Frost's "Good Hours"
Good Hours
I had for my winter evening walk—
No one at all with whom to talk,
But I had the cottages in a row
Up to their shining eyes in snow.
And I thought I had the folk within:
I had the sound of a violin;
I had a glimpse through curtain laces
Of youthful forms and youthful faces.
I had such company outward bound.
I went till there were no cottages found.
I turned and repented, but coming back
I saw no window but that was black.
Over the snow my creaking feet
Disturbed the slumbering village street
Like profanation, by your leave,
At ten o’clock of a winter eve.
New Critical Method: Close Reading
Questions of the Close Reading…
1. Does the piece have a title? What does the title suggest about the language?
When I read “Good Hours,” I think about the times that feed my soul, dinner on the deck with family, children’s voice, laughter, summer smells, and the warmth of the late-afternoon July sun, not yet casting shadows across the freshly cut lawn where my granddaughters are playing on the swingset. These are the good hours that don’t last long, for they are only “hours,” not seasons or even days. The sun will set in an hour or two, the voices will migrate inside, the talk lower, the packing up kid things, taillights heading our of the driveway to a different kind of good hour I once knew when my children were children -- bathtime, reading time, goodnight time -- good hours then for me and now for my parent-children. I go into another good hour, my nighttime walk, into the woods if the sun is still high enough, or along the country road beyond the barns where I imagine the cows are saying “nighty-night” to the calves, where the work of haying, mucking and watering is left for an early morning. My good hour walk invites me into the end of the day “As after sunset fadeth in the west;/ Which by and by black night doth take away,/Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest.”
So while I think about summertime good hours, my mind wanders to the end of day, and it turns out, so does Frost’s.
2. Who is the speaker of the piece? What do we know about him or her? Does the speaker reflect on the experience with a particular attitude (tone)? Is there an identified auditor, a “you” in the poem to whom the language is being directed?
The speaker walks at night, alone, but imagines himself in the company of the cottages he passes by and, perhaps (“And I thought I had) those dwelling within them. I wonder who walks “at ten o’clock of a winter’s eve.” Not everyone does. I do. Mine are not lonely walks, though, only rarely on one of my walks do I find a fellow-walker. We are a solitary bunch, those of us who walk at night, alone but not lonely. Yet, there is repentence, profanation and permission seeking at the poem’s end, suggesting that the speaker regrets some element of the outward bound walk.
3. What is the occasion which leads to the uttering of the language?
Literally, the speaker is telling us about a walk on one winter night, walking out of town, “till there were no cottages found,” and back again. The speaker notices a difference between his “outward bound” journey and his journey back, inward, to the origin of the walk.
4. Does the language relate a sequence of events (narrative)? Is the narrative central to the meaning of the language or to the experience being shared?
Yes, kind of. The speaker’s movement is away from town and back into town. The dramatic shift is not overt, but symbolic.
5. Does the language play with sound in any way? Does this sound-play point your attention to specific words or phrases central to the meaning? Does this sound-play indicate mood or attitude.
Yes, the poet uses rhyming couplets, a light, airy scheme, allowing us to hear pairs of words -- walk-talk, row-snow, within-violin, laces-faces, bound-found, back-black, feet-street, leave-eve. The first pair sets up the lone-but-not-alone feeling of the outward bound walk, and the “back-black” pair sets up the inward bound walk. The light, airy rhyme scheme defies -- one might use the poetic term “juxtaposes with” -- the poem’s gravity of regret.
6. What images does the poem employ? Is the image central to the reader’s experience of the poem? Be specific.
I see the cottages with snow piled up to the window sills. I hear the violin noises faintly through the cottage walls, and see the silhouettes of form and faces through curtain laces. I feel the weight of the lane with no cottage lights to guide the way and hear the grind of snow with each footfall. These images are familiar to those who walk at night in winter, and they call to mind the question, “Why would one walk at night in winter?” The poem offers at least one repsonse to this question.
7. Does the language suggest an idea or theme? Is the idea central to the reader’s experience of the poem? Be specific.
It’s unclear to me about the single idea of the poem. The phrases “I turned and repented,” “disturbed the slumbering village,” “like profantion” and “by your leave” point us toward a moralistic appraisal of “walking by” as opposed to “engaging with.”
8. Does the language inspire any emotional response? Is the emotion central? Specifically, what words or phrases in language evoke these feelings?
This poem does not move me to a surface emotion, like joy, pride, hope (or their opposites -- sadness, regret or despair). Instead, the poem pushes me inward, gnawing at me like angst over what I have missed when I have walked by, instead of engaging in.
9. Does the language play with words by “twisting” meaning? What is the effect of these twists, tropes or figures?
The poem employs light metaphor (cottages up to their eyes in shining snow [personification]), the company of cottages, violin sounds, silhouettes through curtains [metaphor], the slumbering village street [personificationn], the request “by your leave” [appostrophe]. These tropes, even the last expression, create the impression of a little New England town on a winter’s night in all of its cold, quiet and quaintness. They almost warm up the scene.
10. Does the language use representation? Are these symbols central to the
idea of the poem?
As I said in class, unlike metaphor, symbols don’t ask us to do the math; they simply suggest something more. We must be open to the suggestion. How do we achieve this openness? I guess through experience -- with life and with words. The poem employs as a basic symbol -- the going out and returning. A speaker walks out of town, turns and heads back into town. The speaker literally moves out, then back in. Is there more? I think so. Outward bound, the speaker sees himself in the company of structures, not in the company of people, but he imagines he is in the company of people. He is not. This symbol is the only way I can successfully read the line, “I turned and repented, but coming back/I saw not window but that was black.”
What might “black” suggest? Perhaps the speaker, in his aloof “walking out,” understands he is no longer welcome by those who might have once invited him in. Or, perhaps the speaker has turned to that point in his life where those around him have died, and there’s no longer the chance of “walking into” their lives. The poem allows for both meanings of “black,” and both meanings of the symbol allow us to empathize with the speaker’s feeling of repentence. How many times have we walked by instead of having engaged with others? When we have returned to make a difference, we find our chance is gone. You, my students, are not yet of the age when those around you begin to die, one-by-one. You are still walking outward bound. Will you be one who regrets not walking into others’ lives more often?
The symbols of in and out, light and black move me to the poem’s central idea of why we often rue our passing by.
11. Does the language play with the reader’s expectations or sense of reality? Are these points of irony and paradox central to the idea of the poem?
If anything is ironic in this poem it is the juxtaposition of painting a quaint New England village at night and the deep regret of not engaging in the community.
12. Does the language have an overall structure or pattern? What key words or phrases echo in the language? Is the language structured into parts (stanzas)? Does the language employ a traditional form? Is the reader’s apprehension of the experience enhanced by the poetic structure?
Yes, the poem employs four quatrains. The first two depict the speaker’s thoughts of his outbound walk. The third stanza chronicles the turn and the speaker’s recognition that “things are different.” The final stanza moves the speaker into deeper self-recognition.
Questions #13 & #14 move this New Critical inquiry from analysis to criticism. New Critics are not inclined to remain in analysis. They explicate for the world the differences between the trite and the sublime, between the prosaic and the artistic, and ultimately between the impotent and the powerful.
13. Overall, what is artful about the language? In what imaginative, intellectual,sensual or emotional way(s) does the language represent the complexity of human experience?
The poem works multiple levels. Symbol allows for a variety of interpretation. It prompts us toward a symbolic reading by a few phrases that, at first, jar the reader into asking “What is this word doing in this poem?” In that way, the poem propels the reader into symbolic analysis as any visual representation might.
14. Finally, is the language valuable? Is it worth reading? Remember: New
Criticism is essentially a theory of linguistic value! A work is valuable only if it
expresses coherently the complexity of the human experience.
Yes, the poem has value. It shines a beam on an often unexpressed human emotion -- regret at having passed someone by, at not engaging with another human being when given the chance. It does so using a simple, quaint rhyme scheme, a few quaint metaphors and a fundamental journey-symbol which propels us deeply into our own lives.
AP Question for Essay!
15 What-How Statement. This statement identifies what the poem does and how it goes about doing it. It is the kind of statement that the AP readers will want to see in your AP response essays.
The poem employs image, metaphor and rhyme to allow the reader a superficial view of a quaint New England winter’s walk, but the last six lines of the poem turn the walk into a symbol, pushing the reader toward an understanding of human superficiality and its consequences.