An Existentialist Interpretation Of Robert Frost’s Poems

Robert Frost(1874-1963) was one of the most important and influential poets of the twentieth century. During his lifetime, he was the Pulitzer Prize winner on four occasions and when he was eighty-seven, he got the honor of reading his poetry at the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy. As an important poet, Frost is known for using simple nature-oriented images to reveal universal aspects of human experience.The domestic and international academic researches of Frost’s poems are mostly from the perspectives of natural imagery, ecologism, and means of artistic expression. From the end of the1980s, altogether there are about160domestic journal articles and around3000international ones written from the above similar angles to analyze the poems and their writing features. Although there are a few critical articles concerning the philosophical analysis of the poems, there’s still no one who gives an in-depth interpretation from the perspective of existentialism.Therefore, this thesis interprets Frost’s poems by applying Sartre’s existentialist views. Through the aspects showed in the poems, such as attitudes toward life, responsibility, choice for life, the relationships between human beings, and etc, this thesis aims to further dig out the philosophical implication of existentialism and reveal the profound meaning of Frost’s poems. Meanwhile, this thesis also hopes to supplement the variety of the studies on Frost’s poems and to provide a reference for other scholars.