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After Apple-Picking

After Apple-Picking


by Robert Frost

After Apple-Picking Analysis

Symbols, Imagery, Wordplay


Form and Meter

Rhyming iambic pentameter lines are the most common form and meter in Frost's early poetry, or at least in the poems from his first two collections, A Boy's Will and North of Boston. Iambic pentame...


Although it's entirely possibly that the speaker is a hired laborer or that he's just a guy who's helping out his buddy down the road, our best guess is that the speaker is a man who lives on a far...


Nighttime. A man lies snugly in bed. As for the geographic setting, we are, of course, North of Boston: the title of the collection in which "After Apple-Picking" appears.The speaker's thoughts are...

Sound Check

The poem's sound is like an early twentieth century version of freestyle rap. Ever heard a freestyle about apples before? Us neither. That's why Frost is an American original. "After Apple-Picking"...

What's Up With the Title?

The title of the poem provides the time in which it is set. The title is actually quite helpful because, without it, you might think that the poem is set during the apple-picking. As the speaker is...

Calling Card

Frost is often wrongly assumed to be a simple nature poet who celebrates the joys of the outside world through rose-colored glasses. But generally the people who think this have not read enough of...


This is a poem that many people, even scholars, would have to re-read a couple of times. That doesn't mean it's especially difficult – that's just how some poetry works. Frost tries to recrea...

Brain Snacks

Sex Rating

Loss of innocence… Adam and Eve… forbidden fruit… This poem is an erotic powerhouse. Except it's not. At all. It's about apples.

Shout Outs

Jacob's Ladder (lines 1-2, 22-23)The Fall of Man (lines 31-36)

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