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A CRITICAL GLANCE AT
"ACQUAINTED WITH THE NIGHT"
Ines Marquez Arroyo
Acquainted with the Night
I have been one acquainted with the night. I have walked out in rain - and back in rain. I have outwalked the furthest city light.
I have looked down the saddest city lane. I have passed by the watchman on his beat And dropped my eyes, unwilling to exp lain.
I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet When far away an interrupted cry Came over houses from another street,
But not to call me back or say good-by ; And further still at an unearthly height One luminary clock against the sky
Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right. I have been one acquainted with the night.
-Robert Frost 1928
INES MARQUEZ ARROYO nacio en la ciudad de Nueva York donde llego a cursor estudios en Thomas Hunter College. En 1969 trabajo corno maestro en el sistema de instruccion publica de la isla y en 1974 termino los requisitos del Bachillerato en Educacion secundaria especializimdose en ingles. Actual- mente se desempena en el distrito escolar de Yabucoa en el area de produccion de material para estudiantes de ingles de las escuelas elementales y es estudiante de/ program a graduado de ingles de/ Recinto de Rio Piedras.
Poetry was once defined by Robert Frost as "what gets lost in translation. " 1 This is an apt definition since poetry, with its subtle nuances, its cadences and skillfully constructed, body, is not translatable. This is one reason why critics often differ in their opinions about the "meaning" of given poems. Furthermore, a good poem can lend itself to several equally valid interpretations. This ambiguity is a result of the very nature of the poem and of its medium: words. Words are charged with meanings and connota- tions, several of which can be acceptable within a specific context. Frost's poem "Acquainted with the Night" is a case in point. This apparently simple, narrative poem is deeper than it seems upon superficial reading. Charles B. Hands, commenting on Frost's poetry, writes that:
that:
... a closer reading of those poems frequently will reveal layers of meaning which force an entirely different reading of the poems. In short, the poetry of Frost frequently contains what might be called an element of terror.
Following the same line of thought, Elizabeth Isaacs notes
His is a deceptive simplicity, and because of this, h is subtle mastery of metaphor may often be missed by the casual reader who takes him for a forthright poet dealing only in statement of fact.
The reader's problem is one of probing beyond what first meets the eye. Careful scrutiny discloses some divergent, but equally possible, interpretations. Yvor Winters calls "Acquainted with the Night" one of
1 John Hall Wheelock, What is Poetry? (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1963) , p. 19. 2 Charles B. Hands, "The Hidden Terror of Frost," English Journal, Vol. 58, No. 8 (November, 1969), p. 1162. 3 Elizabeth Isaacs, An Introduction to Robert Frost (Denver: Allan Swallow, 1962), p. 75.
exclude the possibili ty of the action continuing in the present. The speaker may still be "acq uainted with t he night" and still "walk out in rain - and back"; he may still " look down the saddest city lane ," outwalk "the furthest city light," and pass "the watchman on his beat." The same sense of external desolation reflecting back on the man who notices it can also be detected in other Frost poems, such as "Desert Plac es," "Come In ," Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," "T he Road Not Taken" and "Into My Own. " Searching for self in " Into My Own," man goes out alone and embraces doom. Man mu st encounter evil before he can tru ly know Truth. As Frost tells us in "A Passing Glimpse," "Heaven gives its gl impse to those/ Not in position to look too close." The use of the word " acquainted" in the first line is
interesting. In The He ritage fllustrated Dictionary of the English
Language the verb "t o acquain t" is defined as "to make familiar or
to inform. " As a noun, "acq uaintance " is "know ledge of a person acquired tlfrough a relationship less intimate than friendship."
Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary provides us with similar
information. It defines the verb as "to furnish or give personal,
experiential knowledge" of something or someone. It is also "to
make one know a thing." The noun is entered as "personal knowledge of a person or thing, which results from being acquainted; - implying more than recongnition but less than fellowship, friendship, or intimacy." Consequently, the word
denotes slight personal involvement, little intimacy or closeness. It
is simple familiarity- a detached form of knowledge. Within the context of the poem, it signa ls a series of detached, objective experiences with the inner darkness. This same sense of impersonal detachment will reappear in the poem, as we shall note further on. In line two, the feeling of desolation and sadness strikes the reader again. Going out in the rain accentuates the loneliness and melancholy ; returning in the rain transmits despair and futility. The depressing situation is unchanging. As the solitary walker focuses on his spiritual anguish , he ignores his physical discomfort. Likewise, the outwalking of "t he furthest city light" in line three heigh tens the sensation of desolation while placing the poem in an urban setting. The speaker has left behind "t he confines of civilization, the la st vestiges of urban men and their secure lights. "1 o As Joseph H. Friend comments, the community's
1 O Isaacs, loc. cit.
lights are " its defenses again st the surrounding darkeness. "I I Thus the walker finds himself alone and uprotected from the evil dark about him. Yet he finds himself in this situat ion through his own choice, for walking is a self-motivated, self-initiated action. Furthermore, this experience of walking out and becoming acquainted with evil and desolat ion can make the speaker happier as he comes u pon some truth, as W.G. O'Donnell believes.I 2 "Man longs for reason s, ultimately for a Reason."I 3 Other poems by Frost in which the theme of man's quest appears are "Birches," "Directive," "Neither Out Far Nor In Deep" and "For Once, Then, Somethin g." Still another element implicit in the poem is that of universality. Not only does the poet speak to himself and to us, expressing his personal thoughts and emotions, but his is also the voice of Everyman. The poem "becomes a universal elegy for mankind's aspirations as well as one man 's personal lament. "I 4 Although the poet employs the personal pronoun " I" he reaches a level of universal experience, as O'Donnel perceives.I 5 In o ther words, all men at some time in their li ves have been " acquainted with the ni ght." This is what John Hall calls the fourth voice of
poetry .1 s It is an impersonal voice speaking throu gh the poet in
great moments of "unconsc ious divination "; it is the voice of an older, wiser Self in which all men are included. The second stanza shows a change in the poem's structural pattern. Although the fourth line para ll els the previous three, being an end-stopped state ment rhyming wi th line two and having syntactical symmetry with the previous stanza, the fifth line of this second sta nza breaks away from the pattern. Enjambment contrasts with the end-stopped lines while a new rhyme is introduced at this point. By making the fifth statement twice as long as th e previous four, but equally simple in stru ct ure, the poet
11 Joseph H. Friend, "Teac hing the Grammar of Poetry," College English, 27 (February, 1966 ), p. 364. 1 2 W.G. O'Donnel, " Robert Frost and New England: A Revelation," Robert Frost, A Collection of Critial Essays, ed. James M. Cox (New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1962 ) p. 53. 13 Amy Lowell, Tendencies in Modern Ame rican Poetry (Ne w York : Octagon Books, 1971 ), p. 44. 14 Isaacs, op. cit., p. 106. 15 O ' Donnel, op. cit., p. 56. 16 Wheelock, op. cit., pp. 32·33.
For Frost, the attempt to see clearly, and from all sides, requires a willingness to confront the frightening and the appalling in even its darkest forms.1 s
Continuing to break away from the structure of the first stanza, the third changes the rhyme so that it has no rhyme in common with the first. Beginning at the seventh line, a long- drawn-out statement takes form and continues until the couplet. These is an interruption at line ten, a momentary pause for breath at the semi-colon, before continuing for three more lines. These run-on lines build up a sense of suspense, of hurried excitement, which contrasts sharply with the monotony of the first four lines. An examination of lines seven to nine yields the same feeling of detachment discovered before. The term "stopped the sound of feet" is most striking. The speaker's action is automatic, imperso- nal and completely devoid of self-will. The speaker disassociates himself from his own bodily motions. The repeated "st" sound hushes the reader and leaves him waiting in suspense. While lines eight and nine convey a sensation of sinister influences, at the same time they augment the impression of the speaker as spectator. A cry, not from any loved human voice, but from some unknown, unrecognizable, disembodied source, comes to him "over houses from another street." Joseph H. Friend states that "the 'interrupted cry' from a distance conveys unstated messages with many possible meanings to an unintended ear. "1 9 Such an interrupted cry in the silence of the night must be highly impressive and will naturally draw one's immediate attention. Since the cry comes from a distance, it tends to increase the sense of detachment implicit throughout the sonnet. The solitary hero hears and reacts to the cry but is not involved. Some contradictory opinions have arisen concerning the third stanza. Gone is all trace of syntactic symmetry with the first stanza. Yet, while lines ten and twelve both rhyme with line eight, line eleven rhymes with the first line of the sonnet. Thus a gradual return to the beginning of the poem has commenced. Line ten informs us that the distant cry does not call the speaker back or even bid him farewell. The cry is not meant for
18 Laurence Thompson, Robert Frost (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1963), p. 19. 19 Friend, loc. cit.
him; it has nothi ng to do with him dir ect ly. It is n ot in tend ed as an influence upon him. The sound causes him to stop and listen. Involuntarily and automatically, he takes notice, despite the apparent irrelevance to his life. We can infer that those things around us exert some influence upon us, even when we are not directly involved. Thus a detached encounter with evil and desolation will leave its impression on us. Through structure and context, the sonnet has been building up to its climax in lines eleven to thirteen. These are the most significant and most powerful lines in the ent ire poem. They are also the most debatable. Two contrasting i nterpretations have been given of the "luminary clock" in line twelve. Laurence Perr i ne insists th at it is a tower clock with a lighted diaJ.20 As supporting evidence for his viewpoint, Perrine indicates that although time may be calculated from the stars or moon with the aid of an almanac and the necessary skill, the sun is the natural time-keeper. But even the use of the sun is an imprecise method of telling ti me. Furthermore, the poem's clock "proclaims" the time; that is, speaks it loudly and clearly. Hence, it must follow, claims Perr ine, that the
reference must be literal. The word "pro cl aimed," however, is not
necessarily, or exclusively, literal. It is defined in The Heritage fllustrated Dictionary of the English Language as "to make something plain; to ind icate un mistakably." Therefore, the procla- mation may be a way of indicating clearly that the "time was neither wrong nor right." The possible meanings of this expression wil l be dealt with shortly. Another piece of evidence offered by Perrine to substantiate his interpretation lies with the word "one." As a result of the use of this word, he feels it unlikely that the clock is a reference to a star. He argues that it is unnatural to have on ly one star illuminating the night sky and that its very shape does n ot resemble a clock. Moreover, the moon can not be inte n ded since, as the critic observes, at most it looks like a clock without hands. Within the context of the poem, this last argument seems unjustifiable. There is no reference to suggestion of the han ds of a clock. St ill another "proof" presented by th is same critic r ests on the adjective "unearthly," used in the descri ption of the clock.
20 Perrine, loc. cit.
connotative opposition to incandescent li ght sources. He affirms that the figurative sense of the noun , that of intellectual, moral or spiritual light, serves to reinforce the implied irony. There seems to be no real substantiation for this assertion. The Heritage lllustrated Dictionary of the English Language gives the Latin luminare as the origin of "luminary" and says it signifies a lamp or a heavenly body. Also, The American College Dictioncry gives the Late Latin luminarium, meaning light. So the word seems to be, in its origin, equally applicable to a lamp, a man-made source of light, and a heavenly body. Martin also draws our attention to the fact that "t i me" does not necessarily refer to the time indicated by a man-made clock. Time, he reminds us , is also used to refer to the cyclic time of the heavens. The expression " the time is neither wrong n or righ t" could, he thinks, be applied to any moment when chronological time is irrelevant to man's spiritual state.
In Yvor Winter's opinion, the clock is a "sy mb ol of the
relativism which causes his [Frost 's] melan chol y." 25 In like manner, Laurence Perrine feels that
... the clock against the sky, man-made but at an "unearthly height ," strikingly proclaims the absence of autho ritative moral direction, human or superhuman, in an indifferent universe. 2 6
In spite of the disagreement of Perrine, Isaacs and Martin on the i nterp retation of these lines, I believe they are equa ll y right. Their arguments are not mutually exclusive, even when th ey may appear to be so. This ambiguity is possible because of the two levels at which the poem can be read: the li te ral and the fig ur at ive. Each one has a valid interpretation- gra nt ed-w ith its own shortcomin gs. Hence, reading the poem li terally, we find a man walking alone at night in a city. From an other street, an interru pted cry reaches his ears and causes him to pause. Beyond the point where he has stopped, a clock with a lighted dial st rikes t he hour from a lofty tower. The man feels immersed in loneliness and sadn ess. He
25 Winters, loc. cit. 26 Perrine, Joe. cit.
is indifferent to the time of night because its passing will not change his mood. Implicit in the poem is man's familiarity with loneliness and evi l. He is a detached observer in an indifferent, evil world where most men strive to protec t themselves. The moon indicates t hat the moment when we become acquainted with evil and desolation it itself amoral. In my own opinion the moon is definitely implied by the
clock at an "u nearthly height" because there is only one
" lum inary clock" mentioned; the word "one" leaps out at us because of the metrical change in the basic iambic pentameter. The moon, far above the earth, is comp letely disassociated from man and this reiterates the sense of detachment. The moon itself is a symbo l used synonymously for a month. It also is associated with lunacy and wandering idely. What is more, the moon is sometimes associated with gazing in an abstracted manner. As Wal lace Martin has already pointed out, the symbo li sm of the moon strengthens the irony of the situation. Man observes distractedly the surrounding ev il and desolation; he wanders about without a known purpose. He can expect no moral direction from the superior, incorporeal beings who watch his fated experiences. This same concept is also found in Frost 's poem "On Looking Up By Chance at the Constellations," in which man is reminded that nature holds no answers. In "Stars," the universe is pictured as amoral and indifferent to man 's plight, while in "Desert Places," nature has " no expression, nothing to express." Yet again in " For Once, Then, Something," nature prevents us from knowing when "Water came to rebuke the too clear water." Within the context of "Ac quainted wi th the Night," "t ime " has several possible meanin gs : First, if we see it as a nonspatial continuum where events occur in appar ent irreversible succession from the past to the future, then we might infer that this infinite span of time has no influence upon human behavior or upon human decisions. In the second place, if we consider "t ime" as an interval on this cont inuum , then it appears that this interval within which man becomes acquainted with evil is neither appropriate nor inappropriate. That is, any in terval of time will se rve as well as any other for such an experience because evil and desolation are continua ll y present in the world. Finally, if we take time as an appo in ted or fated moment in which man co mes to know evil and desolation, then we arrive at
great admiration for the poet. Frost has managed to make the implicit explicit: he has given a symmetrical, well-constructed body to the bodiless essence of his thoughts and feelings. Evidence of Frost's ability to make what is profound appear simple can be found in the use of eighty-seven monosyllabic words of a tot al of one hundred and nine in the sonnet. 28 Moreover, the only "literary" words used are "luminary" and "proclaimed," both of which refer to the symbolic clock. Although alliteration is used in the fourth, fifth, seventh, and tenth lines, it is largely unobtru- sive. The use of a varied iambic pentameter according to what is said is also skillfu lly managed. Yvor Winters is right in declaring "Acquainted with the Night" one of Frost's finest poems.
28 Friend, op. cit., p. 365.
Bibliography
Books Bernhart, C. L. (ed.) The American College Dictionay. New York: Random House, 1966. Cox, James M. (ed.) Robert Frost, A Collection of Critical Essays. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1962. Donaghue, Denis Connoisseurs of Chaos. New York: The MacMillan Company, 1966. Ellman, Richar, and O'Clair, Robert (ed.) The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry. New York, W.W. Norton and Company, Inc., 1973, page 207 Frost, Robert. Complete Poems of Robert Frost. New York: Holt, Reinehart and Winston, 1967. Isaacs, Elizabeth. An Introduction to Robert Frost. Denver: Allan Swallow,
Long, Ralph B., and Long, Dorothy R. The Syste m of English Grammar. Glenview: Scott, Forsman and Com pan y, 1971. Lowell, Amy. Tendencies in Modern American Poetry. New York: Octagon Books, 1971. Morris, William (ed. ). The Heritage Illustrated Dictionary of the English Language. Boston: American Heritage Publishing Co., Inc. , 1970. Nitchie, George W. Human Values in the Poetry of Frost. Durham: Duke University Press, 1960. Pearce, Roy H. The Continuity of American Poetry. P rinceton: Princeton University Press, 196 1. Sergeant, Howard. Tradition in the Making of Modem Poetry. Vol. I. London: Dryden Printers Limited, 1951. Thompson, Lawrence. Robert Frost (" University of Mi nnesota Pamphlets on American Writers, " No. 2). Minneapolis: University of Min nesota Press,
Untermeyer, Louis. American Poetry Since 1900. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1930. Waggoner, Hyatt Howe. The Heel of Elohim. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1950. Wheelock, J oh n Hall. What is Poetry? New York: Charles Scribner's Sons,
Periodicals Friend, Jose H. "Tea chin g the Grammar of Po etry," College English, 27 (February, 1966 ), 363-365. Hands, Charles B. "The Hidden Terror of Frost," English Journal, Vol. 58, No. 8 (November, 1969(, pp. 1162-. Martin, Wallace. The Explicator, 36 (April, 1968), item 6 4. Perrine, Laurence. "Acquainted with the Nigh t," The Explicator, 35 (February, 1967), item 50.
