Point of View

The point of view in “The Garden” is quite straightforward. The poem is written in a close, direct first-person perspective. This is appropriate for a poem like this one, which is so intimately about a single character’s experience of individualism and solitude. The speaker is the only real character in the poem, so it makes sense that the poet chooses to write from the first-person perspective, which allows us to see this character’s perspective very clearly.

One interesting facet of the first person perspective in this poem is that readers receive relatively information about the speaker. Certainly his intelligence and classical education is revealed through the words he chooses, but there is nothing about his biography, his interpersonal relationships, or who he is outside of his passion for the garden that he describes.

It is also unclear who, if anyone, he is speaking...