The Oven Bird by Robert Frost
"The Oven Bird" by Robert Frost is an irregular sonnet that delves into the theme of diminishment, encapsulated in the metaphor of a bird whose call reflects a somber perspective on the natural cycle of life. The poem connects the mid-summer presence of the oven bird to the inevitable decline that follows, emphasizing the transition from the vibrancy of spring to the decay of autumn. Through its exploration of paradox, Frost presents the bird not merely as a singer but as a teacher, inviting readers to confront complex questions about existence and the passage of time without offering straightforward answers.
Frost employs rich imagery suggesting decay, such as "dust is over all" and references to "early petal-fall," to provoke contemplation on the fading of hopes and the fleeting nature of life. The poem's structure reinforces its themes, utilizing a mix of rhythmic patterns that reflect the tension between rising and falling, mirroring the cycles of nature and human experience. The absence of a conclusive ending further emphasizes the ongoing struggle with these existential questions, leaving readers with a sense of continuity amidst the decline. Overall, "The Oven Bird" serves as a profound meditation on what it means to confront and accept the inevitability of diminishment in both nature and human aspiration.
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The Oven Bird by Robert Frost
Excerpted from an article in Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition
First published: 1916 (collected in Mountain Interval, 1916)
Type of work: Poem
The Work
“The Oven Bird” is an irregular sonnet that explores in various ways the problem of “what to make of a diminished thing.” The poet does not refer to the bird directly by its other common name of “teacher bird” (based on the resemblance of its reiterated call to the word “teacher”) but attributes to the bird an instructive discourse about diminishment, the downward thrust of things. In the middle of summer, this bird reminds one of the fall (specifically the petal fall) that is already past and of the fall to come.
Like many of Frost’s poems, this one is built on paradox. This bird can be said to sing, but it is not particularly tuneful. Its repeated call in a trochaic, or falling, rhythm does not have the upward lilt that humans generally consider cheerful or merry. The bird is a twentieth century teacher—not the old-fashioned lecturer but the modern one who contrives to induce the students to teach themselves. Like the teacher, the bird “knows,” and in knowing frames the kind of question that is intended to provoke thought, although without any guarantee of easy resolution. Paradoxically, the process of learning becomes one of discovering that some questions must be struggled with unendingly. Like the teacher bird, the poem supplies no answers.
Literally, the “diminished thing” of the poem is the weather and the natural year. The sonnet is full of words and phrases such as “old,” “early petal-fall,” “down in showers,” “dust is over all,” and “the bird would cease,” that suggest decline in the natural order. Knowing that people persist in interpreting nature in human terms, the poet can safely assume that the poem will be read as referring to the diminishment of human hopes, of life itself. Frost reinforces his theme by using a proportion of diminishment: “for flowers/ Mid-summer is to spring as one to ten.” As expectations turn into past events and remaining possibilities steadily diminish, any thoughtful person must ponder “what to make” of that which is left.
Frost also enforces his theme rhythmically. He crosses the usual iambic rising rhythm with trochaic words, those with first-syllable accents. “Singer,” “flowers,” “summer,” “petal”—in fact, all the two-syllable words of the poem—carry this accent. These words, nevertheless, are all placed in positions that contribute to an iambic movement which might be taken as suggesting that, despite the declines and falls, both the cycle of seasons and human hopes endure.
The typical English sonnet ends in a rhymed couplet which often sums up or tops off the poem and gives a feeling of finality. This poem does have two couplets, but neither is at the end. It seems to be part of Frost’s strategy to avoid any sense of completeness or finality. Whatever continues, continues to diminish, but while the process continues, something always remains. The only regular quatrain (the sort of rhyming unit one expects to find in a sonnet three times before the couplet) is the four lines that fall at the end. What to make of this feature is one of the persisting questions about this haunting poem.
Bibliography
Bloom, Harold, ed. Robert Frost. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 2003.
Burnshaw, Stanley. Robert Frost Himself. New York: George Braziller, 1986.
Faggen, Robert. Robert Frost and the Challenge of Darwin. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1997.
Galbraith, Astrid. New England as Poetic Landscape: Henry David Thoreau and Robert Frost. New York: Peter Lang, 2003.
Gerber, Philip L. Robert Frost. Rev. ed. Boston: Twayne, 1982.
Lathem, Edward Connery. Robert Frost: A Biography. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1981.
Meyers, Jeffrey. Robert Frost: A Biography. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1996.
Poirier, Richard. Robert Frost: The Work of Knowing. New York: Oxford University Press, 1977.
Potter, James L. The Robert Frost Handbook. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1980.
Pritchard, William H. Frost: A Literary Life Reconsidered. New York: Oxford University Press, 1984.
Thompson, Lawrance Roger, and R. H. Winnick. Robert Frost: A Biography. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1982.