My November Guest Analysis

My Sorrow, when she's here with me,
Thinks these dark days of autumn rain
Are beautiful as days can be;
She loves the bare, the withered tree;
She walks the sodden pasture lane.

Her pleasure will not let me stay.
She talks and I am fain to list:
She's glad the birds are gone away,
She's glad her simple worsted grey
Is silver now with clinging mist.

The desolate, deserted trees,
The faded earth, the heavy sky,
The beauties she so truly sees,
She thinks I have no eye for these,
And vexes me for reason why.

Not yesterday I learned to know
The love of bare November days
Before the coming of the snow,
But it were vain to tell her so,
And they are better for her praise.

.: :.

Frost seems to be saying that it is only through the experience of sadness and loss "My Sorrow when she's here with me" that a certain kind of beauty can be appreciated ; that is a sublime sense of fading desolation and movement towards death, here represented by late autumn.
His "November Guest" is both the cause and the relief of this pain. "The beauties she so truly sees, She thinks I have no eye for these, and vexes me for reasons why." Frost may be reluctant to reveal the reason, as it is his "November Guest" who has caused him the grief in the first place, perhaps by leaving his love for her unrequited or unappreciated. "But it were vain to tell her so, And they are better for her praise."
He realises that telling her of the pain he is in will do no good. Yet as the personification of his sorrow, and of the season itself, it is through her eyes, illuminating the stark beauty around him, that he finds his comfort. Without this experience of sorrow, he would be diminished.

| Posted on 2009-11-05 | by a guest

.: :.

This piece by Robert Frost is a personification of the saying misery loves company. In the beginning of the poem Frost describes misery as the love of the dark autumn rain, withered trees, and sodden pasture lanes. He describes the leaving of summer and the coming winter as a joyous event. Describing the event is a reference as to how some times one likes to be miserable about things that were to be considered miserable. “She is glad the birds are gone away, she’s glad her simple worsted grey is silver now with clinging mist.”
In his piece Frost admits he has much appreciation for what people consider to be miserable events, but also that he believes that misery is in the eye of the beholder, that one could view life as a series of misfortunes rather than the beautiful gift of change that people are so lucky to experience. “The beauties she so truly sees, she thinks I have no eye for these, and vexes me for reason why.”
Frost however would rather miserable people enjoy their own company than be drawn into their outlook on life. As he describes, “Not yesterday I learned to know the love of bare November days before the coming of the snow, but it were vain to tell her so, and they are better for her praise.”

| Posted on 2009-08-24 | by a guest

.: :.

For many lovers, Robert Frost shows how beautiful love can be, for it makes people change. It shows how many people change for the one they love, not intentionally, but mentally. Many may think of November to be a season of dying, not beauty, but have \"she\" in the narrator\'s life during Autumn makes him love it. In line, They could NOT be talking about the Autumn but about herself, like many lovers question their partner for their love for them.

| Posted on 2009-05-20 | by a guest

.: My November Guest :.

In "My November Guest", Robert Frost captures the essence of Derrida’s classical concept of the ‘Other’ as represented in the textual trace of a poet’s transcendent range of perceptions and projections. That is, a conveyance of ideas via the phenomenological transmission of the universally receptive experience of poetry. Frost starts with what must be considered a given premise; that is, those who are reading his verses must have already learned to appreciate, albeit in a very personal way, the terrible beauty of their relative sufferings. They understand beauty as being the coordination or display of situation-appropriate metaphysical raiment, very much dependent upon the various inner dynamics of ones being.
As always, Frosts’ classical use of nature’s milieu tends to resonate so much more for its readily accessible associations. And again in November Guest, his poetic voice contemplates suffering and sorrow as it is absorbed through the chillingly somber natural drama of autumn succumbing to winter. Therein flourishes the paradox of what is held to be beautiful; for deep within the suffering human heart resides a well known, though vexing facility to recognize and, indeed, cherish this torment in its haunting beauty. Just as when the entire world is bathed in the brilliant warm and euphoric ambiance of one’s first raptures in love, conversely, when we lose that love, it is as though we then experience an antithetical realm or parallel, yet, opposite transience through the underside of the same strong emotions. Thus sorrow often unspeakably seeks its still greater depths as one intentionally tarries, emerged within the strange comfort of ones own privately appreciated misery. So we find consoling identification within the “Simple worsted gray” scenes of “these dark days of autumn rain; the bare, desolate, deserted trees; faded earth and heavy sky”.
Who of us has not felt the heavy murk of sorrowful desolation that excludes all else around us? And having thus been enveloped in our own cocoon of connective loss, refused to let go of the rapidly fading memory of what we have lost; because we could see, if only for a little longer, that this is where that beauty lingers. This isolated inner venue enables us to hold on to what will not be again; to love its last fresh memory, albeit in the withered bones of the barest of November days, before the “coming snow” covers it, and its form becomes less and less distinct under the ever numbing smooth white coldness of monotonous layers of winter’s time.

| Posted on 2008-03-14 | by a guest

.: November :.

From the first line we know "she" is not a person at all but the personification of sorrow:
-My Sorrow, when she's here with me,-

From the rest of the first Stanza, we are given examples of how desolate things appear comforting when we are sad. (Misery loves company)
-Thinks these dark days of autumn rain
Are beautiful as days can be
She loves the bare, the withered tree;
She walks the sodden pasture lane.-
Translation: Sadness loves the empty, barren and withered.


The second stanza describes the conflict between feeling both sad and uncomfortable with being sad:
-Her pleasure will not let me stay.
She talks and I am fain to list:-
Translation: Sadness' "pleasure" or things that are sad are too hard to take or listen to.


-She's glad the birds are gone away,
She's glad her simple worsted grey
Is silver now with clinging mist.-
Sorrow makes us seek solitude, greys and colorless things that don't distract us from what bothers us.

-The beauties she so truly sees,
She thinks I have no eye for these,
And vexes me for reason why.-
What appears beautiful when you are sad? Typically it's the absence of something you lost, or can't figure out. Your frustration may convince you that you are not understanding the causes, the means to prevent yourself from experiencing sorrow.

-Not yesterday I learned to know
The love of bare November days-
This wasn't the author's first encounter with pain.

-Before the coming of the snow,
But it were vain to tell her so,-
Trying to tell himself that he knew he'd be alright at that point was too difficult

-And they are better for her praise. -
Sometimes fighting something instead of just living through it makes it more difficult.


| Posted on 2007-11-07 | by a guest

.: Analysis :.

For many lovers, Robert Frost shows how beautiful love can be, for it makes people change. It shows how many people change for the one they love, not intentionally, but mentally. Many may think of November to be a season of dying, not beauty, but have "she" in the narrator's life during Autumn makes him love it. In line,
"The beauties she so truly sees,
She thinks I have no eye for these,
And vexes me for reason why."
They could NOT be talking about the Autumn but about herself, like many lovers question their partner for their love for them. In the last stanza the poem becomes confusing, if he really loves her, the month of November, or even a woman before her.
An option for symbolism here could be that, yes, he's loved before, but he lets her think that she is the only reason for his liking to the month, yet she still contributes to it.

| Posted on 2007-10-26 | by a guest

.: Analysis :.

For many lovers, Robert Frost shows how beautiful love can be, for it makes people change. It shows how many people change for the one they love, not intentionally, but mentally. Many may think of November to be a season of dying, not beauty, but have "she" in the narrator's life during Autumn makes him love it. In line,
"The beauties she so truly sees,
She thinks I have no eye for these,
And vexes me for reason why."
They could NOT be talking about the Autumn but about herself, like many lovers question their partner for their love for them. In the last stanza the poem becomes confusing, if he really loves her, the month of November, or even a woman before her.
An option for symbolism here could be that, yes, he's loved before, but he lets her think that she is the only reason for his liking to the month, yet she still contributes to it.

| Posted on 2007-10-26 | by a guest