January 14, 2011 - "Oven Bird" - Robert Frost

Text:

“Oven Bird” by Robert Frost

There is a singer everyone has heard,
Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird,
Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again.
He says that leaves are old and that for flowers
Mid-summer is to spring as one to ten.
He says the early petal-fall is past
When pear and cherry bloom went down in showers
On sunny days a moment overcast;
And comes that other fall we name the fall.
He says the highway dust is over all.
The bird would cease and be as other birds
But that he knows in singing not to sing.
The question that he frames in all but words
Is what to make of a diminished thing.

Initial Impression:

When I first read “Oven Bird,” how I interpreted the title of the poem and how I perceived the poem was completely different. I thought that the title would refer to food, “Oven Bird.” However, the text leads me to believe that there is a bird with a beautiful voice that sings about the differences in seasons, a circle of life. Then toward the end of “Oven Bird,” I began to wonder what exactly this poem truly meant.

Paraphrase:

There is a bird that sings loudly. It is a summer bird that lives in the forest, a teacher bird. The birds’ voice sounds from within trees. The song of the bird explains that leaves are old and flowers bloom best in the spring.  Autumn comes by when leaves fall and the sky is sometimes cloudy. The highway is covered in dust, which in turn covers nature. This bird doesn’t act like other birds because it sings about those who cannot sing. The bird questions what it should make of a diminished thing, of loss.

SWIFTT:

Robert Frost uses syntax, diction, imagery, figurative language, tone, and theme in the poem, “Oven Bird.”

Syntax/Word choice:

“Oven Bird” is a Petrarchan sonnet, including two couplets, one in the beginning and one towards the middle. The rhyme scheme is as follows: AABCBDCDEEFGHG. Also, the wording is used to reference the changing of seasons, from spring to summer to fall. Frost uses assonance to play with sound imagery, “O” and “I” vowel sounds. There is also a pun, a play on words: “and then comes that other fall that we name fall.”

Imagery:

Robert frost uses imagery to show the different seasons and their attributes: “When pear and cherry bloom went down in showers/On sunny days a moment overcast… He says the highway dust is over all.” This portion of the poem shows the passing of time through the changing of the seasons. In “Oven Bird,” nature and humanity is described using the changing of the seasons. Spring represents life and new beginning. Summer represents a dryness and aging. Autumn is death approaching. Winter is death’s appearance and hibernation.

Figurative language:

There is no usage of simile or metaphor. However, the bird having the ability to sing about its surroundings could be viewed as personification. “There is a singer everyone has heard, /Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird…” There is also a rhetorical question in which the narrator asks, “what to make of a diminished thing?”

Tone:

The tone that Frost sets using the bird is solemn, foreboding, and questioning. The bird leaves the readers with no insightful answer, just a pondering question: “The question that he frames in all but words/ Is what to make of a diminished thing.”

Theme:

The theme in “Oven Bird” is the circle of life through the seasons and the loss that the changing of seasons brings. When fall comes, the bird stops singing and becomes like other birds, silent as if it doesn’t have a question burning inside.

Conclusion:

After analyzing the poem with the class, I have been able to better understand Robert Frost’s “Oven Bird.” When I first read Frost’s poem, I can honestly say that I did not understand what was trying to be said. However, after careful analysis through a paraphrase and the technique known as SWIFTT, I have been able to interpret what I think “Oven Bird” means. “Oven Bird” is a poem about the circle of life, the change from season to season. Where spring brings life and happiness, summer brings dryness and lazyness, and fall brings death and diminishment. The dryness of midsummer brings dust from roads into the woods where the bird lives, gathering on the organisms within the woods, making them less beautiful than they were in the spring. The bird ceases its singing in the fall; it becomes like other birds and silently ponders a question. There is no special insight from the bird before it becomes silent, just the question, what is one to think about loss after such extravagance? The question refers to the contrast of the beauty shown in spring and the death and loss shown in the fall. The loss can show the diminishment of life and hopes, of human life. Life is short and we should not dwell on the past. Seize the day!