Of Grief and Reason

Brodsky begins his essay by discussing the poem Come In. He moves through the poem chronologically, and describes the differences that can be seen by individually analyzing each word. His analysis of the poem serves to highlight the fact that Robert Frost is “as American as apple pie.” His basis for this is the distinction between tragedy and terror, and which category Frost falls under. He believes that Frost’s difference from the “Continental tradition of the poet as a tragic hero” is what makes him “American”. The second poem he analyzes is Home Burial. His analysis of this poem was unlike anything I understood from my own experience with reading and discussing it. He repeatedly calls the wife the “heroine” yet also displays many of her qualities which contrast this claim. A “heroine” is generally a woman in a literary work who exhibits great courage or achievements, but this description does not match Brodsky’s analysis at all. He contrasts the characters by “grief and reason”, the husband being reason and the wife being grief. Her hysterical attitude and inability to understand the way that her husband copes would not make her courageous, but rather weak. He continues by implying that the two are “playing a game”. He describes the stair scene as a representation of hierarchy in the minds of the characters: the woman at the top and the man at the bottom. The woman stays in power for most of the poem, although it is unlikely that she should be. Brodsky reminds readers that the house belongs to the man and his family and has for many years, but as the poem continues, the roles are flipped, and the man towers over the woman from the top of the stairs as she attempts to leave. Brodsky’s claims of fear and embarrassment, both on behalf of the wife, seem slightly far-fetched and a stretched interpretation. He ends by claiming that the physical and emotional separation of the couple allows the ideas of “grief and reason” to be married to each other. Though I’m not sure I follow his interpretation of Home Burial, the concepts of poetry being “utterly American” is intriguing.