A Study Of The Natural Images In Robert Frost's Poetry

The transcendentalism campaign, like a magnet with tremendous energy, attracted large amounts of American writers. Around the center of Emerson, a writer group was formed on the basis of New England, and Frost was one of them. Being the nation's unofficial Poet Laureate in 20^th century, Robert Frost was known as one of two centers in the circle of American poets and the other core was Eliot. Serving as a link between past and future, Frost accepted Emerson's idea of poetics which were internalized in his own poetry.Ralph Waldo Emerson, as a great thinker, writer, critic and the pioneer of American Transcendentalism, was undoubtedly a quite influential representative in American history. On the basis of religious pluralism and mysticism, his Poetics and aesthetics expounded distinctively the relationship among mankind, God and nature. The three dimensions of his Transcendentalism, influencing, permeating and supporting one and the other two, constituted the main body of American Transcendentalism which was important to American literature and its ideological history. Being one of the motive power of American literature independence and modernization, his thoughts aroused the ideological revolution in the nation.This thesis consists of three parts, in front of which there is an introduction. The introduction part firstly gives a brief opinion of Emerson's transcendentalism and the relationship between Emerson and Frost. The first chapter mainly makes comments on Emerson's religious thoughts and how it influences Frost and his poems. In his poems, we can see that people worship God in great nature, and God retires from nature. The second chapter puts emphasis on Emerson's transcendental symbolism and its impacts on Frost's poetics. Frost inherits the core of Emerson's poetics and translates it into his own. So natural things have strong poetics quality in his poems. The third chapter puts emphasis on Emerson's aesthetic thoughts and its influence on Frost's poems. Nature depicted by Frost in his poem reflects Emerson's perspective ofa threefold aesthetic experience. The first level is more sensuous as it largely pleases the ear and eye, the second level is more psychological as it chiefly pleases the mind and mood, and the third level is more sublimate as it mainly pleases the will and spirit. Till now, we are fortunate to see that Emerson's thoughts and Frost's poems haven't lost their strong vitality.