THE FUNCTION OF PERSONALITY, NARRATIVE VOICE, IMAGES AND SYMBOLISM IN THE POETRY OF ROBERT FROST

The aim of this thesis is to provide the reader with a better understanding of Robert Frost's poetry by examining the function of its four major features, namely: Personality, Narrative voice, Images and Symbolism. Because of Frost's deceptive simplicity and artistic subtlety, however, critics not only fail to identify these features as signifiant contributors to and determinants of meaning in many of Frost's poems, but also do not show how problems in identifying the meaning of some poems are revealed by a necessary discussion of the poetry in terms of these features. The thesis, therefore, shows how the features indicate overt meanings, unapparent and hitherto unidentified implications, authorial attitudes, subtle techniques and problematic situations in the poetry.;Our present objective, instead, is to show how meaning is conveyed and affected by the function of the four features. Specifically, this means that, first, we will examine the way in which Frost's mental process, his actions and gestures, his social outlook, and at times his self-evaluative remarks convey ideas in the poetry (The Function of Personality). Second, we shall discuss the ownership of the narrative voice, which involves showing how the meaning of various poems is affected because of the function of the "I" and "he" and other forms of address. But we shall also analyse particular poems in terms of the prophetic and ironic voices to reveal poetic meaning, and then discuss intonational meaning in terms of Frost's successful and unsuccessful application of his sound of sense theory to his poetry (The Function of the Narrative Voice). Third, we shall also, through our discussion of images in terms of their colour, motion and form, show how certain ideas, authorial objectives and techniques are expressed in the poetry (The Function of Images). Finally, we shall show how personification and character portrayal, and the association of an object with a dramatic psychological situation express symbolism through a situation of symbolic hints. But we shall also identify meaning in some of Frost's most celebrated poems by evaluating and offering alternative interpretations to some of Frost's commentators (The Function of Symbolism).;Though the thesis deals with meaning in Frost's poetry, our objective is not to attribute systematised thought, a mythic schema, or a plenitude of themes to him, especially when Frost's artistic temperament was natively adverse to the employment of such literary characteristics in his work. We do not intend also to discuss such topics as Frost's regionalism, his classicism, his role as traditional or modern poet, the literary and philosophical influences in his work, or the question as to whether his was a constitutive imagination which, for instance, like Coleridge's, made him try to resolve the subject-object question of reality. The informed Frost reader knows that most of these topics have been explored by others, and no doubt will be the focus of other studies in the future. Our particular study is, obviously, of a different kind, and cannot, therefore, be expected to explore such topics in extenso. Nevertheless, because of the scope of our study, we will, at times, refer to some of these subjects as well as to others.