Robert Frost Research Paper free essay sample

He is well known for his poems depicting the rural countryside of New England and his universally relatable themes. Frost endured a rough upbringing and tragic events later in life; however, he had an explosive career of writing poetry in New England and America. Frost was also well respected for being a teacher and his speeches. Robert Frost is one of America’s greatest poetry writers, teachers and public speaker’s, who had a long and influential career and delivered a unique style and powerful themes in his work. Robert Lee Frost was born in San Francisco, California on March 26, 1874. His father, William Prescott Frost, Jr. , was a journalist and New England transplant who named him after his personal hero, Robert E Lee. During Robert Frost’s childhood, â€Å"his father drank hard, carried a pistol, and kept a jar of pickled bull testicles on his desk, while his mother suffered from depression† (Shmoop Editorial Team). We will write a custom essay sample on Robert Frost Research Paper or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page When his father died of tuberculosis when Robert was just twelve years old, they moved from California to Lawrence, Massachusetts, to live with his paternal grandparents. Despite these troubled years, Frost graduated from Lawrence High School in 1892 as co-valedictorian. â€Å"From an early age, he was exposed to reading and writing and the works of William Shakespeare, Robert Burns, and William Wordsworth† (Merriman). He enrolled at Dartmouth College, but dropped out after one semester in order to work. For the next two years he struggled with two of his goals: successfully getting a poem published and getting his co-valedictorian to marry him. She was not impressed with his attempt to win her over with a printed book of his poetry. In distraught, he took off to Dismal swamp, a place where poets like to write about their heartsick feelings. While there, he joined a group of duck hunters and eventually returned to Lawrence with a changed attitude. He had a new theme that appeared frequently in his poetry. The theme was about setting out alone into nature and losing oneself in the wild. Upon his return from the Dismal swamp, his first poem, My Butterfly was published in November 1894. The next December, he married his love, Elinor. Robert Frost and his new wife Elinor White began their life together teaching but things changed very quickly for them. In September 1896, they had their first son, Elliott. Then in 1897, Frost enrolled at Harvard, but was forced to leave before finishing his degree to support their growing family as they had a daughter, Lesley, on the way. Very soon after her birth, Elliott died of Cholera at four years old. They moved to a farm in Derry, New Hampshire that was given to Frost by his grandfather. Over the next 10 years, they farmed poultry and had four more children, the youngest of which died a few days after birth. They also taught English at local Pinkerton Academy. During this time, Frost had almost no success getting his poetry published; however, the time spent on the farm did inspire some future works. He also formed a love of nature, the great outdoors and rural countryside. (Merriman) By 1911, Frost decided it was time to sell the farm and move the family to Great Britain where it was cheaper to live and he had the best chance of becoming a professional poet. It was here that he befriended a few â€Å"literary notables† that helped him launch his career. Within a few months of moving to England, at 38 years old, Robert Frost truly began his career as a poet and found a publisher that would publish his first two books of poems, A Boy’s Will, and North of Boston. â€Å"He also met two poets who would affect his life and career in significant ways, Ezra Pound and Edward Thomas† (Bio. com). They were the first to review his work and provide encouragement. Frost gave credit to Thomas’ long walks over the English landscape and indecisiveness and regret of which path to take as inspiration for one of his most famous poems, The Road Not Taken. Bio. com). Time spent in England was cut short for Frost when World War I broke out in 1914. When he brought his family back home to the United States in 1915, he was already well known in the poetry and publishing world. His publisher, Henry Holt, who would remain with him for the rest of his life, had purchased all of the copies of North of Boston, and in 1916, he published Frost ’s Mountain Interval, a collection of other works that he created while in England, including a tribute to Thomas. (Bio. com) These works included poems that had been rejected to publishers in England. Frost purchased a farm in New Hampshire and began teaching at Amherst College. This was the first of many positions he held at American universities over the following 45 years. â€Å"Frost was almost as famous for teaching poetry as he was for writing it† (Shmoop Editorial Team). He became the first ever writer-in-residence at a university when he began a summer teaching position at Bread Loaf School of English at Middlebury College in 1921. During this time, he was known for being a well-liked instructor, reciting poetry to the public, and for writing. After moving to Shaftsbury, Vermont in 1920, he put together a new series of poems published as the collection, New Hampshire, in 1922. This set of works included Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening and earned him his first Pulitzer prize in 1923 and, â€Å"from here, his career was off and running† (Shmoop Editorial Team). Frost continued his career of reading, writing and publishing poetry and teaching for the next almost 40 years. He went on to win three more Pulitzer Prizes for Collected Poems in 1931, Further Range in 1936, and A Witness Tree in 1943. His schedule for public speaking was so demanding that his wife Elinor became a secretary for him. By the 1940’s, Frost was undisputedly the grand master of American poetry as awards, honorary degrees, and teaching appointments at the country’s finest universities were heaped upon him. (Shmoop Editorial Team) By this time in his life he had unfortunately already lost his wife to a hear attack, a son to suicide, and a daughter who was giving birth. Poetry seemed to be what held him together during such tragedies. His poetry actually lightened in intensity after World War II when he published the collection Steeple Bush in 1947. He made a triumphant return to England in 1957, where his poetry was never sufficiently appreciated, to receive honorary degrees from Oxford and Cambridge. (Pritchard, Burnshaw) In 1961, an admirer of his, John F. Kennedy asked Frost to read a poem at his inauguration. â€Å"By then 86 years old, the poet’s handling of an unexpected snafu at the event only cemented his stellar reputation† (Shmoop Editorial Team) Frost had written a new poem, Dedication for the event but wasn’t able to read it because of glare and ended up reciting his poem, The Gift Outright, about the founding of America. Kennedy then returned the favor by speaking at the inauguration of the Robert Frost Library in Amherst, Masachusettes in October 1963. At 88 years old, Frost died a couple months later on January 29, 1963 from complications from prostate surgery. He was buried in Bennington, Vermont, under a self-written epitaph that summed up his complicated relationship with life: â€Å"I had a lover’s quarrel with the world. † Frost undoubtedly had a very long and successful career of teaching and writing poetry. Robert Frost was one of America’s greatest poets and had many different aspects to his style of poetry. President Kennedy said, â€Å"His life and his art summed up the essential qualities of the New England, he loved so much: the fresh delight in Nature, the plainness of speech, the canny wisdom, and deep underlying insight into the human soul† (Tanvir). Frost often wrote his poems with characters and events of rural New England, but would make the stories highly universal for such a regional focus. Even with nature playing a major role in most of his work, he said himself, â€Å"I guess I’m not a nature poet. I have only written two poems without a human-being in them† (Tanvir). He also incorporates symbolism into his work with many poems having a surface meaning as well as a deep symbolical meaning. His poem, Mending Wall, means â€Å"good fences make good neighbors†; however, on a deeper level relates to the dilemma between strengthening of natural boundaries for protection and removing them because they restrict progress toward â€Å"international brotherhood† (Tanvir). Frost is often regarded as a great introduction to the study of poetry because of his â€Å"simplicity† and lucidity† on the surface as well as the â€Å"subtlety† and complexity† that is revealed after becoming familiar with his work. Tanvir) Frost’s structure and technique was so flexible that even when he didn’t follow a rhyme scheme or have an evenly versed poem, the words always flowed with elegance. He was a realist in that he would be honest and not sugar-coat things in his writing. It was important for him to always have confide nce in his knowledge of the subjects of his work. â€Å"His attitude towards Nature is one or armed and amicable true and mutual respect. He recognizes and insists upon the boundaries which exist between individual man and the forces of Nature† (Tanvir). Frost is undoubtedly passionate about this belief and respect of nature as it appears in many of his poems. Frost has been characterized as a modernist and experimental poet for his style, form, and techniques were always evolving. One constant for Frost is that he seems to believe that the universe includes three orders of being – man, Nature, and God. (Tanvir) Robert Frost also incorporated major themes into his poems. A theme that appears frequently in his work is about man’s isolation in the universe and sense of alienation from his environment. This is largely due to the ragedies that struck him and his family. His poetry expressed his feelings of loneliness in the world around him. There are also themes of self discovery and love. In most of him poems, the speaker, whether intentional or not, discovers who they are and it is often through love. This helps the speaker to power through the challenging forces that the universe presents. Frost portrays these themes wh ile always maintaining his respect for Nature and the universe we live in. One of Robert Frost most famous poems is â€Å"Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening†. He wrote this poem in June 1922 at his home in Shaftsbury, Vermont. The idea came to him as he was wrapping up writing on his poem, New Hampshire. The poem was then published in his New Hampshire volume in 1923. â€Å"Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening† 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 sounds 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. On a suface level, this poem is about the speaker traveling through the woods on a snowy evening admiring nature’s beauty but realizing there is a long way still to be traveled before nightfall and there is no time to rest. Frost has used a unique rhyme scheme in this poem as the first, second, and fourth lines rhyme in each stanza, and the third does not; however, it sets up the rhyme for the subsequent stanza. This is a perfect example of his experimental form that works for him every time despite its difficulty. On a deeper level this poem is about Frosts’ appreciation for nature and despite his lonliness, nature is calming to him and makes him feel at home. This poem, in itself, personifies Frost as a person and a poet. Robert Frost played a signifcant role in the history of American poetry. Despite a rocky start to writing he managed to show off his talent and begin getting his work published. Before long, his career exploded and he had become a four time Pulitzer Prize winner. He became known for his love of nature and incorporating images of the rural countryside of New England into his work. After enduring the tragedies of family members dying, many of his poems were about man’s isolation in the universe and finding one’s identity. This was a direct reflection of what he was going through personally. Robert Frost and his poetry will continue to be well-recognized for years to come.