Singing and Not Singing

In this article the author begins by looking at a crux in lines 11-12 of Frost’s poem: how can the oven bird “sing” and “not sing”? The author suggests that this is an example of antanaclasis: the bird sings in one sense but not in another. This, in turn, suggests a larger point: Frost’s oven bird can be understood as a bird/speaker/poet who sings (in the sense of producing utterances) without singing (in the sense of celebrating). Against the backdrop of Romantic poetry and Whitmanian celebration, the oven bird stands forth as a distinctive kind of speaker – one who relies on statements and questions rather than exclamations.