V.4. Robert Frost Focus of Study Life Experience Literary Career Point of View Style Representative Poems

V.4.Robert Frost One of America's leading 20th- century poets. A four-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize. An essentially pastoral poet. The unofficial poet laureate of America.

Life Experience Born on March 26 in San Francisco Father dies. Family moves to Lawrence, Mass sells "My Butterfly: An Elegy" to The Independent works as reporter in Lawrence, and marries Elinor White attends Harvard College moves in England and devotes to writing full time.

A Boy's Will is published Arrives in New York. North of Boston is published Mountain Interval is published receives a Pulitzer Prize in poetry for New Hampshire (1923) Elinor dies of heart failure Awarded the Gold Medal by the national Institute of Arts and Letters in New York Awarded Pulitzer Prize for A Witness Tree Awarded the Bollingen Prize for Poetry. Dies of pneumonia Literary Career

Point of View Frost was neither a conventionalist nor a radical modernist. His poetry shows a particular vigorousness of daily life and a remarkable understanding of modern man ’ s situation. Frost believes that we are living in a God-directed world, but he also ponders the mysteries of the universe; man lives with ambiguity; He rejects both permanent truth and the idea of alienation. He rejects the romantic view of daydreams, and advocates a life based on courage or facts. He emphasizes the value of society or human participation based on love and work.

Style A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom. 1.Frost's poetry is largely allegorical. 2.Prefers to build up the tension between the two ways of looking at one thing. 3.Not a naturalist, but favors selected realism. 4.Noted for his conversational style conducted in the common speech of his native New England. 5.Poetic devices are traditional, but his skillful use of blank verse and lyric shows his ability to handle the old form for his new subject matter.

Foot of Poetry Iamb( or iambic foot): A metrical foot consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable or a short syllable followed by a long syllable, as in delay. (Trochee or trochaic foot) Anapaest( or anapaestic foot): A metrical foot composed of two short syllables followed by one long one, as in the word seventeen. ( Dactyl or dactylic foot, as in flattery ) Monometer, dimeter, trimeter, tetrameter, pentameter, hexameter.

Representative Poems "After Apple-Picking" Form: no preordained rhyme scheme ， basically iambic, and mostly in pentameter. Theme: The harvest of apples can be read as a harvest of any human effort--study, laying bricks, writing poetry, etc. The incredible quantity of fruit as possibility which is nearly achieved at the cost of physical and mental exhaustion.

The Road Not Taken Form: four stanzas of five lines, rhyme scheme is abaab, an iambic tetrameter base. Theme: archetypal dilemma, Identical forks symbolize for us the nexus of free will and fate: we are free to choose, but we do not really know beforehand what we are choosing between. There is no real guide or definitive basis for decision- making, the nature of the decision is such that there is no Right Path for life.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening Form: iambic tetrameter. rhyme scheme is aaba, bbcb, ccdc, dddd. Theme: reveal the contradictions in life: law and freedom, civilization and nature, reality and fantasy, etc. Life is beautiful, alluring as well as complex, arduous. Life is short and time flies, with responsibility on one ’ s shoulder, one should make sustained effort for his cause.

Study Questions Discuss the anticipation or remorse in "The Road Not Taken." What is ironic about the speaker's statements concerning his neighbor's opinion of wall-building in "Mending Wall"? Discuss Robert Frost's applications of "the sound of sense."

For Further Reading Frost, Robert. The Poetry of Robert Frost. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Frost, Robert. Selected Letters of Robert Frost. Ed. Lawrance Thompson. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Jarrell, Randall. Poetry & the Age. New York: The Ecco Press, Oster, Judith. Toward Robert Frost: The Reader and the Poet. Athens, Georgia: The University of Georgia Press, 1991.

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