“Mending Wall” is the first poem in Robert Frost’s second volume,
North of Boston, published by David Nutt in England in 1914. Approaching 40, Frost had sailed from the United States in September 1912 with “three books when I went over –
A Boy’s Will, North of Boston, and parts of
Mountain Intervalin a looseleaf heap” (Poirier, “Robert Frost”, 88).
Frost had been sending poems to local journals like
Derry Newsand
Poultry Journal, and regional ones like
New England Magazinesince 1894, explaining, “I thought the way to a book was the magazines. I hadn’t had too much luck with them” (
Ibid.). His decision to take his family to the United Kingdom was almost an act of desperation, an attempt to separate from the demands of the farm work which had consumed the energy…
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Citation: Lewis, Leon. "Mending Wall". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 10 July 2022 [https://www.literaryencyclopedia.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=40801, accessed 04 October 2024.]