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Submitted by cabo3304 on October 31, 2007
Category: English
Words: 1273 | Pages: 6
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One critic, Lionel Trilling, once went against public opinion in relationship to Robert Frost in that he stated that he thought Robert Frost was a "terrifying poet." Most people of the time considered Frost a wonderful, not terrifying, poet. The following paper examines how and why Frost could be seen as a terrifying poet through his poems "Design" and "Neither Out Far Nor in Deep". For the most part, when speaking of nature and the manner in which Frost presents his own perspective of nature, the poem "Design" is a wonderfully beautiful poem that can make a person rise above a disgust of things like spiders. But, in all honesty there are many images that speak of simple terrifying realities and it is not limited to the tangible objects spoken about in "Design" or the vastness in "Neither Out Far nor In Deep."
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The very first line in "Design" can send shivers down a person's spine as Frost writes simply and realistically of "a dimpled spider, fat and white" (pg. 221, l. 1). Because it is a spider, not something else that would be pleasant if it were dimpled, fat, and white (such as a peeled potato or even Santa Claus) this image is possibly quite terrifying. Spiders are not a type of creature that is looked upon as being something to cherish as the tone of this poem emphasizes. Spiders are an arachnid that spins webs for the capture of insects for food and simply the thought of spiders are a reminder of arachnophobia.
The very flower that this spider is sitting upon is presented as the color white in this poem, but usually a heal-all wildflower has a violet-blue blossom and appears on the outside, spiky and hairy. Visually the flower resembles an open mouth leading into a throat, its name comes from its possibility for medical use, but like the spider it represents death by bite, and unlike the spider it represents healing through medicine. Robert Frost's calm tone in presenting this image, and images throughout the poem, can be very terrifying.
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