Frost's Poetry And Landscape
The Rise of Modernist Poetry
Between the years of 1912 and 1914 the entire temper of the American arts changed. America's cultural coming-of-age occurred and writing in the U.S. moved from a period entitled traditional to modernized. It seems as though everywhere, in that Year of 1913, barriers went down and People reached each other who had never been in touch before; there were all sorts of new ways to communicate as well as new communications. The new spirit was abroad and swept us all together. These changes engaged an America of rising intellectual opportunities and intensifying artistic preoccupation.
With the changing of the century, the old styles were considered increasingly obsolete, and the greatest impact was on American arts. The changes went deep, suggesting ending the narrowness that had seemed to limit the free development of American culture for so long. That mood was not to last. American entry into the war in April 1917 divided the radicals and weakened the progressive Spirit. For many American writers, the war marked a cutoff point from the past, an ultimate symbol for the dawn of modernity. "The major careers that dominated American writing into the 1950s started during this period, and so did the modern tradition. The prewar generation was largely founded in the poetry of Pound and Eliot, Frost and Doolittle, Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, Marianne Moore, Conrad Aiken, Carl Sandburg, Edgar Lee Masters." (Ruland, R., & Bradbury, M.).
With the crash of October 1929 the whole remarkable episode abruptly disengaged, and the "Twenties" ended. However, what had emerged was a style that would convey an independent spirit that caught not only the artistic world, but encapsulated the spirit of America herself. Until the first scents of success were carried on the breezes of American individualism, and free enterprise, this country existed in the shadow, and shape of its former colonial master.
Our culture was largely European; our language was a reflection of England which we had also left behind. Our economy was a similar step child to that of England, Germany and France, mostly agrarian with small factories collecting themselves into cities. But the turn of the century signaled a close of a chapter in American history, and the beginning of a new one. The industrial revolution had bvegun, and America was home to a burgeoning automotive industry, and a distinctly American invention, the assembly line. Our universities were earning accolades right along side of the best that England and France had to offer. As American culture, industry and education shook off some of the last pieces of the European cocoon which had spawned it, the country was also ready for new expressions in poetry, and literature.
After the war, although the experience cast a dark shadow on the optimistic American evaluation of the world, America pulled herself out of the trenches of Germany and France, and decided it had come of age. America, the fledgling democracy which was just over a hundred years in age, entered the war and turned the tide of aggression that all of Europe could not contain. With this new courage, and a national semtiment that valued the traditions of its past, America went looking for herself, and found her portrait painted by the words of the modernist poet.
In the same way that the American culture is understood by the events which define it's history, the culture and personality of a man is defined by the events which mark that man's life. So to understand the writings of Robert Frost (RF) and William Carlos Williams (WCW) this paper will examine three aspects of each. First the man will be considered, then the man as a poet, and finally the poetry of the man. In the conclusion, we will draw from the similarities and differences between these two literary giants.
Robert Frost - The Man
In the early 1900's, Robert Frost, emerging from a troubled life of poverty, sought to reform and revive his life. His efforts were met with great success. Although Robert Frost is widely known as a New England poet, he was actually born in San Francisco, California, on March 26, 1874 (American Writers 150). His father, William Prescott Frost, was a native of New England, and his mother, Isabelle Moodie Frost, was a Scottish emigrant from Edinburgh. They met while they were both teaching school in Lewiston, Pennsylvania, and moved west after their marriage (Robert Frost 5).
The relationship between Robert's father and mother was later a major influence on the subject of his poems in his collection, "North of Boston."...
3.4B: Collage Description Lines 118 & 119: "Home is the place where, when you go there, / They have to take you in." These two lines are by far the most compelling lines of the entire poem. It is here that the importance of what home is, truly comes out. Home is the one place that seems to be the safe haven regardless of the adventures that one chooses to partake in.
Mending Wall" by Robert Frost, and "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," by T.S. Eliot. Specifically, it compares and contraststhe two works and how they are both excellent examples of the dangers of unexamined tradition. Unexamined tradition can be extremely dangerous in life, because it forces individuals to do things the "way they have always been done," rather than forcing them to find new ways to interact. This allows
Robert Frost's New England Poetics Of Isolation And Community In Humanity's State Of Nature "Something there is that doesn't love a wall," reads the first line of Robert Frost's classic poem, "Mending Wall." The narrative of Frost's most famous poem depicts two farmers, one "all" pine and the other apple orchard," who are engaged in the almost ritualistic action of summer fence mending amongst New England farmers. However, the apple farmer
The poet writes, "My little horse must think it queer / To stop without a farmhouse near / Between the woods and frozen lake / The darkest evening of the year / He gives his harness bells a shake / To ask if there is some mistake. / The only other sound's the sweep / Of easy wind and downy flake" (Frost 275). The narrator has stopped to enjoy
. . " "I don't recall having sold the house," Ned said, "and the girls are at home." (Cheever) In the narration Ned continues on his journey home. Once he is home it is revealed that his house is indeed empty and his wife and daughters are gone. This is just one example of the conflict that exist in this narration between was is reality and what is illusion. In addition to this
The expansion meant progress and it implemented the idea of progress into the minds of the new people. As Thomas Jefferson noted, the permanent moving forward of the boundaries and the idea of growth and multiplication enhanced the feeling of unfailing progress: "However our present interests may restrain us within our limits, it is impossible not to look forward to distant times, when our rapid multiplication will expand itself
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