Student Question
Can Robert Frost's "Home Burial" be considered a "play in verse"?
Quick answer:
Robert Frost's "Home Burial" can be considered a "play in verse" due to its dramatic dialogue and tragic theme, similar to a verse drama. The poem focuses on a couple's emotional struggle after their child's death, with dialogue that could be performed. However, it lacks a consistent metrical form and rhyme typical of verse dramas. Additionally, the sparse narrative elements are crucial to the poem's depth, making it only partially suitable as a verse drama.
Arguments that could be used to support this statement would focus on the way in which this moving poem is constructed mostly out of dialogue and with little description from the poet. Thus the majority of the lines could easily be lifted out of the poem to form a dialogue that could be acted. In addition, the poem itself is based on the interaction between this young couple who are struggling to cope with the loss of their first child and the home burial that they carried out. Given the revelatory nature of this poem and the way that both speak out of their pain, we could argue that "Home Burial" could definitely be called a play in verse.
However, arguments that could be used against this statement would be the way in which the sparse narrative that comes in between the dialogue nevertheless forms a vital element...
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of the poem that cannot be denied. For example, note the way that towards the beginning of this poem, Amy lets her husband look at what she is seeing:
She let him look, sure that he wouldn't see,
Blind creature; and awhile he didn't see.
This comment from the speaker allows us to see the thoughts and motivations of Amy, the way that she believes her husband is so unobservant that he can look at the same space but not see what mesmerises her and the way that she considers him to be a "Blind creature." Such important details would be lost if we merely felt that this was a play in verse.
A play in verse, or a verse drama, is a drama written in such a fashion so as to be spoken. The verse drama typically focuses upon tragedy and the seriousness of the tragedy. These works are intended to be performed upon the stage and are written in whole, or in majority, in verse form. (A verse is a text which is written in metrical form and, typically, contains rhyme.)
Therefore, based upon this very specific definition, Frost's poem "Home Burial" cannot be deemed a "play in verse" or a verse drama.
That being said, one could dissect the definition and provide justification to force the poem to adhere to the definition of the verse drama.
For example, one could justify that the poem contains elements of a drama--there is dialogue and action.The poem also contains elements of seriousness and tragedy.
He saw her from the bottom of the stairs
Before she saw him. She was starting down,
Looking back over her shoulder at some fear.
Unfortunately, the poem does not contain a true metrical form or contain rhyme.
Therefore, the poem "Home Burial" could be defined as a verse drama, but only in a limited fashion.