Here’s a detailed analysis of Robert Frost’s poem ‘Gathering Leaves’; it’s tailored towards students taking the CIE / Cambridge A-Level syllabus but will be useful for anyone who’s working on understanding the poem at any level.
Great for revision, missed lessons, boosting analytical...
Spades take up leaves
No better than spoons,
And bags full of leaves
Are light as balloons.
I make a great noise
Of rustling all day
Like rabbit and deer
Running away.
But the mountains I raise
Elude my embrace,
Flowing over my arms
And into my face.
I may load and unload
Again and again
Till I fill the whole shed,
And what have I then?
Next to nothing for weight,
And since they grew duller
From contact with earth,
Next to nothing for color.
Next to nothing for use,
But a crop is a crop,
And who’s to say where
The harvest shall stop?
VOCABULARY
Elude - avoid
, STORY / SUMMARY
The speaker tells us that spades are quite useless at gathering leaves, as bad as
spoons would be. He delights in the ‘rustling’ noise he creates as he collects the
leaves, the noise reminds him of rabbit and deer. He collects ‘mountains’ - huge heaps
of leaves, but when he tries to hug them they flow over his arms and face, and
disappear. He could work until his whole shed is full of leaves, but even then he’d have
‘next to nothing’ to show for his work. The leaves are very light, and they lose their
bright color when they hit the Earth, they also have no practical use. The speaker
concludes, however, that ‘a crop is a crop’ - he is happy with his harvest even though
there is little practical use for his bounty. This may seem pointless, but we can see that
the real value of gathering leaves lies in the pleasure of the activity and the joy they
bring in terms of shape and sound - they have a kind of artistic and aesthetic value that
makes them precious to the speaker, even if they don’t matter to anyone else.
SPEAKER / VOICE
The speaker, who uses first person singular pronouns, has a sense of childlike
wonder as he realises there is something exciting and playful about gathering the
leaves. It’s almost as if the fact that the leaves are pretty much useless amplifies the
enjoyment of the occasion. It may also be that the leaf gathering reminds him of a
specific time of year; perhaps it is a ritual that he’s repeated yearly since he was
small.
LANGUAGE
Simplistic lexis - Frost uses a simplistic register to capture an innocent, childlike sense
of wonder. He places the speaker and ourselves into a situation where we’re able to
view the pure joy and fun of collecting and playing with the leaves.
Anaphora - ‘Next to nothing for weight...Next to nothing for colour’ - the speaker
marvels at the different characteristics of the leaves, using negatives to describe them
- they have no ‘weight’, no ‘colour’ and finally no real ‘use’.
Rhetorical questions - ‘And what have I then?’ / ‘Who’s to say where/ The harvest
shall stop?’ - the speaker asks rhetorical questions that accuse or defend himself. It’s
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