Birches by Robert Frost

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Birches by Robert Frost

• American Literature II
• Instructor Prof. Cecilia Liu
• Group Members Tom, Christina

2
Outline

• The Pictures of Birches
• Summary
• Rhymes
• Structure
• Setting
• Themes
• References

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The Pictures of Birches
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• The silver birch with its characteristic white
  bark
• http//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5a
  /Betula_pendula_winter.jpg

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Summary

• The birches are bent by the boys swinging or by
  the storm
• The boy is swing the birches
• Climbing a tree becomes a retreat for the adult
  speaker

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Rhymes

• Blank verse a type of poetry, distinguished by
  having a regular meter, but no rhyme. In English,
  the meter most commonly used with blank verse has
  been iambic pentameter. Source Wikipedia

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Structure

• 15 The speaker is guessing which factor causes
  the bending of the birches.
• 613 The scenery of snow falling from the
  birches.
• 1420 The dragging birches are like girls
  throwing their hair to dry.
• 2140 A boy swinger is swinging the birches
• 4159 The speaker sees climbing the birches as a
  retreat from the heavy-loaded pressure in life
  until the branches of the tree could not
  undertake and then send him back to earth.

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Setting

• An outside scenery with birch tree
• Or in his imagery recall in his mind?
• (Dramatic Monologue)

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Themes

• Swinging birch tree as a transcendent escape
• Binary opposites
• Earth V.S. Heaven
• Boy V.S. Man
• Reality V.S. Transcendence

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References

• Sparknote
• http//cgi.sparknotes.com/hlite.rmpl?wordsbirches
  pd0pagesection8.rhtmlnfs0guide2fpoetry2f
  frost
• Wikipedia
• Wikipedia