Robert Lee Frost(1874-1963)

• “National Poet of America”

• "New England's most authentic poet“

• Vermont's state poet laureate

• Four Pulitzer Prizes

• Honorary degrees from forty-four colleges and universities

Transplanted New Englander

• Born in San Fransico, Robert L. Frost moved to New England at eleven after his father died and became interested in reading and writing poetry.

• In 1895 Frost married Elinor White and they had six children later. But a son, Elliott, and a daughter, Elinor, died before 1907, and this tragedy was one of many which affected Frost’s poetry, and his view of life. 

• In 1894, he sold his first poem, 'My Butterfly: An Elegy', to a New York magazine, The Independent.

• In 1897, Frost entered Harvard College but remained there just two years because of financial difficulties and poor health.

• In 1900, he settled with his family on a farm in Derry, New Hampshire.

The Frost farm, where the family lived from 1900-1911

• Robert and Elinor Frost at Plymouth, New Hampshire, 1911

stone walls

Discovering Frost in England（ 1913-1920）

• In the fall of 1912, Frost moved with his family to England. The American poet and expatriate,Ezra Pound, encouraged Frost in writing and helped him get his first volume of poetry published.

• It was Ezra Pound who discovered Frost brought him belatedly to the attention of America.

• A Boy's Will (1915)

• North of Boston (1915)

• Mountain Interval (1916)

Reception

• "simple phrasing and patient sincerity"

--Morton Payne

• “Madness” of the characters in North of Boston

-- Amy Lowell

• "a winsome personality, unassuming but not shy . . . well built; a finely modeled head, mobile features and sensitive, dark brown hair of youthful abundance . . . expressive blue eyes, tinged with a lightness as of summer mist at dawn."

-- Sylvester Baxter

Flush Times (1920-1930 )

• England's entry into the First World War hastened Frost's return to America early in 1915.

• He spent the rest of his life writing poetry, lecturing, and serving as a poet in residence at several universities in America and won great population.

Years of Trial (1930-1940)

• He was criticized severely, called not only unrepresentative of American life but fully as “moribund” (垂死的 )as the vanished way of life.

• His work was perceived by the politically oriented only within the narrow limits permitted by the ideologies of Marxist critics.

Times of Triumph( 1940-1960 )

• Having survived the turmoil of the 1930s with his readership undiminished, Robert Frost saw his public reputation widen and grow ever more secure, while his honors, including a fourth Pulitzer Prize for A Witness Tree (1942) accumulated further.

• In 1960, the U.S. government awarded him a gold medal for his contribution to American culture.

• In 1961, he was invited to read his poetry "The Gift Outright," at the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy.

• Poetry

• A Boy's Will (David Nutt, 1913; Holt, 1915).• North of Boston (David Nutt, 1914; Holt, 1914).• Mountain Interval (Holt, 1916).• Selected Poems (Holt, 1923) • New Hampshire (Holt, 1923; Grant Richards, 1924).• Several Short Poems (Holt, 1924).• Selected Poems (Holt, 1928).• West-Running Brook (Holt, 1929).• The Lovely Shall Be Choosers (Random House, 1929).• Collected Poems of Robert Frost (Holt, 1930; Longmans, Green, 19

30).• The Lone Striker (Knopf, 1933).• Selected Poems: Third Edition (Holt, 1934).• Three Poems (Baker Library, 1935).• The Gold Hesperidee (Bibliophile Press, 1935).

• From Snow to Snow (Holt, 1936).• A Further Range (Holt, 1936; Cape, 1937).• Collected Poems of Robert Frost (Holt, 1939; Longmans,

Green, 1939)• A Witness Tree (Holt, 1942; Cape, 1943).• Steeple Bush (Holt, 1947).• Complete Poems of Robert Frost, 1949 (Holt, 1949; Cap

e, 1951).• Hard Not To Be King (House of Books, 1951). • Aforesaid (Holt, 1954).• A Remembrance Collection of New Poems (Holt, 1959).• You Come Too (Holt, 1959; Bodley Head, 1964)• In the Clearing (Holt Rinehart & Winston, 1962) • The Poetry of Robert Frost, (New York, 1969).

• Plays• A Way Out: A One Act Play (Harbor Press, 1929).• The Cow’s in the Corn: A One Act Irish Play in Rhyme (Slide Mount

ain Press, 1929).• A Masque of Reason (Holt, 1945).• A Masque of Mercy (Holt, 1947).

• Prose• The Letters of Robert Frost to Louis Untermeyer (Holt, Rinehart &

Winston, 1963; Cape, 1964).• Robert Frost and John Bartlett: The Record of a Friendship, by Mar

garet Bartlett Anderson (Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1963).• Selected Letters of Robert Frost (Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1964).• Interviews with Robert Frost (Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1966; Cape,

1967).• Family Letters of Robert and Elinor Frost (State University of New Y

ork Press, 1972).• Robert Frost and Sidney Cox: Forty Years of Friendship (University

Press of New England, 1981).

Theory of Poetry“begins in delight and ends in wisdom”

• Subject matter: New England life and farming ;

realistic depictions of rural life

• Style : Profound simplicity ;

Rhymed stanzas and blank verse

• He used the old forms in a new way, in an informal style, as if talking face to face with a friend.

• He used New England idioms, characters, and settings, recalling the roots of American culture, to get at universal experience.

Conclusion• Robert Frost’s work led back to aspects of

Thomas Hardy, Emily Dickinson, and Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Wordsworth, John Donne, and the Latin idylls(田园诗 ) of Virgil.

• But Frost's irony and ambiguity, his concreteness and colloquial tone, his skepticism and honesty bespoke the modern.