Poetry My november guest // robert frost

   I had mixed emotions about the poem “My November Guest.” I don’t think I have the right words to describe them properly. On the one hand, when I read the description of the scenery, there were things mentioned (“bare withered trees,” “the mist,” “the desolated, deserted trees,” for example) which are generally associated with melancholy. Thus, I felt quite sad. It was a mild sadness, not an overwhelming one; a sadness strong enough to push a heavy sigh through my lips but not enough to bring tears to my eyes. On the other hand, when I realized that the narrator in the poem was seeing some beauty in those looming and bleak elements I experience some warm happiness because he managed to spot something good in all that. It wasn’t a sheer happiness but it was enough to bring a smile to my face.
   As for the colours, despite the fact that some are mentioned in the poem such as grey, black and silver, I thought about warm ones: red, yellow, brown and orange. Those colours are very common in Autumn (the season in which the scene of the poem is described) and one can see all them anywhere: on the top of the tress and scattered throughout the floor as well.      
   Then, as regard the tune— trying not to sound trite by choosing Vivaldi’s Autumn— the poem reminded me of a Guns N’ Roses’ song: Estranged. The song might not be directly related or connected to the poem. Whereas the former – in my opinion— is about a person who has lost his beloved and is learning to cope with that, the latter – later on I will enlarge on this point— is about an old person whose life is coming to an end. However, both of them evoke the same complex feeling which is a compound of sadness and happiness. In either piece, those feelings are so dexterously woven by the artists that one cannot experience one without experiencing the other.  In addition to that, I consider that both, the poem and the song, deal with the idea of accepting the hardships of life (which doesn’t mean resignation) in order to appreciate what one has.

   Regarding my interpretation of the poem, I think it is about an elderly person who has learned to accept those apparently negative aspects of old age and now it is quite happy with his life as it is. I interpreted the description of the scenery as a metaphor of being old. Words such as “grey” “withered” are generally associated with decay and deterioration (things that are also associated with old age.) The phrase “the birds are gone away” could make reference to the narrator’s children who went to live to their own house, they “left the nestle.” Now he is alone, “deserted” and “desolated.” In addition to that, Autumn (the season in which the poem takes place) also suggests this idea of old age since in this season the leaves fall and there is a decline of the life that bloomed in Spring.  Following this analogy, Spring, with its bust and proliferation of life, will stand for birth and childhood; Summer, with all its exuberance and frantic activity, will stand for adolescence and adulthood, and Winter, with all its stillness and cold, will stand for death. Consequently, when we read in the poem about “the November days” we can interpret that as that the man who is talking, the narrator, is very old and he doesn’t have too much time left. November is the last month of Autumn, what comes after that is the “snow”, that is to say, “Winter,” in other words, death.
   All those elements mentioned generally have a sad and somber connotation. Yet, the narrator, accompanied by “his Sorrow,” sees them as beautiful things.  The fact that the narrator is with his Sorrow (personified in a SHE) might indicate that he is sad. However, he seems to be happy with her: he is “fain to list” what she says. Besides, it appears that he admires her since in the last line he mentions that  she“praises things better.”  The narrator learned to appreciate, “to love the November days.”   In addition to all that, the title of the poem also seems to hint that the author is comfortable with his Sorrow. There, the Sorrow is mentioned as his “November Guest,” not as an Intruder.  In other words, he accepts her, and it is because he accepts her that he is able to appreciate the beauties that “she so truly sees (…) and praise” in things that normally are associated with sadness.

   Finally, I think that I could relate this poem with the book “to the lighthouse” in the sense that both deal with this idea that there is no outer, absolute reality. The objects that we describe don’t have embedded in themselves the feelings or emotions that they evoke. It is all perception, things that we might find sad, other people might find them cheerful or vice versa. An example could be that in the lighthouse whereas the sea in Lily’s eyes is quiet and calm, in the Ramseys’ is rough and tough. Similarly, in the poem, what could be generally associated with sad and depressing things is seen beautiful by the narrator.