Synecdoche: the name for the part signifying the whole, as in "hands" for "sailors" or "wave" for "sea." That signifies the poetry of Robert Frost. Out of the selection of poems I chose by Robert Frost, and it was hard to choose, the one that perhaps has the most illustrative quality of all his work is Reluctance. Reluctance, a poem that appears in Frost's first book A Boy's Will (1913), talks about the preparation that Frost underwent as a writer. All of Frost's works have a level of duplicity, not to be mistaken by ambiguity, which is not the case. His works can be understood on several levels as is so proven with "Reluctance." Mr. Frost's works have an obvious simplicity to them, at least to the casual reader, but always there is a trace of something more, a hint to something that takes a bit more effort to discover.
Frost was praised for his ability to seem obvious to the casual reader, to be able to give a simplistic view of the feeling behind the poem to the reader, regardless of the attention the reader paid. It is easy to miss the hints Frost places for the reader; sometimes it is simply a word that signifies that there is some deeper meaning to his poems. If he refers to "this", then obviously there is a "that" which he is not mentioning, and it is that what the reader is challenged to figure out, the "that" of his works. Frost prided himself in being ulterior, to paraphrase him, poems would be no good if they didn't have doors to lead the reader to an alternate meaning, but he wouldn't just leave them open. In his poem "Reluctance" Frost talks about a trip that has finally ended, a preparation that has come to an end and has brought with it a new beginning, that is the simple meaning behind the poem. If meticulously examined, you find a reference to a poem by Longfellow called "The Divine Tragedy." It talks about a preparation to finally become public, to finally get in the public eye, it speaks of Frost, and the end of his preparation to finally go public with his works, and share with the world what he found in his journey.
