Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Robert Frost

1923

-Robert Frost was born on March 26th, 1874.

-"Nothing Gold Can Stay" was written when he was 49.

-The poem won a Pulitzer Prize the year it was published.

-Both of Frost's parents died when he was very young. After he married, he lost several of his children. Two of them died in childhood and he also had a son who committed suicide. His sister was very ill through much of her life, and had to be committed to a mental institution. Frost’s own daughter was placed in an institution as well due to depression. Frost knew true heartbreak, with most of his family dying before him. His wife died 30 years prior to Frost’s own death in 1963. The tragedy experienced in Frost’s own life heavily influenced his work.

-Frost died January 29th, 1963 from surgical complications.

Theme: The underlying theme of "Nothing Gold Can Stay" is the limitation of time. Frost expresses the idea that moments of life can be golden, however, nothing gold can stay. Nothing lasts forever, so we must cherish the fulfilling moments in life, and overcome difficult obstacles.

When illustrating how "dawn goes down to day," Frost underlies the fact that nothing is eternal. Also, "her early leafs a flower, but only so an hour" presents the concept that flowers only bloom their fullest for a short period of time. After that, they subside to nothing.

Although life occurs in stages, along with a mixture of emotions, it is still worth the experience. It is true that nothing gold can stay, but that does not mean that something golden can't come back. Frost illustrates this throughout his poem by symbolizing "gold" as bliss.

Voice

The voice of Robert Frost's piece is best conveyed through detail and imagery, diction syntax and tone.

-As for imagery, the detail of this piece helps to better understand the idea that is portrayed. The poem is presented in early spring, when the vegetative world is first blossoming. In the beginning of the poem, the imagery is describing the emerging yellow and gold leaves before they change to green. This period, however, is very brief. The repetition in the line "Then leaf subsides to leaf" is very important. Taken literally, the line suggests that the leaf was always intended to be only a green leaf, not a golden flower. If the flower lasted only an hour, the leaf, the poem suggests, survives for longer. "So Eden sank to grief," allows the reader to assume that the shift from gold to green was unfortunate, and even painful. "So dawn goes dawn to day" brings the subject back to the natural world, but this time the words point to the daily cycle of night and day rather than the annual cycle of the seasons.

-Frost employs figurative diction in "Nothing Gold Can Stay." The poem is figurative because it is metaphorical. The season changing and the new day soon beginning is a metaphor of how time rapidly passes by in life.

-Technically, the metaphor is called a felix culpa metaphor. Felix Culpa is a latin phrase meaning "fortunate fall." The subsidence and the sinking, by the logic of the poem, is a blessing, if we are to follow the cycle of the flower, leaf, bud and fruit, into the full life that includes loss, grief, and change.

-The diction can also be described as simple, sense no word is longer than two syllables. Most are monosyllabic, and the poem is written in the short trimeter line. The stylistic features utilized in the poem contribute to the poems expressive brevity and lyric compression.

-Syntax: "Nothing Gold Can Stay" contains predominately nominal syntax, but there is also a small portion of verbal syntax. It is nominal due to the fact that it constitutes a symbolic reference to Eden. It also is trifling in comparison with the actual value; value, symbolizing time.

-Verbal syntax is contained in the poem when describing the verbal imagery. It is not predominate like the nominal syntax, because verbal is oral, rather than written. As shown in the poem, the speaker is not telling someone "nothing gold can stay"; he is simply stating it.

-Tone: Some words to describe the poem is candid, humble, impartial, and nostalgic. Frost's idea that nothing can last forever is a thought that is truthful, along with indifferent and reflective.

Genre: "Nothing Gold Can Stay" is not a sonnet. Specifically, it is a ballad. This can be determined by the rhyme scheme that was employed; a, a, b, b, c, c, d, d. The rhyme scheme reflects the simple progression of nature and its predictability.

-As previously stated, the poem is written in short trimeter lines: a line with three strong stresses usually spread across six syllables. The main words that are stressed in the poem also happen to be alliterations. These include Hardest-Hue-Hold, and Dawn-Down-Day. The symmetrical placement of these two lines helps bind the poem into a whole.

-When Frost alludes to Eden, it symbolizes the biblical reference. However, he is just including this as an example that nothing gold last forever; just like Adam and Eve's life in the Garden of Eden could not last forever. Mistakes lead to consequences.

-Frost resembles Emerson's idea that being born into this world later advances to suffering brought by natural processes we recognize as evil.

-Dawn going "down to day" should be life at its height, but Frost implies that at the moment when sunrise appears, the day is diminishing.

-The "Nothing" of the last line, repeated from the title, receives special emphasis; the gold that cannot stay represents all perfections.

-From an opposite perspective, if nothing gold can stay, nothing bitter can stay either.

THE END!

Poetical Aspects

Robert Frost

Nature's first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf's a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf,

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day

Nothing gold can stay.

Critical Perspective

-Robert Frost's poem best relates to

developmental criticism. This perspective

shows the application of stage theories and

growth patterns to the life stories in fiction.

The critic believes that though art does not

reflect life exactly, it does offer a sufficient

appearance of truth to allow the use of

psychological concepts to help understand

character definition and character growth.

-Frost's poem can also be considered as biographical criticism, knowing the background information of Frost's difficult life.

Diction

Literary Aspects

Poetical Aspects

-The poem begins in paradox, when Frost states that "green is gold."

-This paradox parallels when the leaf is then called a flower. The comparison creates a disguise for the leaf, but only for a short period of time. After the "hour," the leaf changes back to its original state.

-The line when "Eden sank to grief" develops a contrast between acts within nature, and acts within myth. By analogy, the third term in the poem takes on the character of the first two; gold is green; flower is leaf; Eden is grief. In every case, the second element is actually a value, a part of a natural process by which the cycle of fuller life is completed.

Robert Frost

Robert Frost