After Apple-Picking Analysis

Welcome to the land of symbols, imagery, and wordplay. Before you travel any further, please know that there may be some thorny academic terminology ahead. Never fear, Shmoop is here. Check out our...

Iambic Pentameter in Rhyme… Sort of.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'...

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...

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"...

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...

Nature as Both Magnificent and TroublingFrost 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...

(5) Tree LineThis 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 tr...

Frost's family farm did indeed have "a good-sized apple orchard" as well as peach and pear trees. (Source)Some critics believe that "After Apple-Picking" is a subtle complaint about how Frost was s...

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

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