An Analysis of After Apple-Picking :: After Apple-Picking

An synopsis of After Apple-Picking   After Apple-Picking has often been compared to Keats Ode to Autumn, as if it were primarily a celebration of harvest. But its elevated diction as headspring as its images, mood and theme, all suggest a greater affinity with Keats Ode to a Nightingale. In that weary, drowsy poem the speaker longs to escape through art, symbolized by the nightingale, from the offend of the real number world and wants to melt into the welcome oblivion of death My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains     My sense, as though of winter fern I had drunk, Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains     One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk, Frosts narrator, standing on the earth but looking upward, is also suspended between the real and the fantasy world My long two-pointed ladders sticking through a tree Toward heaven still And theres a barrel that I didnt fill. The long and short lines, the randomized hoarfrost scheme, the recur rent participles (indicating work), the slow tempo and incantatory rhythm all suggest that repetitive labor has drained away his energy. The perfume of the apples - equated through essence with overweight quiescence - has the narcotic, almost sensual effect of ether. Frosts speaker, like Keats, is suffused with drowsy numbness, yet enters the visionary pass on necessary to artistic creation Essence of winter sleep is on the night, The scent of apples I am drowsing off. I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight I got from looking through a pane of sparkler I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough. The glassy piece of ice - which distorts, transforms and makes the familiar seem strange - is, like Keats nightingale, a symbol of art. In his intake state (the word sleep occurs six times in the poem), Magnified apples appear and disappear, Stem end and blossom end, And every fleck of russet display clear, and he rhythmically sways on the ladder when the boughs bend with hi s weight. As the apples are gathered - and the poem written - he becomes both physically and mentally tucker An Analysis of After Apple-Picking After Apple-PickingAn Analysis of After Apple-Picking   After Apple-Picking has often been compared to Keats Ode to Autumn, as if it were primarily a celebration of harvest. But its elevated diction as well as its images, mood and theme, all suggest a greater affinity with Keats Ode to a Nightingale. In that weary, drowsy poem the speaker longs to escape through art, symbolized by the nightingale, from the pain of the real world and wants to melt into the welcome oblivion of death My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains     My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains     One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk, Frosts narrator, standing on the earth but looking upward, is also suspended between the real and the dream world My long two-pointed ladders sticking thr ough a tree Toward heaven still And theres a barrel that I didnt fill. The long and short lines, the irregular rhyme scheme, the recurrent participles (indicating work), the slow tempo and incantatory rhythm all suggest that repetitive labor has drained away his energy. The perfume of the apples - equated through essence with profound rest - has the narcotic, almost sensual effect of ether. Frosts speaker, like Keats, is suffused with drowsy numbness, yet enters the visionary state necessary to artistic creation Essence of winter sleep is on the night, The scent of apples I am drowsing off. I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight I got from looking through a pane of glass I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough. The glassy piece of ice - which distorts, transforms and makes the familiar seem strange - is, like Keats nightingale, a symbol of art. In his dream state (the word sleep occurs six times in the poem), Magnified apples appear and disappear, Stem end and blossom e nd, And every fleck of russet showing clear, and he rhythmically sways on the ladder when the boughs bend with his weight. As the apples are gathered - and the poem written - he becomes both physically and mentally exhausted