Complexity In Frost's View Of Nature

Robert Frost is one of the most distinguished poets in the 20^th century American literature, the first one that wins Pulitzer Prize four times in his life time. He occupies an important position not only in American literature, but also in world literature. He has achieved a degree of fame unequaled to any modern American poet of his time.Most of his poetry is about New England life, and nature provides it with the main subject. Most of his nature poetry expatiates on the relation between man and nature, which is the central theme of his poetry. In exploring Frost's nature poetry, we should pay more attention to his view of nature. It will greatly help with our understanding of Frost's poetry and poetics.Through an analysis of the Romantic view of nature in Frost's nature poetry, the modernistic concepts of his view of nature, the poetic techniques he uses and the causes of his view of nature, this thesis attempts to explore the complexity in Frost's view of nature.Influenced by Wordsworth, Frost loves nature and chooses nature as his eternal theme. He depicts beauty of nature with affection. In many of his poems, nature offers enlightenment of morality and wisdom. But Frost's view of nature is different from that of Romantics. In contrast to the Romantics' faith that nature is in harmony with humanity, Robert Frost stresses the darkness, terror, cruelty and inhumanity of nature. This is the modernistic concepts of Frost's view of nature. It is mainly reflected in four aspects: 1) duality of nature, nature being bright and benevolent on the one side and dark and alien on the other side; 2) opposition between man and nature; 3) tragic implication of nature; 4) irony used in expression of his view of nature. So Frost's view of nature has both concepts of Romanticism and Modernism. There is the complexity in his view of nature.In this thesis, three causes are listed as the major causes of the complexity in Frost's view of nature: the first is the influence of Modernism; the second is the influence of Romanticism; the third is Frost's personal experiences. It should be noted that the formation of Frost's view of nature is complicated. There may be others factors which are not mentioned here. But the above three are the most significant.