Re: [ADS-L] Good Fe nces Make Good Neighbors

[RonButters at AOL.COM]

OK, but keep in mind that the speaker of the poem suggests that blind 
adherence to the notion that good fences make good neighbors is rather foolish--and 
Frost himself seems more than a little skeptical. Why build a fence between an 
orchard and a pine forest, he asks his neighbor. "He will not go beyond his 
father's saying, / And he likes having thought of it so well, He says [it] 
again. ..." 

In a message dated 6/8/06 12:41:34 PM, cxr1086 at LOUISIANA.EDU writes:


> A colleague, Margaret Freeman, wrote the following paragraph in a recent
> paper on "Mending Wall"
> 
> That significance, as George Monteiro (1988:126-129) has shown us, is
> deeply embedded in two historical, cultural domains: the existence of a
> Spanish proverbial saying (una pared entre dos vezinos guarda mas (haze
> durar) la
> amistad) which goes back "at least to the Middle Ages" and was recorded
> by Emerson in his journal of 1832 as "A wall between both, best
> preserves friendship"; and the myth of the god of boundaries, named
> Terminus by the Romans, who celebrated a Terminalia festival each year
> on February 23 (in early spring) when "neighbors on either side of  any
> boundary gathered around the landmark" to offer sacrifice to the god and
> celebrate with a feast.
> 
> The 1988 book is: Montiero, George. Robert Frost and the New England
> Renaissance. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1988.
> 
> --Clai Rice
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> 
> 

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org