18 pages 36 minutes read

Robert Frost

A Time To Talk

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1972

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Themes

The Need for Others

It is tempting, on first read, to find in Frost’s narrative a simple endorsement of friends, quaint and folksy as an old-school Pepperidge Farm commercial. After all, the speaker describes the conversation he is about to have as a “friendly visit” (Line 10), which is of course not the same thing as a visit between friends. The reader wants the two to be good friends. After all, the genre of so-called hospitality poems was a major expression of poetry in both Victorian England and in Gilded Age America, poems that celebrated the uncomplicated support and love between friends and that offered inspirational, uplifting reminders of the virtue of others.

But Frost is, well, too much Frost to allow such a theme to go unquestioned. The two characters in the poem are never given a context, never given backstories, indeed never even given genders or names. There is really no reliable textual evidence to define the level of their friendship or even who they are—Is this a good friend? An acquaintance? A neighbor? A relative? A stranger hailing him for directions? Their conversation begins just after the poem ends—so there is no way, at least textually, to define this relationship.

Frost creates the ambiguity to give the poem its widest possible thematic reach.

Related Titles

By Robert Frost

Study Guide

logo

Acquainted with the Night

Robert Frost

Acquainted with the Night

Robert Frost

Study Guide

logo

Dust of Snow

Robert Frost

Dust of Snow

Robert Frost

Study Guide

logo

Fire and Ice

Robert Frost

Fire and Ice

Robert Frost

Study Guide

logo

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Robert Frost

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Robert Frost

Study Guide

logo

Once by the Pacific

Robert Frost

Once by the Pacific

Robert Frost

Study Guide

logo

Out, Out—

Robert Frost

Out, Out—

Robert Frost

Study Guide

logo

Putting in the Seed

Robert Frost

Putting in the Seed

Robert Frost

Study Guide

logo

Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening

Robert Frost

Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening

Robert Frost

Study Guide

logo

The Death of the Hired Man

Robert Frost

The Death of the Hired Man

Robert Frost

Study Guide

logo

The Gift Outright

Robert Frost

The Gift Outright

Robert Frost

Study Guide

logo

West-Running Brook

Robert Frost

West-Running Brook

Robert Frost