Iota Subscript

Iota Subscript - meaning Summary

Small Self, Greek Metaphor

The poem presents a modest speaker who rejects grand or even ordinary notions of the self. Frost insists there is no capital "I" and not even a prominent personal "i" within him; instead he identifies with the tiny Greek iota subscript. That subscript sits beneath upsilon, the Greek letter Frost links to "you," so the speaker defines himself as small and subordinate to the addressee. The tone is self-effacing and wry, using classical imagery to map a relationship in which the self exists only as an attachment to the other.