Birches by Robert Frost
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Transcript of Birches by Robert Frost
Birches by Robert Frost
• American Literature II
• Instructor: Prof. Cecilia Liu
• Group Members: Tom, Christina
Outline
• The Pictures of Birches
• Summary
• Rhymes
• Structure
• Setting
• Themes
• References
The Pictures of Birches
• The silver birch with its characteristic white bark
• http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5a/Betula_pendula_winter.jpg
Summary
1. The birches are bent: by the boy’s swinging or by the storm
2. The boy is swing the birches
3. Climbing a tree becomes a retreat for the adult speaker
Rhymes• Blank verse: a type of poetry,
distinguished by having a regular meter, but no rhyme. In English, the meter most commonly used with blank verse has been iambic pentameter. Source: Wikipedia
Structure• 1~5: The speaker is guessing which factor
causes the bending of the birches.• 6~13: The scenery of snow falling from the
birches.• 14~20: The dragging birches are like girls
throwing their hair to dry. • 21~40: A boy swinger is swinging the birches• 41~59: The speaker sees climbing the birches as
a retreat from the heavy-loaded pressure in life until the branches of the tree could not undertake and then send him back to earth.
Setting
• An outside scenery with birch tree
• Or in his imagery recall in his mind?
(Dramatic Monologue)
Themes
• Swinging birch tree as a transcendent escape
Binary opposites:
• Earth V.S. Heaven
• Boy V.S. Man
• Reality V.S. Transcendence
References
• Sparknote
• http://cgi.sparknotes.com/hlite.rmpl?words=birches&pd=0&page=section8.rhtml&nfs=0&guide=%2fpoetry%2ffrost
• Wikipedia
• Wikipedia