listener, whose presence is implied by what the
speaker says and the speaker’s use of direct
address. By contrast, a soliloquy is a speech in
which one person, who is alone, speaks all the
lines as is thinking aloud. An audience can hear
both a monologue and a soliloquy when these
occur in plays. In poetry, both are used, too, and
the reader of the poem serves as an audience. In
‘‘Acquainted with the Night,’’ one speaker delivers
all the lines, as if thinking out loud. No one is with
the speaker to hear what he has to say. He does
not speak to the watchman; the cry he hears does
not communicate to him, and he is beyond hear-
ing range of the person who cries out. So this
poem is an example of a soliloquy. This form
offers the poet two advantages: he can communi-
cate the material in the first person, which gives it
the intimacy of a personal revelation, yet the
absence of a listener underscores the speaker’s
isolation. What is dramatized here is the felt iso-
lation of the speaker, which the reader can sense at
the removed position of reading the poem.
Historical Context
T. S. Eliot
When Robert Frost moved his family to Eng-
land, he wanted to join the literary circle of
London and to be recognized in England as an
up-and-coming poet. He associated with a num-
ber of important poets of the day, among whom
T. S. Eliot (1888–1965) was one of the more
important. Moving to England for aspiring
American poets was not uncommon. Eliot had
moved there himself in 1914, a year before the
Frost family returned to the United States, but
Eliot remained, eventually converting to Angli-
canism and becoming a British subject. Eliot’s
famous poem, ‘‘The Lovesong of J. Alfred Pru-
frock’’ (1917) might be compared to Frost’s later
‘‘Acquainted with the Night.’’ In their expression
of ill ease, mental disturbance, self-doubt, the
two narrators have something in common and
voice modern sentiments. In their intentions
regarding social contact, they diverge.Full moon(Image copyright Alex Franklin, 2009. Used under license from Shutterstock.com)
Acquainted with the Night