Poet Presentation - Robert Frost

Poet Presentation - Robert Frost

Introduction

Robert Lee Frost is a prominent American poet who represents Modernist movement in literature combined with pastoral literary themes . Most of his poetry associated with rural New England . He received Pulitzer Prize four times among other honors . His unique talent and vision of reality reflected in themes and emotions of his poetry and prose . Symbolism and intense feelings appeal to imagination and emotions of readers representing permanent forces and patterns of human life . Literary critic Kevin Driscoll comments that Robert Frost is the most famous

and perhaps most talented , American poet of the 20th century (Driscoll , 1999 ,

. 36 . The poem under analysis , `The Road Not Taken reflects life of Robert Frost and can be interpreted as a life experience of the author who carved his path ' according to values and life expectations

Biographical Notes

Robert Frost was born in San Francisco on March 26 , 1874 . The main tragedy of his early years was the death of his father , William Prescott Frost , Jr , a journalist and local politician . Robert was eleven when his father died and his family had to move to eastern Massachusetts to live with Frost 's paternal grandfather . His mother , Isabelle Moodie , worked as a schoolteacher in to earn for living and support her family (Newdick , Sutton , 1976

Biographers mention that he wrote his first poems while a student at Lawrence High School , from which he graduated as co-valedictorian with the woman he was to marry , Elinor Miriam White (Robert Frost Biography , n .d . Also , he attended Harvard College but did not receive a degree . He changes a number of jobs including factory work and news delivery . In 1894 Frost sold his first poem 'My Butterfly for fifteen dollars to The Independent , a New York magazine . Then the Frost family spent nine years in New Hampshire where he wrote many of the poems . Frost 's attempt at poultry farming was too successful , and by 1906 he had begun teaching English at Pinkerton Academy , a secondary school in New Hampshire (Robert Frost . Biography n .d

Later , the family moved to Glasgow , and in 1912 they settled in Beaconsfield . During the next year , appeared his first book of poetry A Boy 's Will (1913 . When he first began publishing , in 1913 Frost 's admires were the sophisticated new poets of the emerging Modernist movement in London (Barron , 2004 . After several years in England , Frost returned to America and devoted himself to writing and teaching . Between 1916 to 1938 , Robesrt Frost was an English professor at Amherst College . When his wife died in 1938 and Frost lost four of his children , he felt great depression and frustration which reflected in his works of this period . His main works of this time were : Mountain Interval (1916 , New Hampshire (1923 , the Collected Poems (1930 , A Further Range (1936 , and A Witness Tree (1942 . Also , Robert Frost wrote several plays including A Way Out : A One Act Play , A Masque of Reason and A Masque of Mercy

In the last twenty years of his life Frost visited Russia and received forty-four honorary degrees . Also , he was invited by John F . Kennedy to recite a poem at his presidential inauguration . He took an active part in good-will missions and traveled to Brazil (1954 , to Britain (1957 , and to Greece (1961 , on his return from Israel , where he had lectured at the Hebrew University (Robert Frost . Biography , n .d Robert Frost died in Boston on January 29 , 1963 , and was buried in the Old Bennington Cemetery , Vermont

Time Period and Its influence on Robert Frost

Robert Frost represents a very interesting historical period marked by great changed in political thought and economic development , social shifts and creation of new cultural values . New world perception reflected in his themes , unique interpretation of modern world and the self . The poem under analysis , The Road Not Taken ' is a vivid example of values of people marked this historical period reflected through the lens of Frost 's ideals and imaginary

Robert Frost represents Modernism in poetry . In general , the modernist movement is marked by technical innovations such as free verse and collage combined with Romantic views on self and newly developed imagistic conventions . Modernist poetry covers a period between 1890 and 1970 , and involves such and poets as Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson , Wilfred Owen and T .S . Eliot , etc (Schleifer , 2000 . The remarkable feature of this movement is industrial , mechanical and urban settings . Modernist poets popularized ideas of office and factory working . The uniqueness of Frost poems is that he created a fundamentally new approach to poetry : subtle and complex allusions play with rhythm and metrical tradition , an intellectual fireworks of modernist writing and stories of common people (Barron , 2004

Frost 's poetry reflects such modernist features as allusiveness in style and interest in mental states , and irrationalism (Hart , 1999 . In contrast to most modernist and poets who described urban settings , Frost devoted his poetry to rural and pastoral settings . Most of his life he lived in rural areas in New Hampshire and South Shaftsbury , and admired rural landscapes and beauty of nature

The Road Not Taken ' as an Example of Modernist poetry

The poem under analysis is the best example of Frost 's style of writing , his Modernist ideas and peculiarities . The poem depicts nature and discusses how beautiful it is . Nature , and the theme of wood in particular , is used as a symbol to describe deep personal feelings and life experience of a human . In The Road Not Taken ' a glorious scene of nature grasps the readers ' imagination : Two roads diverged in a yellow wood (Frost , 2005 . Beauty is depicted and enhanced by the poet 's rendering of delicate expressions that come together to form a beautiful composition of nature at it 's best . Following William H Pritchard and his explanation of this poem , it is possible to say that For the large moral meaning which "The Road Not Taken " seems to endorse - go , as I did , your own way , take the road less traveled by and it will make "all the difference "-does not maintain itself when the poem is looked at more carefully (Robert Frost . Biography , n .d . Many critics have discussed the symbolism of Frost 's poetry . They usually show that the specific characters and events represent . For instance The Road Not Taken ' gives only some hints to the reader to comprehend the meaning of the poem , and under paths ' he means our life with non-trodden paths , which we have to carve

The theme of wood ' means great , century-old wisdom ' of nature and a human being . Two roads diverged in a wood , and I / I took the one less traveled by / And that has made all the difference (Frost , 2005 The image of wood ' means life experience of a particular person , and it brings message to everyone to think over next step in his life . It implies not only wisdom , but also the whole life of a person , who has a right to choose which path to go . The nature is different as a human 's inner world does : winter is piece of mind and autumn means mediation Path is a symbol of future , and a person has a choice to choose his road . Roads are non-trodden , it means that a person has to pave the way in his life in accordance with life expectations and aims : And both that morning equally lay in leaves no step had trodden black . Oh , I kept the first for another day (Frost , 2005 . In his analysis of the poem , George Montiero comes to conclusion that convinced that the poem was deeply personal and directly self-revelatory Frost 's readers have insisted on tracing the poem to one or the other of two facts of Frost 's life when he was in his late thirties (Robert Frost . Biography , n .d

Conclusion (The Poet 's Contribution to American Literature

Literary heritage and life of Robert Frost show that he made a great contribution to American literature combined a rare distinction of being both popular and profound (Barron , 2004 . Robert Frost can be described as a keen observer of people and nature , which is manifested in his writing style and themes . Frost tells that in our ed and organized world one feels sometimes the need of a change . The literary heritage of Robert Frost marks a new period in poetry reflecting new perception of the world and industrial relations , political and personal freedom , interpretation of the self and nature around us

References

Barron , J .N (2004 ) Robert Frost . Retrieved from : HYPERLINK "http /www .litencyc .com /php /speople .php ?rec true UID 5144 http /www .litencyc .com /php /speople .php ?rec true UID 5144

Driscoll , K (1999 . Robert Frost : A Life . Insight on the News , Vol . 15 May 24 ,

. 36

Frost , R . The Road Not Taken (2005 . Retrieved from http /www .bartleby .com /119 /1 .html

Hart , J (1999 ) Frost in a Clear Lens . National Review , Vol . 51 , May 3 br

. 52

Newdick , R .S , Sutton , W .A (1976 . Newdick 's Season of Frost : An Interrupted Biography of Robert Frost . State University of New York Press

Robert Frost . Biography (n .d . Retrieved from : HYPERLINK "http /www .english .uiuc .edu /maps /poets /a_f /frost /frost .htm http /www .english .uiuc .edu /maps /poets /a_f /frost /frost .htm

Schleifer , R (2000 . Modernism and Time : The Logic of Abundance in Literature , Science , and Culture , 1880-1930 . Cambridge University Press .Recommended Reading

Davison ,

(2000 , Farness and Depth : A Rumination on Robert Frost . The Atlantic Monthly , Vol . 283 , December ,

. 113

Frost R (1995 . Collected Poems , Prose , and Plays (Library of America Library of America

Whittington-Egan , R (1999 . Robert Frost : A Life . Contemporary Review Vol . 274 , February ,

. 105

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Poet Presentation - Robert Frost ...