payment page
Study Tools
Overview
“Mending Wall” is a poem written by the American poet Robert Frost
. First published in a collection titled North of Boston (1914), the poem uses a deceptively-deceptive premise to explore big questions related to the function of borders and the nature of human relationships. At the center of the poem is the relationship between the first-person speaker and his neighbor, who come together every year to mend the wall that divides their properties. Whereas the speaker has reservations about the need for this wall, his neighbor seems perfectly content to keep it in place. Thus, the wall remains. In the century since its first appearance, the poem has often been read as a political meditation on the potential dangers of imposed borders. However, Frost himself long warned that such readings failed to account for the poem’s deeper ambiguities.Read the free full text, a summary & analysis, an analysis of the speaker, and explanations of famous quotes from “Mending Wall.”
