THE GIFT OUTRIGHT
By: Robert Frost


“The Gift Outright” is a poem that examines the 19th century American concept of ‘Manifest Destiny’ and righteousness of Revolutionary War, though the latter theme is only addressed in the final quatrain. He begins with a general, straightforward claim that “the land was ours before we were the land’s”, which can be viewed as an undisguised affirmation that Manifest Destiny is in fact a real and true force at work in our world, bonding man to nature and urging him to sequester the land that is his birthright. After briefly elaborating on the fact that North America was destined to be ‘ours,’ Frost then explains that we were simply unable to take possession of said land due to our unfortunate position in England, where hierarchy and accountability to our superiors prevented us from reaching our true potential. Eventually, through surrender to our destiny and revolution against our tyrants, Americans were able to claim our identity and take advantage of the endless possibilities associated with the blank canvas that was our ever westward-expanding wilderness.

The structure and form of “The Gift Outright” are both nothing special. It is written in loose iambic pentameter with no rhyme scheme and a healthy mixture of both enjambment and end-stopping (this probably stems from the fact that Frost was prone to think of and read his poems in a prose-like manner, even though he structured them into lines and stanzas [evidenced by numerous easily available recordings]). With that in mind, the peculiar and sometimes jarring language that Frost chooses to use becomes the most influential of the formal elements in the poem. The first example of this is the use of the Native American name ‘Massachusetts’ in relation to the European name ‘Virginia.’ This contrast reminds us that even though the poem is centered on the Anglo-American myth of Manifest Destiny, it cannot escape or erase the bloody and violent history of our rise to power.

Another Example of a phrase that is extremely influential in one’s interpretation of the poem comes in the ominous thirteenth line, “(The deed of gift was many deeds of war)”. First of all it holds a significant amount of dramatic foreboding, and secondly it seems to have a complete lack of tonal or grammatical connection to any other section of the poem, being inserted between parentheses as a result. In fact, if one were to remove this line altogether, the poem would still make perfect sense, but it would take on a completely different meaning. With the thirteenth line included, “The Gift Outright” becomes less of a poem about realizing destiny and forming a spiritual commitment to the land, and more of a poem about Revolutionary War. The key to the peculiarity of the line, however, comes in the phrase “The deed of gift,” which in legal terms is “A deed executed and delivered without consideration” (http://rod.brunsco.net/definitions.html). Yet the phrase is more memorable for its appearance in Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, in which Mephisto informs Faust that a deed of gift must be drawn up that indicates intent to give his soul over to Lucifer at the conclusion of their agreement (http://www.donaldtyson.com/mephisto.html). Thus, in Frost’s own interpretation of Manifest Destiny, our revolutionary wars and further expansion into the “unstoried, artless, [and] unenhanced” west was the selfsame deed of gift (or gift outright) that bequeathed our soul to Lucifer himself.

Robert Frost’s “The Gift Outright” is a timeless poem that remains relevant even after half of a century has passed since its composition, for whether Frost liked it or not, the Faustian spirit of America was redeemed from weakness by a surrender to and immersion in the violent destructiveness of nature, self-reliance and war.

-Dan Silva