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Dana Gioia

Decent Essays

Dana Gioia argues in this analytical essay that Robert Frost was a narrative poet who left a modernist narrative legacy by writing ballads, linear narratives, dramatic monologues, and dramatic narratives. She provides a thorough description of Frost’s book North of Boston, and she describes the effects the book has had on the way poetry is now written. Gioia states that Frost’s ballads represent the weakest body of his poetic work. She also considers the language in Frost’s linear narratives as “modern and conversational” (4). Gioia makes visible that Frost typically avoided dramatic monologues. She attributes this to Frost’s tendency to write more modernistic poetry. Dramatic narratives are an important category of Frost’s poetry, and Gioia considers this category the largest and most original. She vividly …show more content…

R.V. Young argues that Frost's poetry served as a conservative voice of opinion during Franklin Roosevelt's presidency. Young analyzes Frost's poem "Build Soil" and makes visible its portrayal of socialism as an improper form of government. He notes that Frost is ridiculed by liberal critics for the conservative undertones in his poetry. Young recognizes Frost's poem "The Lesson for Today" as "profoundly conservative . . . at the expense of New Deal liberals" (113). He argues Frost's disdain is the utopian notion that all sorrows are caused by the government, and can also be cured by the government. Young also makes visible the fascinating marriage portrayed by Frost in the poem "The Death of The Hired Hand." He argues that the husband symbolizes Republican ideology, and the wife symbolizes Democratic New Deal ideology. Concluding his essay, Young states that Frost's poetry is conservative not because of party affiliation, but because it offers an "honest vision of the reality of human experience that all politics must respect"

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