Modern Age - Summer 2016 - 8

MODERN AGE SUMMER 2016

poem is not without sympathy for the antagonist of the poem's
speaking persona, although the latter describes his neighbor as
looking like "an old-stone savage" who "moves in darkness as it
seems to me." The persona teases his obstinate neighbor, because
"He will not go behind his father's saying"; still, that saying,
"Good fences make good neighbors," is repeated as the poem's
last line. I suspect that anyone who takes the trouble to read, or
reread, Frost's poem will have little difficulty seeing that the issue
between the two characters in the poem is cultural incomprehension. Whatever one's take on the immigration controversy, it,
too, is not unrelated to the cultural crisis of our society.
Without arguing quixotically that the fate of American civilization hangs on achieving a critical mass of citizens with a sufficient
familiarity with the poetry of Robert Frost, I think it not unreasonable to treat the vanishing of the poet from our public consciousness and conversation as a synecdoche for a larger cultural dissipation. Unlike students of my generation, those of the past few
decades have probably not been reading the poetry of Robert
Frost in most public school districts. The students whom I taught
toward the end of my career at a land grant university showed
little knowledge of Frost or any other poet or serious writer.
The problem is pervasive. As I was composing this introduction,
news came that undergraduates at Yale University had mounted
a petition demanding that the English department "decolonize"
the introductory curriculum and abolish the Major English Poets
sequence, which "omits the 'contributions of women, people of
color, and queer folk.' " According to a College Fix online report
(June 3, 2016), the petition also demands that the pre-1800/1900
requirements be refocused and "include literature relating to
gender, race, and sexuality"-the usual dreary list.
8

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Modern Age - Summer 2016

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Modern Age - Summer 2016

Contents
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