A. Bibliographical research about Robert Frost
1. Childhood and youth of Robert Frost
2. Life twists in later years
B. Career challenges and achievements
1. First steps in literary world
2. Poetry keyline and poetic achievements
C. Writing style and attitudes of Robert Frost
1. Style and peculiar features
2. Major themes
D. Poem presentation
III. Conclusion
Being a renowned American poet, Robert Lee Frost is an eminent figure in the literary world and a distinguished artist with a profound oeuvre of remarkable masterpieces, remembered, nurtured and admired to this date. His life and artistic legacy raise a particular interest and urge to investigate his life story and fundamental factors and conditions that influenced his personality and writing. In the beginning of the 20th century, Robert Frost firstly established himself as a modernist poet and introduced his own world vision and approach to literature, namely, he focused on realistic interpretation of the common human life and environment in the natural surrounding. More precisely, he dedicated many of his poems to various natural themes and rural life in New England, in which he explicated his attitude to the world as well as his social and philosophical standpoints. The poem chosen to be analyzed, which is “In a Disused Graveyard,” is inherent to the writing style of Frost, since it perfectly illustrates his realistic, but quite darkened thoughts about life revealed in plain words and uncovered imagery. Nonetheless, breaking through poverty, unrecognition and all other slings and arrows of his life, Robert Frost managed to serve his vocation and became famous worldwide due to his original, heartfelt and subtle poetry.
Robert Lee Frost was born on March 26, 1874 in San Francisco to the family of a journalist and a teacher. His father, William Prescott Frost, Jr., died when Robert was just 11 years old. His mother, Isabelle Moodie, supported by his grandfather, took care of Robert and his younger sister Jeanie. It was she, who cultivated his love of literature from the very childhood (Burnshaw, “Frost's Life and Career”). Later in school years, he got fascinated by Greek and Latin. Among his achievements are being a successful student, an editor of the high school journal Bulletin, a head of the class. It was on his last year of study at school that he fell in love with his future wife Elinor White. During this period, Robert was captured by poetry and he started writing at the age of sixteen. As his family lived a rather poor life, he had to start working very early. On demand of his grandfather, he went on to study at Dartmouth. However, it was not his way and being uninterested in the campus life but engrossed in poetry, he left the university right after a few months, and rejoined his family in Lawrence and started teaching in school (Bloom 5). All his other temporary employments were not much successful and did not bring fair income, thus, he adhered to teaching. Eventually, in 1894, Robert Frost’s first poem “My Butterfly: An Elegy” was published in a New York magazine The Independent. Meanwhile, there were also a few distressful attempts to get married with his beloved Elinor. Only in December, 1895 they finally married for a lifetime (Pritchard). However, the major ambition of Robert Frost at that time was to become a professor of Greek and Latin in college. Though in order to be able to achieve it, he had to graduate from college first. Again with the help of his grandfather, he was accepted to Harvard, one of the most prestigious universities in New England, where he spent only 2 years. As he was worried about his pregnant wife and ill mother and faced a bad health condition himself, he decided to leave (Burnshaw, “Frost's Life and Career”). Then, Robert Frost drew into farming. His grandfather helped him to buy a farm in Derry, New Hampshire, where the poet produced many of his most famous masterpieces. He really enjoyed farming, spending time in countryside and learning the lives of its people as well as he felt a relief in seclusion. Although the “Derry Years” were very fruitful for Frost’s first poetry selections and writing in general, they were not very profitable for his big family with four children. Pressed for money, he had to get back to school, and by 1906 he became an English teacher at nearby Pinkerton Academy. His teaching career continued up till 1911. Nonetheless, the fate made the poet change his life significantly and he took away him family to seek for a better life in England (ibid.)
Consequently, it is worth emphasizing that Robert Frost tried himself in many employments and activities, but they did not bring him a comfortable living but only helped to afford a subsistence and basic support for his family. His life was greatly influenced by financial difficulties, which prevented him from enjoying what he actually wanted to do, and forced him to seek for profitable affairs and, moreover, escape from his homeland. Even in later years, when Robert Frost was already a famous and honored poet, sometimes he still had to interrupt his writing and yield to public and university readings, since they brought him money (Bloom 6). In addition, the lack of success and recognition in American literary world also caused him great efforts to overcome. Thus, life hardships and family calamities casted a shadow on his psychological state, which was further reflected in his writings. The endless row of losses darkened his life and was intermittently filling it with grief and depression.
The poetic career path of Robert Frost was also long and anfractuous. Narrow and challenging at the origins, with time and endless efforts it grew into wide, astonishing and glittering at the end. His poetic talent arose in his green years, when he firstly started to express his feelings in writing. However, his great poetic beginning was in 1894, when his first poem “My Butterfly: An Elegy” was published in a magazine and became his starting point. Thereafter, his literary activity was not very vivid or successful. Living on the Derry farm was a significantly important period in his writing career, since he was writing a lot and gathered a good amount of works, which further were included into his famous collections, such as A Boy's Will (1913) and North of Boston (1914). However, the success was not to come to him in his homeland (Burnshaw, “Frost's Life and Career”). The poet was forced to take his family to England where his poetic career overcame a great breakthrough. There he made acquaintances with his famous literary contemporaries and later fellows, such as F. S. Flint, Ezra Pound, Edward Thomas, who wrote numerous reviews for his works, and many others. Shortly after arrival to England, his first poetry book A Boy's Will was published (Pritchard). England gave Frost desired opportunities to break into the literary world. Upon returning to America, Robert Frost was already famous and solicited. In 1915, his second poetic collection North of Boston was published. The third volume of his poems Mountain Interval saw the world right after the second one, namely, in 1916. It included some of his finest poems, such as "Birches," "Out, Out--," "The Hill Wife," and "An Old Man's Winter Night" (Burnshaw, “Frost's Life and Career”).
Frost’s poems are plain traditional verses, characterized by conventional form metrics and original modern techniques, as for example, usage of vernacular New England language and metaphorization. The poet was of the opinion that a poetic language should be comprehensible and intelligible for all people. In other words, “good poetry should sound like from thinking deeply about the English language and especially the way people spoke it in their everyday dealings” (Spacey). It is believed that the beauty of the Frost’s poetry consists in the matter that “it's never literal, there are hidden meanings, despite the colloquial language.” (ibid.) Due to its meaningfulness and transparent deepness, his poetry influences every reader and gives a space for every person to explore oneself and challenge personal thinking and imagination to behold at least a similar picture to what the poet presented in his writings. Even Robert Frost himself, describing his poetry, revealed that: “I'm always saying something that's just the edge of something more” (Burnshaw, “Toward The “Knowable” Frost”). Therefore, Frost’s writings are not unremarkable. They represent a bleak outlook on life, and that is explicated in-between the lines, through the unique combination of dramatic tension and nature imagery, saturated with ambiguity (Burnshaw, “Frost's Life and Career”). Overall, it becomes absolutely clear why Robert Frost finally gained an extreme popularity in America and, further, around the globe. It is important to note that as a result of his endless efforts and dedication to his vocation, he was four times awarded with one of the most prestigious awards in the literary sphere – the Pulitzer award: in 1923 – for the poetry collection New Hampshire, in 1931 – for the book Collected poems, in 1937 – for poetry collection A Further Range, and lastly, in 1943 – for his poetry collection A Witness Tree (Pritchard). Consequently, Robert Frost’s poetic career was developing successfully. He was numerously invited to public readings and discussions of his poems in the universities throughout the country, and became widely admired and honored.
As it has been already mentioned, Robert Frost followed the traditional patterns and structures in poetry, though he introduced his own modernistic idea of “the sound of sense”: “I alone of English writers have consciously set myself to make music out of what I may call the sound of sense” (Paulin 8). In addition, he mastered his style by means of vernacular language, which made his poetry hospitable for everyone, and original metaphors that greatly contributed to the creation of the needed imagery, deepness and ambiguity of his writings. While simple language releases the embedded metaphors, imagery and equivocality, the metaphorical coloring gives a possibility for the reader to unpack and interpret the meaning conceived (Spacey).
The range of the themes, contemplated by Robert Frost, is versatile and discloses a lot about the poet and his attitudes to human, life and the world. It is considered that Robert Frost’s poetry is realistic, but still pessimistic inclusions. Indeed, one of his major themes are loneliness, defenselessness of human in the world, isolation and limitation in society and natural environment (“The Road Not Taken,” “The Wood Pile”). The poet believes that because of the self-centeredness and pride, fear and solitude, man feels embroiled and fails to achieve as much as he wanted (Sharma 3). The second major theme, beloved by Frost, is nature and its vigor. The poet was surely fond of nature and was especially inspired while living on his farms. He elucidated the nature in relation to human, its meaning and its splendor as opposed to small human (“Mending Walls”). The most significant theme erupting from his poems is the theme of existence, meaninglessness of life and fatality. Death is inevitable and overwhelms everyone, since human is powerless against it. Throughout his life, Robert Frost faced a lot of grief, calamity and pain. It seems like death played sadly significant role in his life, and it left permanent tragic shades on the fate of Frost. Many people who were exceptionally dear to his heart passed away and it lead him to depression and desolation. He lost his father at an early age. The death of his mother also left a deep trace in his heart. Over the years, he lost four out of his six children and suffered from excruciation of his fifth child. One of the greatest tragedies for him was a loss of his beloved wife after 42 years of a happy marriage. All these aspects affected his life crucially and were reflected in his works. The trace of death was numerously depicted in different poems of Robert Frost, such as “Home Burial,” “In A Disused Graveyard,” “The Wind And The Rain,” etc. The poet also elaborated some other important themes, which are, for instance, God (“A Masque Of Mercy”), youth and the loss of innocence (collection “A Boy’s Will”) and many others.
Ultimately, it is necessary to mention that any author and his personality is seeped through his literary works. Robert Frost is not an exception. The poem chosen to illustrate its representation of the poet is “In A Disused Graveyard” (Frost):
IN A DISUSED GRAVEYARD
“The living come with grassy tread
The graveyard draws the living still,
But never anymore the dead.
The verses in it say and say:
«The ones who living come today
Tomorrow dead will come to stay».
So sure of death the marbles rhyme,
Yet can't help marking all the time
How no one dead will seem to come.
What is it men are shrinking from?
It would be easy to be clever
And tell the stones: Men hate to die
And have stopped dying now forever.
I think they would believe the lie.”
The above poem reproduces a gloomy and pessimistic mood of the author. Again Robert Frost addresses his usual theme of death and utters a prediction that it is inevitable and awaits everybody in a defined time. He deliberately saturates the poem with the words that have negative meanings and connotations in order to remind all people about the imminence of death, which plagued his own life a lot. The poem is very typical for Frost, as death was a frequent visitor in his life. It seems like the poet himself would like to become that gravestone to hear that people (meaning his dear people) stopped dying. He would like to believe in that too, but it is too bitter to know that it is a lie. The poem analyzed is extremely meaningful and shades the light on the poet’s tender but lacerated soul and psychology. It perfectly represents his feelings, his mood, his attitude, his psychological and philosophical viewpoints on life and death.
Works Cited
Bloom, Harold. “Bloom's Modern Critical Views: Robert Frost.” Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 2003. Print.
Burnshaw, Stanley. “Frost's Life and Career.” Modern American Poetry. University of Illinois, n.d. Web. 20 Jul. 2016.
Burnshaw, Stanley. “Toward The “Knowable” Frost.” The Collected Poems and Selected Prose. Austin: University of Texas, 2002. Print.
Frost, Robert. “In A Disused Graveyard.” Internal.org, 16 Jan. 2012. Web. 20 Jul. 2016.
Paulin, Tom. “Thomas Hardy: The Poetry of Perception.” London: Macmillan, 1986. Print.
Pritchard, William H. “Frost's Life and Career.” Modern American Poetry. University of Illinois, n.d. Web. 20 Jul. 2016
Sharma, Neena. “The Realistic Nature of Robert Frost’s Poetry.” The Criterion: An International Journal in English (2012): n.pag. Web. 20 Jul. 2016.
Spacey, Andrew. “Robert Frost and the Sound of Sense in his Poems.” Letterpile. HubPages Inc., 25 Sep. 2015. Web. 21 Jul. 2016.
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