American Language Schools English Department Literature _ Poetry G.

7_First Term

A Minor Bird
By Robert Frost ( 1874 – 1963 )
1- Write brief notes on Robert Frost.
Robert Frost is an American modern poet, who was born in San Francisco,
California in March, 1874. His mother was a poetess and wanted to see her son as
a poet. Robert Frost has been recognized as a pastoral poet, whose love of nature
creates poetry dealing with rural, simple life. Pastoral poetry is a very ancient genre
of poetry, which deals with the loves of shepherds and country folk. In this work,
Frost writes about realistic new England life, through language and situations
familiar to the common man. He won the Pulitzer Prize in poetry four times.

2- How did the poet react to the singing of the little bird? Why?
The poet reveals a small incident and his reaction towards it. The reaction is not
unnatural and unusual. According to that, the poet is not ready to be pleased with a
song of a minor bird instead of being pleased, the poet becomes displeased and
annoyed. He decides to clap his hand to scare the bird and make it fly away. The poet
understands that the bird's tone and song are not the reason, he realizes something is
wrong with him. The busy and modern life humans are leading make it difficult for them
to enjoy nature and appreciate its beauty, by distracting people and disturbing their
concentration. However, people should always find some time to enjoy nature and
celebrate its beauty.

3- What is the tone shown through the poem?

In the second and third stanza, we can very well imagine a grumpy, lonely man who is
annoyed with the humming of the bird . He tries to scare him off. He starts to think and
then realizes that what is really bothering him is something inside him, and not to blame
the bird.
The shift in the tone happens between those two stanzas; full of frustration and anger to a
shameful mood that shows the speaker's sense of guilt.

4- Paraphrase the following:

I have wished a bird would fly away

And not sing by my house all day;
The first stanza starts with a wish that poet makes. The first line may give the
impression that the poet wishes for the bird's freedom, but the second line clears his
situation and shows the opposite. The speaker wants to be freed from the bird's singing.
Normally, a singing bird provides an atmosphere of happiness, but the speaker feels
otherwise.

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American Language Schools English Department Literature _ Poetry G.7_First Term

Have clapped my hands at him from the door

When it seemed as if I could bear no more.
He decides to clap his hand to scare the bird and make it fly away. The speaker
isn't simply displeased by the singing of the bird, he reached a point where his mental
distress drove him to physically take an action to shoo it away.
''…. from the door '' shows that the speaker didn't go farther, perhaps because he
unconsciously knows that he is wrong.

The fault must partly have been in me

The bird was not to blame for his key.
The tone starts to change in this stanza; the speaker begins to be more self-aware
and notices that wanting to stop the bird from singing is not the normal behaviour in such a
situation. He understands that the birds tone and song are not the ones to blame and
realizes something is wrong with him.

And of course there must be something wrong

In wanting to silence any song.
In this stanza, the speaker fully understands that it is his problem and not the bird's. If one
feels the need to quieten a beautiful song, then there is something wrong with that person.
The speaker's tone sounds clueless and melancholic

5- What is the rhyme scheme of the poem? How does it affect the
music in it?
The poem is a lyrical one because it reflects the poet's feelings. It has a rhyme and a
rhyme scheme. The poem comprises 4 stanzas. Each is made up of 2 lines, giving a total
8 lines and making each stanza a couplet. The stanzas are short and to the point to show
how practical the speaker is, since he is overwhelmed with the modern world. This poem

has a rhyme, but not a rhyme. The rhyme scheme is aa bb cc dd.

6- What are the figures of speech used in the poem?
Figures of Speech
Alliteration: the use, especially in poetry, of the same sound or sounds, especially
consonants, at the beginning of several words that are close together

The use of alliteration contributes strongly to the rhyme and directs the
attention to particular words.

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American Language Schools English Department Literature _ Poetry G.7_First Term

Line 1: I have wished a bird would fly away

The repetition of the 'w' sound
Line 3: Have clapped my hands at him from the door
The repetition of the 'h' sound
Line 5: The fault must partly have been in me
The repetition of the 'm' sound
Line 6: The bird was not to blame for his key.
The repetition of the 'b' sound
Line 8: In wanting to silence any song
The repetition of the 's' sound

Allegory
The poem is a social allegory. It has two levels of meaning. The first is about a man who is
annoyed by the sound of a bird. In the second level, the speaker represents the average
person in the modern world and the bird and its chirping represent nature.

Pun: a humorous use of a word or phrase which has several meanings or which sounds
like another word
This is a well-known joke based on a pun: "What's black and white and red (= read) all
over?" "A newspaper."

The poet uses the word ' play ' in the title of the poem 'A Minor Bird'.
The word 'minor' describes the bird in different ways. It is minor because it is small in size
and because it has a minor significance to the speaker. In addition to this, ' Minor Bird '
sounds like ' Mynbird ' which is a bird known for its capability of imitating human speech.