What does he imply about accomplishing a task when he says, "The fact is the sweetest dream that labor knows"?

Question

Anya Curtis

English

7 March, 08:30

What does he imply about accomplishing a task when he says, "The fact is the sweetest dream that labor knows"?

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Ezra Curtis · Answer 1

"The fact is the sweetest dream that labor knows," says Frost, summarizing one element in American modernism: attention to the hard edges and exact textures of reality, in reaction against a merely dreamy or idealized, poetic vision.

Explanation:

This quotation is written from the perspective of the scythe, whose only satisfaction comes from honest, hard work. While human beings would dream of fairies and gold for pleasure, the scythe values only reality; specifically, the reality of work. The narrator admires his scythe's detachment from the trivialities of the human imagination and hopes to model his own philosophy of work on that expressed by his whispering farm tool. This particular line also speaks to Frost's own emphasis on everyday life and the natural world in his poetry. While other poets focus on imaginary worlds and far-off places, Frost prefers to write about the world that he knows: the rural communities of New England.