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Frost’s Early Poems

To see how “Mending Wall” fits in with other major poetic works from Frost’s early period, check out this collective guide.

Robert Frost, “The Road Not Taken”

Like “Mending Wall,” this famous poem is characterized by its deceptive simplicity. So deceptive is it that generations of readers have essentially misread the poem as a celebration of taking the less conventional path. Studying these poems together will help illuminate the deeper ambiguities at work in each.

Robert Browning, “Porphyria’s Lover”

“Porphyria’s Lover” is a famous example of the poetic genre known as the dramatic monologue, in which a first-person speaker offers an unreliable account of a recent event. Although “Mending Wall” doesn’t quite qualify as a dramatic monologue, it shares important qualities with this genre, including a first-person speaker whose narrative is notably one-sided. Reading Frost’s poem alongside an example from the master of the dramatic monologue can help unlock some of the rich subtleties at play in the speaker’s account of mending the wall.

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