On Grief and Reason- Nick Reynolds

In his article, “On Grief and Reason” Joseph Brodsky asserts that the famous poet Robert Frost is not only quintessentially American, but also much darker and more somber than the casual reader might observe.  To support this stance Brodsky first defines what an American poet is, then proceeds to analyse two of Frost’s poems, “Come In” and, “Home Burial.”  Brodsky first defines an American poet as one that focuses on the terrifying rather than the tragic and as a poet that views nature as an equal rather than the European view of nature as something familiar and steeped in history.  He then goes on to analyse every sentence, word, and syllable in Frost’s, “Come In” and surmises, after many pages of analysis, that the poem is about death, or at the very least this poem is, “about being old and pondering what is next.”  After his analysis of, “Come In” Brodsky moves on to another Frost poem, “Home Burial” which he spends the remainder of the article analysing.  In the end Brodsky decides that the poem is about the eternal battle between grief and reason, hence the name of the article.  

It would seem to me that everything within Brodsky’s article is backed by copious reasoning and evidence from both within and without the text, therefore his analysis is certainly plausible.  However that does not mean that it is the only interpretation Brodsky’s interpretation is but one of many.  In the essay, during his analysis of, “Home Burial,” Brodsky makes reference classical authors like Dante, Virgil, Horace, Propertius and Ovid and, given that I have read none of them, this entire section was bewildering to say the least.  By providing detailed analysis of two of his works Brodsky deepens his readers understanding of both Robert Frost and his poems.  In his analysis Brodsky makes use of the new historicism lens in his analysis of, “Come In” specifically as he discusses the first line.  In, “Home Burial” the new historicism lens is still present, however it is accompanied by the archetypal lens as Brodsky likens the wife to Galatia.