feel detached, aimless, and purposeless. The fact
that the speaker in this poem is out at night
suggests he may have trouble sleeping. That he
is headed beyond the city limit suggests he has no
social destination in mind. Moreover, he reads
the clock as pronouncing the time as ‘‘neither
wrong nor right,’’ which conveys an inability to
evaluate the moment or perhaps to see meaning
in it. In all, the poet conveys a mental state by
describing the speaker’s walk in these ways.Style
Terza Rima, Iambic Pentameter,
and Sonnet Forms
A rhyme scheme attributed to Dante,terza rima
is a pattern of interlocking end-rhyme that fol-
lows the patternaba bcb, cdcand so forth. Typ-
ically, terza rima occurs in poetry that has the
metrical pattern iambic pentameter. A line of
poetry is divided into feet containing syllables
counted as beats. An iamb is one foot that con-
tains two beats, that is, one unstressed and one
stressed syllable. In iambic pentameter, there are
five feet to the line, each of which contains an
unstressed syllable followed by a stressed sylla-
ble, thus ten syllables per line.
‘‘Acquainted with the Night’’ consists of four
tercets (three-line stanzas) and one couplet, all in
iambic pentameter. Because the poem has this
meter and fourteen lines it is called a sonnet. But
it diverts from both the Shakespearean sonnet,
which contains three quatrains (four-line stanzas)
and a couplet, and the Petrarchan sonnet, which
contains an octave (eight-line stanza) and a sestet
(six-line stanza). Typically, the Shakespearean
quatrains pose parallel examples of a given
topic, which is summed up in the couplet, whereas
the Petrarchan octave poses a question or prob-
lem that the sestet attempts to answer or resolve.
So in both form and content, Frost’s poem differs
in some respects from these conventional sonnet
forms. In his essay on ‘‘Acquainted with the
Night,’’ Keat Murray stresses how Frost’s craft
merges the form of this poem with its content:
‘‘The triple terza rima rhyme... interlocks and
suggests an interdependency of content and
form, as each stanza is linked to its contiguous
stanzas. In the seeming ease of crafted rhyme,
Frost masks the fusion of content and form via
superb technique.’’ Thus in his mastery of form,
Frost was able to employ a structure that both fits
and conveys the subject of his poem.Monologue and Soliloquy
A monologue is a speech in which one person
delivers all the lines and typically there is a silentTOPICS FOR
FURTHER
STUDY Study one Shakespearean sonnet and one Ital-
ian (or Petrarchan) sonnet. Write an essay
that compares Frost’s poem to the two you
studied. Be sure to include an explanation of
the sonnet as a form.
Do some historical research about night
watchmen and what their jobs entailed in
small New England towns in the early twen-
tieth century. Prepare an oral presentation
in which you describe this kind of police
force and how it evolved. Include informa-
tion about the size of a town that might
employ a night watchman.
Search for images of night watchmen in the
visual arts, some of which can be found
online. Bring reproductions of these images
to class to pass them around and discuss
how they may or may not lend some mean-
ing to Frost’s poem.
Using Frost’s poem as a model, write a poem
in which you describe an actual scene or
sequence of actions, but handle your descrip-
tion in such a way that the literal picture
suggests a psychological or emotional state.
Research clock towers in various places and
different periods and create a PowerPoint pre-
sentation for your classmates, which includes
photographs of important clock towers.
In order to explore modernist poetry, read
aloud T. S. Eliot’s ‘‘The Lovesong of J. Alfred
Prufrock’’ (1917) and have a classmate read
aloud ‘‘Acquainted with the Night’’ to your
class. Discuss similarities and differences
between these two poems, including their poetic
form, the character of the speaker, the actions
described, and the differences in the settings.Acquainted with the Night