Robert Frost – Minor Bird
Frost was born in San Francisco, California on March 1874. His father was a New Englander (New England is the name given to certain states in USA. The inhabitants of these states are familiarly dressed as ‘Yankees’. His mother was a poetess and wanted to see her son as a poet. ‘Literature’ once he said ‘begins with geography and Poetry is my cause.’ Despite his growing fame, Frost remained simply, casually dressed, poetic missionary of sorts, who said of poetry “It begins with delight and ends in wisdom the figure is the same as for love”
Robert Frost has been recognized as a pastoral poet. The bulk of his poetry deals with rural life and his pastoral. Glorification of rural life has been a leading characteristic of the pastoral. The swain is pictured as leading not only a life of idyllic happiness, but also as being ideally pure and innocent. Frost’s treatment of rural life on the other hand is characterized by down-to-earth realism. He does not idealize the rustic and his life; rather he presents him as he is with all his instincts and impulses, jealousies, love and hatreds.
The poem ‘Minor Bird’ is one of the shortest poems of Frost which contains four rhyming couplets. The poem is about modern humans especially those who find difficult to enjoy the beauty of nature. The poet reveals a small incident and the poet’s reaction to it. The reaction is against an action of nature. According to that the poet is not ready to be pleased with a song of a minor bird. So instead of being pleased the poet becomes displeased and annoyed. So he clapped his hands and chased the bird away. But his action can be taken as rising against the law of nature. Yet again we see the poet himself identifies there might be something wrong for his action most probably it might be an inadequacy within him that made him impossible to enjoy with nature. The poet understands that the bird’s key is not the reason, nature is beautiful yet man especially modern man is unable to enjoy with it. Most probably the modern human beings are burdened with problems, duties and responsibilities. The bird’s song is disturbing the mind’s concentration. Then they become unable to appreciate and admire the beauty of nature.
