Assignment 108

Robert Frost's poems

Name: Emisha Ravani

paper: 108 The American Literature

Roll no: 07

Enrollment no : 4069206420210031

Email id: emisharavani3459@gmail.com

Batch : 2021-2023(M.A sem 2) 

submitted to: S. B. Gardi Department of English, maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji bhavnager University

Robert Frost's poems

English literature is having so many great literary figures in each genre. Robert Frost is one of them, he is a famous poet by his poetris like Stopping by woods in Snowy Evening, Fire and Ice, The Road Not Taken etc.Robert Frost was born in San Francisco, but his family moved to Lawrence, Massachusetts, in 1884 following his father’s death. The move was actually a return, for Frost’s ancestors were originally New Englanders, and Frost became famous for his poetry’s engagement with New England locales, identities, and themes. 

Frost graduated from Lawrence High School, in 1892, as class poet (he also shared the honor of co-valedictorian with his wife-to-be Elinor White), and two years later, the New York Independent accepted his poem entitled “My Butterfly,” launching his status as a professional poet with a check for $15.00. Frost's first book was published around the age of 40, but he would go on to win a record four Pulitzer Prizes and become the most famous poet of his time, before his death at the age of 88.

 

To celebrate his first publication, Frost had a book of six poems privately printed; two copies of Twilight were made—one for himself and one for his fiancee. Over the next eight years, however, he succeeded in having only 13 more poems published. During this time, Frost sporadically attended Dartmouth and Harvard and earned a living teaching school and, later, working a farm in Derry, New Hampshire. But in 1912, discouraged by American magazines’ constant rejection of his work, he took his family to England, where he found more professional success.

 Continuing to write about New England, he had two books published, A Boy’s Will (1913) and North of Boston (1914), which established his reputation so that his return to the United States in 1915 was as a celebrated literary figure. Holt put out an American edition of North of Boston in 1915, and periodicals that had once scorned his work now sought it. 

 

Frost’s position in American letters was cemented with the publication of North of Boston, and in the years before his death he came to be considered the unofficial poet laureate of the United States. On his 75th birthday, the US Senate passed a resolution in his honor which said, “His poems have helped to guide American thought and humor and wisdom, setting forth to our minds a reliable representation of ourselves and of all men.” In 1955, the State of Vermont named a mountain after him in Ripton, the town of his legal residence; and at the presidential inauguration of John F. Kennedy in 1961, Frost was given the unprecedented honor of being asked to read a poem.

 Frost wrote a poem called “Dedication” for the occasion, but could not read it given the day’s harsh sunlight. He instead recited “The Gift Outright,” which Kennedy had originally asked him to read, with a revised, more forward-looking, last line.

Though Frost allied himself with no literary school or movement, the imagists helped at the start to promote his American reputation. Poetry: A Magazine of Verse published his work before others began to clamor for it. It also published a review by Ezra Pound of the British edition of A Boy’s Will, which Pound said “has the tang of the New Hampshire woods, and it has just this utter sincerity. It is not post-Miltonic or post-Swinburnian or post Kiplonian. This man has the good sense to speak naturally and to paint the thing, the thing as he sees it.”

 Amy Lowell reviewed North of Boston in the New Republic, and she, too, sang Frost’s praises: “He writes in classic metres in a way to set the teeth of all the poets of the older schools on edge; and he writes in classic metres, and uses inversions and cliches whenever he pleases, those devices so abhorred by the newest generation. He goes his own way, regardless of anyone else’s rules, and the result is a book of unusual power and sincerity.” In these first two volumes, Frost introduced not only his affection for New England themes and his unique blend of traditional meters and colloquialism, but also his use of dramatic monologues and dialogues. “Mending Wall,” the leading poem in North of Boston, describes the friendly argument between the speaker and his neighbor as they walk along their common wall replacing fallen stones; their differing attitudes toward “boundaries” offer symbolic significance typical of the poems in these early collections. 

 

Mountain Interval marked Frost’s turn to another kind of poem, a brief meditation sparked by an object, person or event. Like the monologues and dialogues, these short pieces have a dramatic quality. “Birches,” discussed above, is an example, as is “The Road Not Taken,” in which a fork in a woodland path transcends the specific. The distinction of this volume, the Boston Transcript said, “is that Mr. Frost takes the lyricism of A Boy’s Will and plays a deeper music and gives a more intricate variety of experience.” 

The Road Not Taken 

BY ROBERT FROST

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference. 

The Road Not Taken’ by Robert Frost is quite a popular poem; unfortunately, however, its popularity comes mainly from the simple act of misreading. With this poem, Frost has given the world a piece of writing that every individual can relate to, especially when it comes to the concept of choices and opportunities in life.

A majority of the time, this poem is quoted and used with an interpretation that is not exactly “correct”. The popular belief is that Frost meant for this poem to be about hope, success, and defying the odds by choosing a path well, “less traveled by.” On the other hand, if the poem is reviewed, it is quite obvious that it has fairly the opposite connotation.

It is Robert Frost’s first poem in his book “Mountain Interval” (1916). A popular pleasantly misconstrued poem since its release, its simplicity, and way with words demonstrate the skill of Frost’s pen.

Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening

by Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.

His house is in the village though;

He will not see me stopping here

To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer

To stop without a farmhouse near

Between the woods and frozen lake

The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake

To ask if there is some mistake.

The only other sound’s the sweep

Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

This poem was published in 1923. It was written to capture the conflict between man and nature and also to highlight the difference between wishes and obligations we face in our lives. However, it has become one of the most popular poems in English literature.

“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” as a poem about nature: As the poem is about nature, it has been written from the perspective of an adult, who stops by the woods to enjoy the mesmerizing beauty of nature. The expression of stopping given in the first stanza continues until the traveler decides to restart his journey.  The expression of not knowing the woods and then realizing one’s duties mark the central point of the poem. However, what stays in the minds of the readers is the eye-catching and bewitching beauty of woods in the snowy evening.

Major themes in “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”: The poem comprises the thoughts of an adult, why he stops and why he wants to stay in the lap of nature, forgetting all his worldly affairs. The traveler wants to take a moment to pause in the quiet woods to watch the snow falling. He says he knows whose woods are these, but he is sure the owner of the woods will not notice his presence because he is in the village.

He is tempted to stay longer, but the pull of obligations and considerable distance force him to leave the woods. As he says that he has to travel a lot, it means he has to perform a lot of duties. Therefore, he puts his wishes aside and starts his journey again. This poem is about the boundaries and limits in which human beings pass their lives, and which do not allow them to get derailed from their respective paths.

Work cited : 

Frost, Robert. “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert...” Poetry Foundation, Poetry Foundation

Frost, Robert. “The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost.” Poetry Foundation, Poetry Foundation

“Robert Frost.” Poetry Foundation, Poetry Foundation