A Study Of Robert Frost's Poetry

Robert Frost (1874-1963), is one of the most famous American poets in the 20th century. He has devoted himself to writing and published fine poetry for decades. The honors he enjoyed throughout his career were unparalleled to those of any other American poets of his times. He won the Pulitzer Prize four times and was the only poet in American literary history who was invited by the President to read his poems at the inauguration. Many of his poems are popular with people home and worldwide. His influence is great not only in his own country, but also goes beyond the U.S.This dissertation intends to create a historical narrative structure to make an overall discussion and research on poet's whole life works. The paper makes all-directional,stage-parted and multi-dimensional exploration of the content and artistic character of Frost's poetry. The complete works of Frost's poems have been reviewed in this dissertation, from the poet's first collection The Boy's Will in 1913 to the last collection In the Clearing published before his death in 1962. The paper makes a total review of the poet's nine collections of poetry in his whole life, as well as two poetic plays.The paper traces the poet's lifetime trajectory creation, thus four chapters are divided to comment on the poetry of Robert Frost. Chapter 1:Pastoral Poetry:Early Poetry; Chapter 2:Sensible Perception of Life; Poetry in 20's; Chapter 3:Overcoming Suffering:Poetry in 40's; Chapter 4: Interplay between Art and Society:the Late Poems. The dissertation not only explores the characteristics of the poet's works from the macrocosmic aspect, but also focuses and expounds on the poet's poetry at a certain stage.Chapter 1 puts much emphasis on the Frost's three volumes of poetry in early times, in order to make an analysis of the true meaning of the poet's title of the pastoral poet in industrial society given by the critics. The chapter is divided into two parts. In the first session, it points out that Robert Frost, an American pastoral-toned poet, is best known as a talented patoral singer in the urban-industrial society. Frost readily draws his life into a dialogue between himself and the nature, in which he has well found his relevancy. This essay then proceeds with an in-depth and comprehensive study of Frost with respect to the background for the formation of his poetic style and the uniqueness of his poems. It points out that his life as a farmer and the labor in the country have significant and notable impacts on his poetic style. Just for this reason, the value of Frost's poems should be more than that of mere appreciation of the beautiful landscape imagery. Indeed, the intuition developed from the everyday experience and through the steadfast labor makes Frost's poetry insightful and blatantly candid. His poetry connects with the wilderness intimately, and expresses it in a natural casual rustic way. At the end of the first session, it reveals the recursive-iconicity structure of the poems, which is an effective way to show this naturally rustic poetic style. In the second part, the essay argues that Frost has shown great concern for humanity from the context of nature. The focus of this session lies in the sympathy for civilians, addressing women's rights to the society and pondering deeply over human nature. In the copy of North of Boston, the poet unifies the rural life of the fellow citizens, wilderness and farms, small characters and patriotism. It turns into a conjunctive and interdependent unity. The poet also glorifies the ideology of "people-orientation", which is genuinely reflected in the nature and rural life. The poems address the concerns of the civilians and in such a way, speaks for the civilians. Other than the lives and thoughts of the rural characters, Frost's poems also refer to the tragic lives of women. The women in Frost's poems are trapped in an adverse and oppressive situation. The poems reveal women's repressed inner feelings of alienation. It also illustrates that women are fundamental different from men, with regards of feelings, thoughts and character traits. Inevitably, women have to live in confusion with constant struggles against their fate within the male-dominated society. Logically, the emphasis on the lives of civilians and women leads to the pondering of human nature, which is rather common in Frost's poetry. To better illustrate Frost's expression on the inquiring into humanity, the essay selects a few of his best-known poems for discussion.Chapter II makes an exploration of Frost's poetry in 1920s-30s including the three collections of poems:North of Boston, Mountain Interval and New Hampshire with the comments on the poet's spiritual course. In the first half of the twentieth century, the United States were already in the age of industry. Frost, who was writing poems in that period, inevitably encountered the circumstances of a market economy, coupled with a keen awareness of business and money worship. This paper analyzes some questions as to how the poet managed to keep a peaceful mind despite the business tidal wave and to develop a style suiting both refined and popular tastes. In this chapter, the emphasis is laid on the poet's sensible perception of life. At first, the paper states briefly that the poet actively pursues a quiet mind in the circumstances of a market economy. The paper holds the view that only in a state of quiet mind can the poet truly and deeply understands and reflects the life. In addition, this paper probes into Frost's thoughts in everyday activities about life from three perspectives:emotion, responsibility and philosophy. Furthermore, Frost is believed to have been attentively thinking about the abundance and complexity of life and also he successfully expresses it in his poems. And on account of that his poems were described as "seemingly simple, complicated indeed" by Joseph Brodsky, a famous poet and critic. Thus after carefully elaborate research and analysis of that simple-complex feature, this paper brings forward some original opinions. It is out of his consciousness that he expresses his complicated ideas by means of plain and simple words. This paper attempts to analyze Frost's poems by the theory of metaphoric conceptual scheme, the blended space theory, the conceptual integration theory and study the complexity through internal tensile force and fabric of the simple words. It indicates that it is just as a result of the poet's full consciousness towards complex life. Finally, in two aspects the paper discusses the significance of Frost's poems with the background of industry.1) To warn industrialized society.2) To wish for harmony between human and nature.Chapter III places its emphasis on the poet's overcoming the sufferings and thoughts on the religions and makes a detail analysis and discussion of Frost's two collections of poetry:A Witness Tree and Steeple Bush and two poetic dramas:A Masque of Reason and A Masque of Mercy which were all published in the 40's. From the middle of 30's to 40's, the poet was entangled with the sufferings. Daughter Marjorie died in 1934. Later, his wife Elinor's passed away in 1938, and his son Carol committed suicide in 1940, which took place in the period of World War II, during which family disasters and national crises are intertwined. Through the analysis of poet's wonderful poems, the paper is of the opinion that the serial of sufferings did not beat down the poet. On the contrary, it made the poet sublimate. Because of the sufferings, the works of poet in this period would be apparently very profound and decorous. This chapter also puts much emphasis on the poet's thoughts on religion. The paper points out that the poet's religious feelings can be traced back to and are same with Emerson. The poet's religious feelings thus are different from western tradition and convention. Such religious feelings are fully reflected in poet's two poetic dramas A Masque of Reason and A Masque of Mercy, which a detailed analysis is given to in this chapter.Chapter IV focuses on Frost's later works from the perspective of the interplay between art and society. This chapter firstly makes an exploration to the poetry and politics from the angle of the relationship between the former President Kennedy and Frost. Although Frost is a poet and Kennedy is a politician, they established a profound friendship, which has become a favorite topic in American literary history. Frost was invited to read a poem in Kennedy's inauguration, which was unprecedented in the history of poetry since America was founded more than two hundred years. This typical event provides us a great space to illustrate the interplay between art and society. The essay makes a profound review on such an unusual event which has great artistic and social significance. Secondly, the paper probes into the poet's thoughts on the social life from the perspective of the interaction between art and society. Combined with a close reading of some poems, the chapter discusses respectively the three levels of poet's thoughts on social life:devotion, patriotism and man's obligatory responsibility for the society. This chapter thus gives a detailed analysis of such kind of poems. In the late years of Frost, he stuck to the thinking of the questions about the art of poetry. His last collection In the Clearing was just the result in this regard. This collection is the poet's life-time adherence and expansion of his style of writing and also is the poet's wonderful last work. All in all, the paper at the end of the chapter makes a conclusion that as far as the interplay between art and society is concerned, the poet keeps up with the times. On one hand, he always pays much attention to the changes of human beings in society; on the other hand, he sticks to his own unique art of poetry and makes valuable expansions all the time.