‘....Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down’....I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father’s’ saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says it again, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’

Why are the other words of the poem, before these lines and even within these lines, omitted? When a poet of Robert Frost’s caliber constructs a poem (that subsequently enters the culture from so many directions, so many times, with each new reader, throughout decades thereafter), he does not waste space.  Every word and line is intended to modify the meaning delivered in/by the others; or, when constructing metaphors, consilient thinking directs the poet’s choice of word and line as he aims at presenting a larger message than they alone would communicate if considered separately.  If we called every word a domain — because each word encompasses different but related meanings not entirely encompassed by any other word — then we might say that the adept poet constructs a path across domains for a reader to follow: a train of thought.  Also, verse turns; this occurs between words but also between lines of verse (which are themselves larger domains).  This turning represents turns in the argument the poet is making as he crosses domains.

To separate the words and lines PLS utilizes for her argument — or the one line that Senator Sessions separated from the rest — is to present one domain only.  Thus, it is an abridgment of the poem, an abridgment of the poet’s thinking, and perhaps not an accurate representation of the message intended by the poet.

We see the same thing happen in the news:  to the dismay of politicians and pundits everywhere who have yet to learn how to utilize language to its fullest.  Unable to communicate a message in the smallest number of words possible — the smallest domain set — their long arguments are too long for a money quote; but journalists “find” a money quote anyway.  This may be the fault of journalists and journalism much of the time, if particular arguments are too complex and broad-ranging for indication by a mere handful of words in a small column on the front page or a 3-minute report on the evening news.  Interestingly enough, news reports are themselves often intended to be train rides through multiple domains, since so many money quotes from different sources, from different angles, can be utilized in the 3-minute report.  Hence, the very horrible puns often used to “sum up” news reports — there we see the journalists trying to be poets.

Poets and Non-poets: consilient thinkers

Humans are natural consilient thinkers.  Every observation of sets of disparate entities — actual things — may lead us to postulate the rules and forces and perhaps even essences behind them: the domain-crossing entity.  Plato thought these essences were forms.  Actual things, according to Plato, partook of the forms; e.g., tables may each appear to be different, quite unique and individual at least in some particular ways, but they all “partake” of the form Table, which is an eternal entity and the only true entity, the others — the tables we see day-to-day — being mere reflections of that form.  The pictures created by poets, Plato thought, were thrice-removed from the true entity, since poets see the material tables and construct their worlds from these mere reflections of the form Table.

I think that Plato’s concept is useful even if it is an abridgment of what actually happens in the objective world.  I.e., his description certainly seems to apply to human thinking and may in fact be a description of consilient thinking, even if no actual entity Table exists.  However, as such his theory may not go far enough, since a consideration of disparate items — a chair, a table, a family of humans, a fireplace, a fire, and a pot boiling over the fire — might perhaps represent different domains and thus different Platonic forms when considered separately, and yet consilient thinking might build a picture from them that suggests a rule or law behind these items which is not, strictly speaking, a Platonic form.  Since we humans use consilient thinking (who or what else thinks? we do not know.) it would be fair, I think, to say that sets of disparate items do not always lead to consilient thought about them, in which case this domain-crossing “message” or rule or law may not always exist for the human considering the set of disparate items.  Unlike Plato with his forms, I am not yet willing to assume that some entity must exist behind or superior to the set of disparate items even if a person cannot see it or conceptualize it.  One person might see it, one might not; in which cases, the entity will exist, or not.  Although unwilling to declare the necessity of the existence of these entities, I do wonder about the possibility of their existence and the possibility that our ability or inability to utilize consilient thinking to see them does not affect their existence; but I have no way of proving this.

This human psychological conundrum presents problems for the poet and non-poet.  Either might conceptualize, through consilient thought, a base law or “message” crossing any given set of domains; yet choosing which particulars to use when trying to communicate that conceptualization might be difficult, since linguistic communication requires two people at a minimum.  There are few guarantees that every reader of a poem will be able to follow the train of thought the poet has chosen, or cross the domains.  Even if a reader crosses the domains with little problem, he may not be able to conceptualize the significance of the path he has followed.

Outside the realm of poetry, any two persons may utilize consilient thinking but quite possibly arrive at similar but unequal conceptualizations due to observations of slightly different sets of disparate items.  We can see one result of a limitation on disparate items:  the type of fundamentalism that refuses to admit new data to the set.  When two such fundamentalists collide, there can be no agreement between them.

Because poets are humans, this psychological dilemma can have a great effect on their style of writing,  Given the fact that words are mere representations or signifiers of actual things; and given that each person’s history of observation of disparate things is unique when considered in toto; and given that words will be understood on the basis of these observations from the past which are connected to each person’s understanding of language; the difficulty of the poet’s job in communicating accurately his thought concerning any matter may increase significantly.

The poet may run from the challenge or meet the challenge via the use of cliché and trite expressions, expecting these very common denominators to abridge the distance between poet and reader.

The poet may give up on the challenge and just “do his own thing,” which may well lead him to write nothing but gibberish.  (Oh, it’s not gibberish for him, but the reader might find no path across the highly eccentric domain set —eccentric:  ek- out of + kentron center. The reader can find no point “equidistant” from each disparate item, and thus no entity.)

Some poets may follow fundamental rules shared by their readers — who tend to be other poets in this case, even if all are novices or even journalists! — and become absolutists among absolutists without ever veering from an expected formula, or else become purists whose readers already know exactly which consilient entity will be addressed before the disparate items have even been viewed.  [See also: Both/And [Everything Else, Too.]

Readers of poetry are no less responsible for the poem’s success or failure to communicate, although the poet bears the first responsibility for choosing the domains he will cross.  If, as Senator Sessions apparently did, the reader comes to the poem with an abridged understanding of what the poem should communicate and how it should communicate that message, he’s likely to see his understanding reflected back at him or else pronounce the poem an outright failure — outright, without really bothering to take the trip.

On Mending Wall

Here are some things I see in the poem — considered with, also, other things that have occupied my mind lately including the interpretations of both PLS and Senator Sessions.  What do you see?

Mending Wall

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.

For me, this is interesting because Frost is intimating that man-made structures tend to be subject to the forces of nature.  These particular forces of nature are actually a part of a larger domain which includes the wall, the people who built it, and those forces of nature. Thus, Frost seems to be suggesting that humankind is always trying to abridge that domain, but futilely.  The forces of nature will have their say as well, and their say is always modifying our action upon the world.

Also, of course, Frost’s use of the word “gaps” may be quite significant for those of us who have read Thomas Barnett’s theory of Cores and Gaps.  It is almost as if Frost anticipated globalization and the fact that whatever barriers to globalization we build will always be vulnerable to the forces of globalization that would tear down those barriers.  In this case, the “globe” is the larger domain containing us, our barriers, and the forces that modify our action of building those barriers.

The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs.  The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.

In consideration of immigration, we might say that these hunters are the immigrants who will cross that wall when we are not looking.  They cross in hunt of the “rabbit” — or food, sustenance.  Not only will they cross it, they will destroy it as they do, because the wall is not very important to them, certainly less important than the rabbit.  The yelping dogs may be children crying out for that prey (for sustenance), or they may be comrades and countrymen urging them on toward The American Dream.  On the other hand, the yelping dogs might be a symbol for necessity, which always focuses the hunter on satisfying that necessity.

But in consideration of globalization, these hunters may be investors and entrepreneurs who have largely grown to dismiss the barrier of traditional borders.  Their activity, then, may also be destroying those borders.

In either case, we must not miss Frost’s turn in the conversation.  We can say that necessity or hunger is a “natural force” motivating the hunters, but these are humans tearing down that wall, unlike the forces of nature in the previous set of lines.  One might suppose that they could go over the wall without breaking it, but that they have made the choice to destroy it knowing full well that other humans have built it.  One might also suppose that if the builders of the wall caught the hunters destroying it, there would be friction — perhaps violence — between them. Or maybe some builders would say, Hold on; I’ll get you a ladder.

PLS on WhirledView has focused on this idea of “something there is that doesn’t love a wall,” (repeated later in the poem)  for an argument that Frost himself was against walls, as if we should all be like the forces of nature and/or these hunters; but this is only part of the poem.

I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.

Significantly, that neighbor not only lives on the other side of the wall, but beyond the hill.  You see, without the wall, they would still be separated by that hill.  Without the wall, they might not ever come together.  Rebuilding the wall is what they do together; without the wall, not only might they not come together, the might not act together toward a common purpose.

The speaker of the poem, as we will see again later, may be uneasy about the significance of walls.  But we must follow Frost’s train of thought, Frost’s direction:  It is the speaker who notifies the neighbor that the wall needs repairing.  Thus, it is the speaker who acts first to rebuild that wall.

We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!'
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.

It’s tough work, but that did not deter the speaker from notifying his neighbor.

Also interesting:  they may live on separate sides of the wall, they may keep to their own sides as they repair the wall, but this is an act they do together.  From such a consideration, they almost seem to have no wall between them.  Each takes his share of the burden, whether it be boulders or loaves.

Another interesting thing: here is a subtle reminder that what they are doing is not a natural force of nature, since they sometimes have to invoke a “spell” to keep it together.  It’s a funny spell, because in the quotation Frost uses for it, there’s an acknowledgment that the boulders and loaves will fall again later, when their backs are turned, just as they fell before.  This is a subtle acknowledgment, also, that they know they will have to come back together at some future date to repair it.  The wall represents, in part, a promise of future togetherness, between them.

Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,
One on a side.  It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.

Yes, it’s not a natural force of nature, this wall building.  It’s a game.  But even if there were no wall, they would be separated, since one is apple orchard and one is pine.  Thus, tearing down that wall would not bring them (or their commerce!) closer together.

But this concept of apples and pine is the speaker’s concept of them.  (“I tell him.”)  In reply,

He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors.'

Senator Sessions latched onto this line while excluding others.

Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
'Why do they make good neighbors?  Isn't it
Where there are cows?  But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.'  I could say 'Elves' to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself.  I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, 'Good fences make good neighbors.'

These are the lines — with ellipses filled — that PLS latched onto.  Again we have mention of a supernatural force — elves — and the representation of a natural dislike of fences.  But the lines have blurred between nature and un-nature, since now those elves are considered as an explanation for what does not like fences, rather than mere forces of nature and mere humans mentioned at the beginning of this poem.  The speaker is struggling to explain himself, as he clearly states.  (“I wonder / if I could put a notion”)  PLS has said Frost does not like walls, but confusing poet for speaker is perhaps something we should not do, since a limited selection of lines is vastly different that all the particulars that make up an actual person.  Besides, this speaker is struggling to explain himself, and as such, if he and Frost were identicals, perhaps we should not attribute to Frost a hard-and-firm position on the mattter of walls.  Perhaps.

I’ve included all the concluding lines together, because they must be considered together to get the full effect.  But here I’ll break them down in an attempt to show what all I see in them while wrapping up the poem as a whole:

Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
'Why do they make good neighbors?  Isn't it
Where there are cows?  But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.'

Well, remember that the next lines include elves.  But the speaker already lets slip — unknown to himself — that he is the one who does not like walls.  Later he wants to attribute the dislike to elves, but here he has already acknowledged his own mischief.  It’s just that he’s trying to blame Spring.  I.e., the recourse to arguments from nature is how he hides his own subjectivity or attempts to give it authority.  He may have some reason for recourse to nature — after all, we also recognize how freezing ground can destroy a wall — but perhaps he has been avoiding his own feelings concerning walls.

As another avoidance, he turns to pragmatism.  They don’t have cows, do they, so what’s going to cross that fence, what’s going to be kept separate?

What is so peculiar in the speaker’s speech is the fact that he is honestly trying to understand what this particular wall is walling in or out, after already acknowledging that he and his neighbor are orchard and pine respectively.  He does not want walls, he wants closeness and commerce between them while also seeing that they have fundamental differences which will be a “wall” between them even if the actual wall did not exist.

                                    I could say 'Elves' to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself.

Unprepared to acknowledge directly his desire for open and direct commerce between them, he hopes that his neighbor will see his desire and acknowledge it. He will not cross the distance — or the wall — but hopes his neighbor will do so.

                            I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.

How fair do you think it is, this calling of his neighbor “an old-stone savage armed?”  Similarly, we must remember that it is the speaker who sees them as fundamentally different, fundamentally separated. (Orchard and Pine.)  But now the speaker also has difficulty seeing his neighbor.  His neighbor appears to be in some unnatural darkness, impenetrable to him.

How fair do you think it is, this calling of his neighbor “an old-stone savage armed?”  Because, you see, the speaker himself has been so armed, since he’s been helping to mend the fence.

He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, 'Good fences make good neighbors.'

Now, to recap things and offer a potential interpretation of the poem.

We may not know exactly the character of the neighbor, but the speaker’s character should be well-illuminated for us:

1. It is the speaker who would call the neighbor a savage.
2. It is the speaker who would persist in believing in a natural, Orchard & Pine, split between them that is impossible to cross.
3. Whatever he calls his neighbor, he will admit that his neighbor walks in an impenetrable darkness.  Given this fact and the first two, what are the chances that the speaker will, all by himself, inaugurate commerce between them that is anything other than self-serving?  How can he serve a self he either does not see or would call a savage or a Pine to his Orchard?

But because he knows his neighbor’s mantra, he will call his neighbor for them to come together and act together to mend the wall.  It is his neighbor who has set the bounds of their commerce, a commerce which might not occur without that mantra.  That mantra is all the speaker appears to really understand about his neighbor — but not understand well, since he attributes it to the neighbor’s father’s influence, as if the neighbor is not a thinking being.  And so both get what they want:

1. The neighbor gets a good neighbor, and
2. The speaker gets commerce between them, or joint activity between them (that also includes conversation between them) — which is the mending of that Wall he dislikes so much.

---

Addendum:

Question: When a trackback is left on a referenced blog post, and then subsequently deleted by the author of that post, what has that author actually done?

Answer: Burned a bridge between domains — quite literally.  Or else: unilaterally thrown up a wall between them. Metaphorically speaking.

Addendum #2:

Follow-up Question: Ah, but how can that be a metaphorical wall between domains, since the original link leading to that referenced post continues to link them?

Answer: It is like a uni-directional wall — like a one-way mirror. Those on one side of the wall can see their neighbors, but their neighbors will only see themselves and each other.

Or else it is like a one-way wormhole, since those on one side can go directly to their neighbors, but those on the other cannot and may not even know that they have neighbors somewhere else in the Universe.