1. The Poetry of Robert Frost Ms .De La O English 9

2. Robert Frost ( )
The most popular American poet of the twentieth century.
Most Americans recognize his name and the titles of and lines from his best-known poems
Won four Pulitzer prizes

3. Early Life Born on March 26, 1874.
His father died when he was eleven years old.
Mother was a schoolteacher
Moved to Lawrence, Massachusetts
1892: graduated from a high school
Dartmouth College

4. Early Career 1894: the New York Independent published "My Butterfly”
Worked as a teacher and continued to write
From 1897 to 1899 Frost studied at Harvard

5. Marriage, Family, and the Dark Years
1895: married Elinor White; they had six children.
First child, Elliot was born on September 29, 1896.
Died in 1900
1900: mother died
1901: death of William Prescott Frost, Sr.

6. A Risky Move Popular image as a farmer-poet 1911: Sold the farm
Farming and teaching school.
1911: Sold the farm
moved his family to England

7. The New American Genius
Moved back to the US in 1915
1916: began teaching at Amhert College
Awarded Pulitzer Prize for New Hampshire in May.
Suffered from depression and self-doubt

8. The inspiration Tragedy not in his work
Experiences helped shape and color the views of life's possibilities and its limits
Human isolation

9. The New American Genius
Frost's images - woods, stars, houses, and brooks
Down-to-earth approach to his subjects
Easy to follow the poet into deeper truths

10. Aspects of Frost's poetry:
“nature” poet
set in rural or pastoral surroundings
using contraries and contradictions
using common speech
deep meanings exist beneath a simple exterior

11. A Modern Poet Ordinary speech Formal patterns of line and stanza
Traditional forms and structures
Themes of alienation and isolation
subtle undertone of fear or uneasiness

12. Motifs in Frost's Poetry:
the cycle of the seasons
the alternation of night and day
natural phenomenon
rural images