analysis poetry

Robert Frost's "The Silken Tent".

She is as in a field a silken tent

At midday when a sunny summer breeze

Has dried the dew and all its ropes relent,

So that in guys it gently sways at ease,

And its supporting central cedar pole,

That is its pinnacle to heavenward

And signifies the sureness of the soul,

Seems to owe naught to any single cord,

But strictly held by none, is loosely bound

By countless silken ties of love and thought

To everything on earth the compass round,

And only by one's going slightly taut

In the capriciousness of summer air

Is of the slightest bondage made aware.

               

                This poetry belongs to lyric poetry. Because this poetry tells us about feeling of the poet and he describe about someone with a thing. This poetry uses a sustained image to describe a woman. Frost draws out an extended comparison between a woman and a silken tent in order to make some essential aspect of the woman’s character real and available to the reader. The comparison is not to just any tent, but to a tent imagined in a very specific way. Ropes or cords draw up, become taut, when wet . in this case, the tent is imagined at midday. Any morning dew which would have soaked the tent’s guy-lines has evaporated, and the ropes are now somewhat slack. The tent sways slightly in response to the wind. This imagery conveys at a subconscious but very real and effective level.  A sense that the woman being described is not tense or nervous, but is instead genial, relaxed, comfortable to be around. This does not mean, though, that she is wishy washy, someone who is blown about by every gust of fad and fashion. The tent’s pole its upright nature, its strength conveys a sense of backbone, character, and firmness. In this woman’s case, firmness of character does not lead to her becoming dogmatic or insistent. Rather, her character derives in part at least from her deep investment in friends, family, and community, from “countless silken ties of love and thought”. Some people would experience numerous relationships and the obligations they entail as something entangling, binding, or limiting. This woman does not seem to. She seems to be very much at ease in this situation, so much so that she and those around her are only likely to be aware of their bounds and limits in unusual circumstances.

This poem describes a woman whose life unfolds in a very relaxed, natural way, within numerous strict boundaries. In the woman’s character, as in the poem’s form, one is not really aware that the boundaries are even there. The woman, like the poem, exist comfortably, naturally, easily within numerous limits and boundaries.