Mending Wall
Encyclopedia
Blank verse
Blank verse is poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter. It has been described as "probably the most common and influential form that English poetry has taken since the sixteenth century" and Paul Fussell has claimed that "about three-quarters of all English poetry is in blank verse."The first...
, published in 1914, by Robert Frost
Robert Frost
Robert Lee Frost was an American poet. He is highly regarded for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloquial speech. His work frequently employed settings from rural life in New England in the early twentieth century, using them to examine complex social and...
(1874–1963). The poem appeared as the first selection in Frost's second collection of poetry, North of Boston
North of Boston
North of Boston is a 1914 poetry collection by Robert Frost. It includes two of his most famous poems, "Mending Wall" and "After Apple-Picking"...
. It is set in the countryside and is about one man questioning why he and his neighbor must rebuild the stone wall dividing their farms each spring.
The neighbor rebuilds the wall without question, quoting "Good fences make good neighbors," a line listed by the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations as a mid 17th century proverb
Proverb
A proverb is a simple and concrete saying popularly known and repeated, which expresses a truth, based on common sense or the practical experience of humanity. They are often metaphorical. A proverb that describes a basic rule of conduct may also be known as a maxim...
. But Frost's narrator questions the proverb, noting that neither his apple trees nor his neighbor's pine trees are likely to encroach on the other's property. He says, "Before I built a wall I'd ask to know / What I was walling in or walling out / And to whom I was like to give offense." He also observes, both at the poem's opening and again midway through the poem, "Something there is that doesn't love a wall," referring to the forces of nature that bring a wall to decay and require it to be repaired and rebuilt. But the neighbor is not receptive to the narrator's doubts, quoting again at the poem's close that "Good fences make good neighbors."