Robert Frost’s poetry
Name:- Krishna K. Patel
Roll No. :- 16
Batch :- 2018 – 2020
Enrolment no. :- 2069108420190035
Course :- MA English
Paper :- 10 American Literature
Topic :- Characteristics of Robert Frost’s Poetry
Submitted to :- Smt. S. B. Gardi
Department of English MKBU
Ø Introduction:-
Robert Frost is one of the most
popular and most honoured poets of America. Robert Frost also known as The
voice of America by Robert Grave. He also won numerous prizes and awards for
his outstanding work as a poet. He also received four Pulitzer prizes, the
Loines Prize for poetry, the Mark Twain medal, the Gold medal of the National
Institute of Arts and Letters, the silver medal of the poetry society of
America, and has occupied chairs in several universities and colleges. Robert
frost was invited to recite his patriotic poem The Gift Outright at the
inauguration of the presidential office of John F. Kennedy.
We can find the central themes in Robert
Frost’s poems are men and women, humanity, loneliness, isolation and Nature. He
chose incidents and situations from common life as the subjects of his poems
like Wordsworth.
His notable works :
1.
“The Road Not Taken”
2.
“The Death of the Hired Man”
3.
“Stopping by woods on a Snowy
Evening”
4.
“mending wall”
5.
“After Apple-Picking”
6.
“A Boy’s will”
7.
“New Hampshire”
8.
“Storm Fear”
9.
“North of Boston”
10.
“In the Clearing”
11.
“Burial Home”
Here I am taking three poems.
1)
“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy
Evening”
This poem is very simple poem. It has sixteen lines but there
is not a single three syllable word and only sixteen two syllable words. This
poem is surprisingly complex because of rhythmic scheme and form. The peom is
divided into four stanzas and every stanza has four stressed syllables in
iambic meter. In the first stanza we can find the rhyming scheme for example:
know, though, snow. Similarly in the second stanza we can find rhyming scheme
like queer, near, year.
This poem is shown the life of Frost. Once, frost said that
he was annoying by those pressing it for more than it should be pressed for
. It means enough without its being
pressed… I don’t say that somebody should not press it, but I don’t want to be
there”.
In this poem Frost described about winter and New Hampshire.
He told that when he was returning from the market with failure he had to face
the difficulty in the winter. He could not buy enough presents of Christmas for
his children. So he felt some depression and stopped his horse at a bend in the
road in order to cry. After some times the horse shook the bells on its
harness, Frost cheered enough to continue home.
As we know that this poem also described Frost’s life, but in
this poem the narrator did not suffer from the same financial
narrator preferred to watch the snow falling in the woods,
even with his horse’s impatience. Frost suggested that the narrator is
particularly attracted to the woods because there is not a farmhouse near. He
is able to enjoy complete isolation.
In this poem Frost mentioned repetition which suggest to
remembers his responsibilities. This poem is end with the death of
Narrator. Perhaps as a result of
hypothermia, because he was staying in the frozen woods for too long.
Mending Wall
In this poem talk about two neighbors who met every year to
repair the stone wall that divides their property. Because of wall they can
only see apples and pine trees. The narrator is unable to understand the need
for a walk when there is no livestock to be contained on the property. He did
not believe that a wall should be existed simply for the sake of existing. The
neighbor asserted that the wall is crucial to maintaining their relationship,
asserting, Good fences make good neighbors.
This poem was published in 1915 in North of Boston. Frost lived with his wife
in England from 1900 to 1909 at New Hampshire. Frost passed his time in New
Hampshire with a peaceful , rural sensibility that he instilled in the majority
of his subsequent poems. This poem is autobiographical poem. In this poem the
narrator talked about Frost who repaired the wall that separated their land.
The most famous line of the poem
“Good fences make good neighbors”
Was not invented by frost himself, but it was declared to
Frost by Guay during their walks. This proverb is very famous in different
vountries. For example:
Norway : “There must be a fence between good neighbors”
Germany : “ Between neighbor’s gardens a fence is good”
Japan : “Build a fence even between intimate friends”
India : “Love your neighbor, but do not throw down the dividing wall.”
This poem has not any stanzas but it have forty five lines.
It is very simple poem of first person narrative. In this poem Frost used
iambic stresses. He also used rhyme pattern : “wall”,
‘hill”, “balls”, “well”. In this peom we can find two
characters who have different ideas about relationship of neighbor. The
narrator deplores his neighbor’s preoccupation with repairing the wall, he
viewed it as old fashioned and even archaic. He quips that his apples are not
going to invade the property of his neighbor’s pinecones.
In this poem narrator told that wall is opposite to the
nature. Unknowingly, every year the wall is dislodged and gaps suddenly appear.
Every year Frost and his neighbor filled the gaps and replaced the fallen
boulders. It means the nature is attempting to destroy the barriers that man
has created on the land but the man continuous to repaired the barriers ,
simply out of habit and tradition.
In this poem we can interpret it that the narrator is more
active than the neighbor. The day was selected by the narrator and on that day
they mending informs his neighbor across the property. The narrator is even
more tied to the tradition of wall mending than his neighbor. By maintaining he
division between the properties the narrator and his neighbor are able to
maintain their individuality and personal identity as farmers: one of apple
trees, and one of pine trees. The act of meeting to repair the wall allows the
two men to develop their relationship and the overall community far more than
if each maintained their isolation on separate properties.
Home Burial
In this poem Frost describes a tense conversation between a
rural husband and wife whose child has recently died. In the beginning of this
poem the wife looking at the grave of her child through the window. Her husband
looked at his wife but he could not understand that why his wife was looking at
the grave and why she was suddenly becoming distressed.
This poem is a dramatic or pastoral lyric poem. He also used
free form dialogue rather than strict rhythmic schemes. Frost generally uses
five stressed syllables in each line and divides stanzas in terms of lines of
speech.
In this poem we can find two tragedies. One is the death of
the child and the other is the death of marriage. The title “Home Burial” can
be read with two references. Child’s death is the main reason of the problem of
marriage life. Because of the child’s death marriage was broken. While the
couple shares the tragedy of their child’s death, they are in conflicting
positions in terms of dealing with their grief.
Incapable of moving on at this point in her life the wife
defined her identity in terms of the loss and would rather grieves for the rest
of her life than grieve as a sort of pretense. The husband is a farmer so he
accepted of the natural cycle of life and death and he also digging the grave
for his child. But the wife has totally misunderstanding about her husband. She
viewed his behavior as a sign of his callous apathy.
Each character was isolated from the other at opposite ends
of the staircase. In this poem staircase is stand as a symbol. After marriage
everyone has to face many difficulties. Everyone has up and down in their
relation like staircase. The husband wanted to empathize to his wife but his
wife was not ready to understand and move towards down staircase after he has
already left his position at the foot. When the wife moved down the staircase
she assumed the upper handed in the power struggle between the two by ensured
that her husband could not move between her and husband could not move between
her and the door and stop her from leaving. Without the physical capacity to
keep her from leaving, the husband must attempt to convince her to stay through
communication something that as the poem demonstrates had been largely
unsuccessful throughout their marriage.
References
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