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Robert Fitzgerald was born on October 12, 1910 in Geneva, New York, but spent most of his childhood in Springfield, Illinois. His entire family (mother, brother, and father) died before the age of seventeen. Despite his tragic childhood, he excelled academically and became a profound student at Harvard University in 1929, where he studied English and Greek. After college, he held jobs at The Herald Tribune and Time Magazine, where he debuted his first poem collection Arrows.  He also served during World War II in Guam and Pearl Harbor. After the war ended he taught English at well known universities such as Princeton, University of Notre Dame, and University of Washington. He married three times and has a total of three kids. Along with being a poet he was also well known for his translations, which included The Illiad and the Odyssey. Throughout his adulthood he became a professor at Harvard, and became the Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets as well Poet Laureate in 1984-85. He received outstanding awards such as the Shelley Memorial Award, as well as grants from the National Endowment for Arts and Ford Foundation. He died on January 16, 1985 in Hamden, Conneticut

Harvard University where Fitzgerald attended in order to receive his BA in English and Greek
Fitzgerald teaching a class on literature at Harvard

Fitzgerald at the award ceremony after receiving the Harold Morton Translation Award

Fitzgerald's translated version of Homer's The Odyssey

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Modernism (1890's-1940's)
Fitzgerald wrote his poems through the traumatic events of WW1 and WW2, focusing his subjects with darker themes such as death due to his traumatic childhood and time served in the military. In "Lightness In Autumn" the reader can see the stream of consciousness due to the shift that occurs in the poem. We see Fitzgerald's thoughts and perspectives as he inhabits the season of autumn into his poetry.

Metaphysical (1633-1680)
Fitzgerald draws a lot of his influence from the metaphysical literary movement. His poems contain imagery that is paradoxical in order to portray his perspectives. He even has a poem called "Metaphysical" to show his admiration for this time period.

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The title which includes "autumn"  initially gave us what the poem is centralized on, which is the season of autumn. Autumn is known to foreshadow death to come upon wildlife during the winter, so we predicted this poem to have a dark theme. However, the term "lightness" gives the the poem a whimsical, soft tone, essentially making the title feel like a paradox. Upon researching the author's biography, we determined that the poem would be about morality in some way.

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The rake is like a wand or fan,

With bamboo springing in a span

To catch the leaves that I amass

In bushels on the evening grass.

I reckon how the wind behaves

And rake them lightly into waves

And rake the waves upon a pile,

Then stop my raking for a while.

The sun is down, the air is blue,

And soon the fingers will be, too,

But there are children to appease

With ducking in those leafy seas.

So loudly rummaging their bed

On the dry billows of the dead,

They are not warned at four and three

Of natural mortality.

Before their supper they require

A dragon field of yellow fire

To light and toast them in the gloom.

So much for old earth’s ashen doom.

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Song: September by Daughtry

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The garden tool is like a wand or fan
With bamboo coming up in a wide range
To catch the leaves that I gathered
In the bushes on the near night grass

I think about how the wind works
And rake them softly into leaves floating in the wind
And the leaves become a pile
Then I stopped raking for a bit

The sun is coming down, air is blue
And soon the fingers will be, too
But there are adolescents to be satisfied
With plunging into the leafy piles

So loudly messing up their bed
On the dry clouds of the dead,
They are not alerted at four or three
Of natural ethics

Before their dinner they need
A dragon field of yellow fire
To light and burn them in sadness
So much for the world's dark downfall

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First Stanza:
Within the first stanza, Fitzgerald states the simile of a "rake" being like a "wand or fan", alluding that the rake represents his feeble attempts at combating the forces of death (the wind) as he tries to keep the leaves (loved ones) together and close to him, even though they are already dead because they have fallen from the tree. The alliteration in line 2 with the soft sounds of "s" such as "springing" and "span" to imitate the sounds of the wind that carries throughout the poem.

Second Stanza:
In the second stanza, the anaphora "and rake" in lines 6 and 7 emphasizes how diligently the speaker is repeatedly trying to combat death which is personified by the wind. Death was a prominent factor in Fitzgerald's life, which makes sense why he would fear it and question its capabilities. The "w" sound again helps carry the wind noise throughout the poem once again, and ends where the speaker stops raking. The significance of speaker stop raking signifies his acceptance of fate towards death, as he releases the pile of leaves (loved ones).

Third Stanza:
The imagery of the "sun" being "down, or the "air" being "blue" that occurs in the third stanza helps build a melancholy tone. The color of blue and no light symbolizes darkness, making the presence of death more prominent. The personification of the branches are referred to as "fingers", creating an image of a tree of life. This metaphor connects to the leaves which represent the living and the dead; fallen leaves being dead and ones on trees being living. The children then carelessly dive into the pile of leaves which symbolizes to the future death that awaits them.

Fourth Stanza:
The end rhyme in the fourth stanza "bed", "dead", "three", "morality" gives us the centralized theme and personal reference of Fitzgerald's past of the three major deaths of his sibling, mother, and father being taken away from him. There is situational irony as well as he states that children are "rummaging" through the "dry billows of the dead" to depict that children are unaware of their cruel faith of death.

FIfth Stanza:
Interestingly in the fifth stanza, he describes death in : sadness with diction such as "gloom" and "fire" which represents the speakers growing anger. This stanza reflects Fitzgerald's feelings towards his family's deaths, a depressing time for him where he drowned in his depression and growing awareness of death.The contrasts of "old-ashen" and "yellow fire", further indicates the dichotomy of life as well as depicting his back and forth emotions of sadness and anger towards death.

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FItzgerald's attitude towards death can be perceived as frustrated towards accepting death. In the poem he says "I reckon how the wind behaves", he becomes frustrated because he knows he cannot control death's forces, he persistently rakes the leaves knowing he cannot control them being blown away by the wind. The use of wind, a natural element, cannot be controlled my humans, and it is something like death that has to be accepted.

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The shift in the poem occurs in the third stanza, when the imagery of darkness signifies death's coming. Not only that but the speaker also seemingly comes out of the deep train of thought about morality and comes to acceptance towards death giving a mild condescending tone as he speaks about the children playing in the leaves.

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After reading the poem, "Lightness in Autumn", we found the interesting dichotomy of dark and light and the metaphorical trees and leaves throughout the poem to further symbolize life. We see Fitzgerald's struggling battle of acceptance of the concept of death due to the deaths that have plagued his life. The title truly serves as a paradox as well as an ironic statement due to the fact there is nothing "light" about death.

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Death is an inevitable fate that humanity must come to acceptance with.

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Biographical: After looking through the biographical lens, we found it easier to interpret the poem. Robert Fitzgerald lost many of his family members when he was only a child including his parents and brother. Then when he served in World War II he also faced many tragic losses. In the poem, "Lightness in Autumn", the speaker seems to be repeatedly try and rake the leaves together but is unable to when the wind blows away. Using this lens we interpreted that him raking the leaves is him trying to stop the inevitable which can be seen as him trying to stop people from dying, and the wind represents the force of death taking the lives away. So this poem from this lens is about how death cannot be something controlled by humans and is inevitable.

Archetypal: The prominent archetype in this poem is death.  In this poem, the death archetype is symbolized through the actions of the wind. In the first stanza the speaker mentions "the leaves that I amass" this can represent the lives, represented by the leaves, are being collected by death as time passes by. The speaker of this poem repeatedly tries to combat the winds forces which in this case is death. In the second stanza, he tries to "reckon how the wind behaves" so he tries to understand how death works and eventually stops the "raking for a while". And this part of the poem can show the speaker finally understanding that death is unable to be stopped and his attempts at stopping it prove to be useless. This makes the poem's theme of death being everywhere and unavoidable easier to understand.

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POV- The poem is written in first person
Audience- adults who have lost loved ones and know the pains of mortality

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Ally- Paraphrase, Biography, Title, Connotation, Attitude, POV & Audience
Chett- Biography, Connotation, Literary Movement, Voice Over
Erma- Video, Critical Perspectives, Connotation, Attitude