harken back to the colonial period, and the Revolutionary War?
>> Why did, why did they put the, why did they put the walls?
Did they put the walls to separa-, to mark boundaries, which is the assumption here?