A Prodigious Poet
“Two roads diverged in a wood and I took the one less travelled by. And that has made all the difference.” (Potter 52) Robert Frost is one of the most beloved poets in America and around the world. Many of his famous works include: “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” “Birches,” “The Road Not Taken,” A Boys Will, and many other great works. Taking the road less travelled surprisingly, summarizes Frost slow start in finding recognition as a great American writer. Frost was not widely successful until he was thirty-eight years old. This composition will describe the slow and steady rise of Robert Frost’s reputation; his educational and career difficulties; his early literacy work being disregarded in America; and travelling to England and being assisted by his literary friends and family. All these things greatly contributed to Robert Frost’s career.
March 26, 1874, Robert Frost was born to the parents of William Prescott Frost Jr. and Isabelle Moodie Frost. “Her husband’s untimely death from tuberculosis in 1885 prompted Isabelle Moodie Frost to take her two children, Robert and Jeanie, to Lawrence Massachusetts.” (Gerber 1) When growing up around the East Coast, Robert was not interested in homework or anything school related. His mother, who was an educational teacher, helped both Robert and Jeanie learn to love, “folklore, poetry, and religious tales, by reading to them at home.” (Potter 6)
When he graduated high school in 1892, he was not only
On May 26th of 1874, in the city of San Fransisco, California, Robert Lee Frost was born to Scottish immigrant and father William Prescott Frost Jr. and mother Isabelle Moodle as the first of two children born to the Frost family; the second child of the Frost family, a daughter, Jeanie Frost was born a little over two years after Frost in 1876. About eleven years after his birth and nine years after the birth of his younger sister, Frost’s father died due to tuberculosis-a bacterial disease that affects the lungs-on May 5th of 1885. Shortly after his fathers death, the remaining members of the Frost family moved to the city of Lawrence, Massachusetts, where frost would eventually attend and graduate Lawrence High School as co-valedictorian alongside Elenor Miriam White-the woman who Frost would eventually marry in December of 1895-at the age of 18 in 1992. On the same year of hid graduation, Frost moved to the town of Hanover, New Hampshire to attend Dartmouth University, however, he moved back to Lawrence to work not even two months into the semester; once he returned to Massachusetts, Frost worked as an eighth grade school teacher in the city of Methuen, until 1895, when he took a job as a reporter for a news paper for a short time.
• Now let’s apply these literary devices by looking at “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost…
Authors write poetry for many reasons including to prove a point, share life stories or to just make the reader think. Robert Frost is a great example of a poet influenced by his experiences. These influences show up in most of his poetry, but especially in “The Road Not Taken”, “Stopping by Woods On a Snowy Evening”, and “Birches”. Moving to the New England region the nature and people helped him become a poet of worldly fame.
Robert Frosts “The Road Not Taken” is more symbolic of a choice one must make in their life in attempt to foresee the outcome before reaching the end, than it is about choosing the right path in the woods.
The analysis of “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost has been up for debate since the poem release in 1916. It is known to be one of the most frequently misinterpreted poems of all time, and even Robert Frost himself has said the poem is “tricky” to comprehend (The). When analyzing this poem many readers tend to focus only on the last lines of the poem and get caught in a trap of selective-interpretation. Quite a few people after reading Robert Frost’s poem firmly conclude that this poem is about non-conformity and individualism, however, that is not the case. Robert Frost’s poem is meant to be analyzed line by line for a complete interpretation. Readers can conclude that the poem represents making choices in life, but that is not the
In the Robert Frost poem ‘’The Road Not Taken’’ there is a pervasive and in many ways intrinsic sense of journey throughout. In such, the poem explores an aspect associated with human decision, or indecision, relative to the oxymoron, that choices with the least the difference should bear the most indifference, but realistically, carry the most difficulty. This is conveyed through the use of several pivotal techniques. Where the first such instance is the use of an extended metaphor, where the poem as a whole becomes a literary embodiment of something more, the journey of life. The second technique used is the writing style of first person. Where in using this, the reader can depict a clear train of thought from the walker and understand
Several people were influences in Frost’s life. His father was a journalist but died when Frost was only ten years old. His mother then took the family to Lawrence, Massachusetts where they had recently lived for generations (Stern). All of the craftsmen jobs he had growing up influenced his later writing. He attended Harvard with the intention of teaching Latin, but he bought a poultry farm instead to live there and write poetry (Hunt 1612). When Frost married and moved to Great Britain, he met several British poets who encouraged him. Edward Thomas, who died in World War One, was one of them. The other poet he met was Ezra Pound; he also was encouraged by her. A poet named Allen Ginsberg admired Frost, even though Frost would not of approved of his poetry. English poets such as Lascelles Abercrombie and T.E. Hulme were also influences in his life (“Monkeyshines on America”). Frost was one of the first to establish and hold a university position. He also encouraged young poets by creating a summer program called Bread Loaf (Stern). Frost’s family raised poultry on a farm near Derry, New Hampshire for nine years. It influenced Frost to take ownership of the farm to
Robert Frost went from an unstable farmer aspiring to be a poet to a celebrated American poet and four-time Pulitzer Prize winner. In his poem “The Road Not Taken”, he writes about the hard choices that people have to make in their lives. Robert uses extended metaphors and symbolism to show the uncertainty and psychological chaos people feel while making hard choices.
On March 26, 1874, in San Francisco, California, Robert Lee Frost was born. William Prescott Frost Jr. and Isabelle Moodie, his parents, moved to California shortly after marrying. His father died from tuberculosis when he was just eleven years of age. After the death of his father, Frost moved to Lawrence, Massachusetts, with his mother and sister. There he became interested in reading and writing poetry in his high school years. Robert Frost attended Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, in 1892, and later went to Harvard
Robert Frost was born on March 29, 1874 in the city of San Francisco, California. When Robert’s father, William Prescott Frost Jr, died in 1185 his mother took him and his sister Jeanie to Lawrence, Massachusetts. He later married Elinor White, his co-valedictorian whom he had already fallen in love with in high school. His first poem was published in 1894 but he didn’t earn a living until almost 20 years later. In 1900 he was given a small farm where he worked unsuccessfully for eleven years, making most of his income from teaching. Making a daring move Robert sold the farm and moved to England where he published poems like A Boy’s Will, Storm Fear, Mowing, and the Tuft of Flowers.
The four time Pulitzer Prize winning poet, Robert Frost, is well known for his picturesque portrayal of rural lifestyle, focusing mainly on the New England region of the United States. “The Road Not Taken”, published in 1916 is one of his earliest written and most highly praised works. It is considered a masterpiece of American Literature and its content is frequently studied by high school and college students to this day. The poem is a closed frame narrative type consisting of four stanzas with a rhyme scheme of ABAAB. While being the most popular of the numerous poems written by Robert Frost, it has also been one of the most misinterpreted and openly interpreted poems of his
Robert Lee Frost, born in 1874, grew up in California. He was an extraordinary student, and ended his high school career as one of the valedictorians. He was very intelligent, and even went on to Dartmouth College, though he did not graduate. He was married to his former high school classmate Elinor White in 1895. Together they gave birth to six children. Later in life he attended Harvard College. Robert Frost was known for his love of nature, and portrays it in many of his poems. For part of his life he worked as a farmer, which could have contributed to his love for nature. Though Frost clearly states, “I am not a nature poet. There is almost always a person in my poems” (frostfriends.org). Frost obviously does not want people to think that he writes strictly about nature. He wants others to see the meaning behind his poetry, as well as the “human psychology” hidden underneath his poems. Frost did love nature though, not to be mistaken. He did use nature a lot throughout his poetry, he just did not want people to skim the surface of his poems and think they were about nature when they
“Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words,” Robert Frost once said. As is made fairly obvious by this quote, Frost was an adroit thinker. It seems like he spent much of his life thinking about the little things. He often pondered the meaning and symbolism of things he found in nature. Many readers find Robert Frost’s poems to be straightforward, yet his work contains deeper layers of complexity beneath the surface. These deeper layers of complexity can be clearly seen in his poems “ The Road Not Taken”, “Fire and Ice”, and “Birches”.
In order to understand where Robert Frost is coming from in his poetry it is important to learn about the experiences in his life. Robert Frost was born on March 26, 1874 in San Francisco. His father was from
“The Road Not Taken” is a poem that involves a common dilemma faced in every single life. Robert Frost wrote the poem trying to explain to his friend Edward Thomas that he took the best decision in his life taking the road least travel. His friend misunderstood Frost intentions and after read the poem, he took the other road in his life and it made all the difference. Instead of travel to America and be a great professor, Thomas felt the sensation of be an unsuccessful writer and a non-patriotic citizen which help him to take the decision of enlist during the war. After taking the other road in his life, he finishes with his life during the war. The poem creates a connection with the reader because the situation presented emphasizes the life of any person. Every person is forced to decide a path and the decision made it, will always make a difference. The result of a person's character or life is related in the decisions made it during his or her life. In “The Road Not Taken”, Robert Frost uses different types of conflicts, character versus self, character versus nature, character versus society, to show how the path taken in life makes all the difference.