Robert Frost -- Life Issues and Parallels to My Life
A Life Filled with Tragic Inspiration
Robert Frost was a prolific American writer and poet whose work captured the difficulties some of the most challenging periods in modern American history as well as his personal trials and tribulations. Frost's work is known for the eloquence that he was able to express using the simple language of common colloquial speech (Holman & Snyder, 2012). His father, a hard-drinking disciplinarian and journalist, died at the age of thirty-six from the consequences of excessive drinking when Frost was a child. His adult life was also marred by a long string of personal tragedies, such as in the loss of two of his six children in infancy and of his favorite child, his daughter, Marjorie, after delivering her first child. Only four years later, his wife, Elinor, suffered a sudden fatal heart attack, followed two years later by the suicide of his son, Carol. Still another child, Irma, had to be institutionalized for the same type of mental disorders as his sister, Jeannie, and Frost himself suffered lifelong bouts of clinical depression (Holman & Snyder, 2012). Frost proved unsuccessful as a farmer and tradesman but his writing was recognized as worthwhile while he was still in high school (Thompson, 1995).
Much of his work, including the dark poem A Witness Tree undoubtedly had their origins in the sadness Frost had experienced in connection with his many tragic losses. Frost nearly committed suicide as a very young man after the initial rejection...
Robert Frost wrote, "I have written to keep the over curious out of the secret places in my mind both in my verse and in my letters." In a poem, he wrote, "I have been one acquainted with the night." Those unfamiliar with Robert Frost's life story might not realize the significance of those words. Frost was born in a nearly lawless city and grew up in a highly dysfunctional
Robert Frost's adulthood was also riddled with loss. He often felt jealous and resentful that the quality of his poetry was slow to be recognized. Unable to support his family with his writing, for many years he had to work at various jobs, often as a teacher until his grandfather finally gave him land to live on and an allowance with on which to live (Meyers, p. 52). In addition,
"He gives his harness bells a shake / to ask if there is some mistake." The horse's action portrays the tendency of people to question those choices they don't understand. This scene can be interpreted as the disapproving voice of society voicing its demands on those of a more sensitive bent. In much the same vein as the previous stanza, Frost shows a depth of human understanding (and misunderstanding). Our
Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken" tells the story of a traveler making the decision to travel the road less traveled, but looking back upon the road not taken and wondering what might have been. On first glance the reader might assume that Frost is touting the benefits of taking the road less traveled, or the path in life that is perhaps most unclear. Too many people assume that the
Robert Frost treats several themes in his short lyrical poem, "The Road Not Taken." First, Frost focuses on the notion of choice and decision: the narrator is faced with a fork in the road and must choose which path to take. He momentarily wishes that he could travel both paths at once and still be "one traveler," (line 3). After hemming and hawing, the narrator chooses the path less trodden.
Robert Frost's famous poem, "Birches," might be described as a poem of redemptive realism, a poem that offers a loving, yet tinged-by-the-tragic view of life as seen through the metaphors of nature. In fact, Robert Frost could be called a kind of subversive pastoralist, for unlike the romantic nature poets who preceded him, such as Wordsworth, he sees nature's wildness, her beauty, and yet her relentless harshness as well. The
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