A Thematic Study on the Poetries of Robert Frost’s
Exploring the Thematic Approaches in Robert Frost's Poetry
by Roopa Manjunath*,
- Published in Journal of Advances and Scholarly Researches in Allied Education, E-ISSN: 2230-7540
Volume 17, Issue No. 2, Oct 2020, Pages 195 - 201 (7)
Published by: Ignited Minds Journals
ABSTRACT
Robert Frost, one of America's most influential poets, is our job. Frost was known as America's most influential poet of nature. Frost was born in 1874 and died in 1963 in San Francisco, California. Nature was cherished by Robert Frost. His poem was full of emotion about his personal life and actions. His poems are, however, plain and deep. He has often written basic tales of daily citizens, mostly rural New England residents. Robert Frost wrote a prose with a clear and uncomplicated vocabulary. His poetry involve symbolism, secret messages, sonority, rhyme, meter, metaphors and more. In this review, we explored Robert frost Poetry's themed approaches.
KEYWORD
Robert Frost, influential poet, nature, emotion, basic tales, symbolism, sonority, metaphors, themed approaches
INTRODUCTION
Robert Frost is one of America's most popular authors. He earned four Pulitzer Prizes for his poetry during his career and his writing is now well documented in American collections of poetry and school books. In the words of the poet Peter Davison in this novel, Americans have "tended to regard Frost as the other bookend to match Norman Rockwell…whose work could be counted on to convey the values of traditional American country life‖ However, the breadth and ambiguity of perhaps the simplest poetry is not taken into consideration in this conception. In Frost his life he endured deep suffering and despair, and echoes of his sadness and insight can be seen in his poems regarding the harsh realities of life. Frost's poetry incorporates profound and often mysterious meditation on creation, along with vibrant depictions of American life and landscape. A rich outlet for readers in this volume from the early Frost poetry. The first two poetry books are written and comprise primarily of rural poems in New England. A Boys Will reveals Frost's distinct usage of conventional and lyrical literary styles, and North of Boston discusses the use of the blank verse to present reflexions on human nature in long narrative poems. These two books include several of Frost's most popular and valued poetry. In A Boy's Will and Mending Wall, "The Death of the Hired Man," and "After Apple Picking," in Northern Boston, there are "Mowing," "The Tuft of Flowers" and "Reluctance." Students are encouraged to learn, enjoy and be confronted by their degrees of importance. And through their exploration, students would be able to learn about the elements of poetry—imagery, metaphor, rhythm, diction—which Frost created exclusively as his word "the sound of meaning." While Frost's poems present the village of New England and agricultural lands and indigenous characters, these poems have common significance and importance in the topic and reflection. In A Boy's Will and north of Boston, the poems are divided into general themes with diverse opinions and perspectives reflecting each particular poem. The activities offered here can be used as instructors in the whole or limited classes of students. Poems that discuss the same topic, although some poems have been addressed in more than one portion, are described together. For each of the poetry, topics problems are included. This will help students improve their critical skills according to a reader answer method. Only as a back-up to students will these questions be made open if students have faith and insight in their own answers to their Poems. See the first listing of the poem for debate queries.
BIOGRAPHY OF ROBERT FROST
Robert Lee Frost was born in the United States, San Francisco, on 26 March 1874. He was the first born of a Scottish school teacher, Isabelle Moodie Frost, and of a writer and local official, William Prescott Frost Jr. Before his father died, Frost's family resided in California. He received Jeanie Florence, a sister he named. England. Afterwards, they relocated to Lawrence, Massachusetts, where William Prescott Frost, Frost's parent grandfather, offered a very nice education to his grandson. Robert and Jeanie feared the intensity and rigorous treatment of their grandparent. In 1885, his younger sister joined third school. Frost was fourth grade. They relocated to Salem Depot, New Hampshire, from fifth to eighth grades, where his mother started teaching. In 1886 Robert and Jeanie joined the 5th grade. He was his mother a teacher. Young Robert, after learning the works of William Shakespeare, Robert Burns and William Wordsworth, was early introduced to the world of book and literature and was engaged in reading and writing poetry at his high school. He was still really involved in nature, the great open air and the rural scenery. For Harvard University, Robert Frost passed the provisional admission tests. During the 1891 and 1892 academic years, he was chief editor of the Bulletin. During the fall, he fell in love with his fellow Elinor Miriam White He worked a variety of positions in the following ten years. Frost employed at a cloth factory, worked as a photographer, acted as a Latin tutor at his mother's school in Methuen, Massachusetts; worked as a cobbler and then as publisher of the Lawrence secondary school paper called The Sentinel. He wasn't at all pleased with these occupations because he preferred to be just an artist and would waste his time writing poems. In 1893 he taught in Methuen for many weeks a shocking eighth grade. Once again Frost attempted to ask Elinor to before to marry him, but he failed. On graduation they had went separately from college and although Frost had left college early, Elinor decided to wait until she finished college before she got married. Since Elinor graduated, a year back, a dream he had satisfied for some time. On December 19th, 1895, Elinor married to her for a wedding arranged in Lawrence by a Swedenborg pastors. He had six children together, son Eliot, Lesley, son Carol, Irma, Marjorie and Elinor. He was his co-valedictorian, and sweetheart during his school years and was a significant source of motivation to his poetry until his death in 1938. Frost quit Harvard after two years to sustain his increasing family. The freshly married women started to lecture, but Frost kept publishing his poetry in journals. Even, with "The Daily American" and "The Sentinel," he served as a writer in Laurence. Eliot, his first sibling, was born on 25 September 1896. and moved in as a freshman. The pair travel to New Hampshire in Derry, where Frost works at the Pinkerton Academy as a cobbler, farmer, and lecturer. They were returned with this notice when he submitted his poetry to the Atlantic Monthly: 'We lament the lack of space for the Atlantic to make your solid line.'
He received the Bollinger Poetry Competition in 1963. On January 7, he was again attacked with embolism. Robert Frost died of a blood clot in his lungs a bit more than two years later. This was a chain reaction in December 1962 from a prostate operation. He died in Boston, on January 29, 1963, shortly after midnight. In the Appleton Chapel in Harvard Yard a private memorial service was given to his relatives and associates, and in Jonson Chapel, Amherst College, a public service was held. At the Old Bennington Graveyard in Vermont, Frost was buried in a family grave. He was eighty-eight years old. His tomb had an epitaph: "I had a quarrel between the lovers and the world."
Kennedy made a speech in Amherst College just nine months after Frost passed, sung Frost's praises and spoke about the value of arts in America. He later said: "Robert Frost's demise leaves the spirit of the United States of America empty" and "His death empowers us all; but he left a body of unperishable verses to his nation, from which Americans will always have joy and understanding."
THEMATIC APPROACHES TO FROST’S POEMS
While Frost's poems present the village of New England and agricultural lands and indigenous characters, these poems have common significance and importance in the topic and reflection. In A Boy's Will and north of Boston, the poems are divided into general themes with diverse opinions and perspectives reflecting each particular poem. The activities offered here can be used as instructors in the whole or limited classes of students. Poems that discuss the same topic, although some poems have been addressed in more than one portion, are described together. For each of the poetry, topics problems are included. This will help students improve their critical skills according to a reader answer method. Only as a back-up to students will these questions be made open if students have faith and insight in their own answers to their Poems. See the first listing of the poem for discussion issues.
the natural world and find another human, object or animal. These meetings allow the speaker to recognize his/her connection with others or to feel disconnected from the group, in moments of revelation. Some poems include speakers who consciously chose depression and alienation to understand more about themselves, whilst others concentrate on loneliness and how gatherings and culture only intensify solitude and isolation. This intensely cynical and practically misanthropic vision sneaks into the cheerfulness poetry of Ice. In Frost's poetry several of the protagonists are somehow separated. Even certain characters, including the "The Sound of Trees" or the "Fire and Ice" narrators of despair or isolation, stay disconnected from the rest of civilization and alienated by its peculiar viewpoint. In the Mending Wall the elderly farmer refuses not just to smash through the needless hurdles, he persists on getting the last say in order to make it worse. "Good fences make good adjacent people." A girl who marches respiratory to her home at midnight in "The Fear of Man" symbolizes man's throng of warmth and tranquillity. The timid "100 dollars" professor dramatizes a familiar human struggle with his unjust suspicion that contributes to insulation. There is a tension between the desire for fellowship and the inherent distrust of a stranger. He doesn't like loneliness, but he sees that it is inevitable. The key theme in Frost's poetry is a barrier concern. Man, often erects and attempts to knock down hurdles between people and people, between people and the world. These challenges tend to Frost to favour reciprocal knowledge and appreciation. Instead of attempting to tear these walls down as current movements, Frost keeps on accepting them. And he even creates them anywhere needed.
Barrier between man and the universe:
First of all, there is the great natural boundary, the vacuum, the gap between man and stars. Man is stupidly attempting to cross this void, but his whole endeavour is in vain in this regard. Only his utter littleness is made more aware by such efforts. The poet shows us in his poet, entitled "Stars," how man is just frustrated by nature. In this scenario, stars in the sky do not grant the gazer any fame or status at midnight. Instead of making a disillusionment note: ―But with neither love nor disdain In spite of the fact that the stars like some snow-white In another poem we learn how creative human attempts to appeal to nature are thwarted. The protagonist of "The Star-Splitter" buys an insurance-money telescope by burning down his house. He stares at the stars, but cannot avoid the query of his hideous head at the end: "We looked and looked" But after all, where are we?‖
Barrier between man and nature:
Secondly, the walls, which man wants to overcome, reclama and develop, remain between man and the immediate natural environment – the desolate and deserted areas. In order to live in a world that at least appears dangerous to him that is not designed for him, and in which he is an outsider, he must continuously make war against the kind of wilderness. Marion Montgomery says: "there are those souls, of course, who are content to have a barrier stand as a continual challenge which they never quite accept; such is the old teamster of The Mountain who lives and works in the shade of the mountain he always intends to climb but never does. And there are those who accept the challenge and go down in defeat; the deserted village of the Census Taker with its gaunt and empty buildings is evidence of such failure‖. " I took in the lock and key shaking. Anything you could send could be Time and cautioning to take off." The boy and girl meet for the first time at the ruin of an old place of residence in centuries of citizens, sit on the cellar's edge and talk of relatives and the degraded areas. Eventually, they are in love, or they are about to fall down, and have signed a pact to return and to restore a former place of residence.
The Otherness of Nature:
Thirdly, human life itself is an obstruction that separates human beings from nature's essence or spirit. Whilst Wordsworth rejected the very presence of boundaries between man and nature, Frost is characterized by a huge gulf between man and nature. He highlights the "otherness" and "indifference" of existence in a variety of poems, and reveals that all love from the soul spirit that drives or rules the universe is futility. Two different values are the independent human being and bored by the bird that sings and wants to go: ―I have wished the fowl would take off, What's more, not seen by me have of day Have applauded at him from the entryway At the point when it appeared as though I could hear no more‖
Barrier between man and man:
Fourthly, walls divide individuals from people. These boundaries interfere with social contact and "lack of communication" contributes to mental isolation and social alienation. "good fences make good neighbours" is a humorous commentary on those who lift the barriers between themselves and their neighbours. The poem is a symbolic statement on racial, social, national and ideological barriers that divide and separate human beings and human beings. These obstacles contribute to ties between men; they create conflicts that lead to insanity-ridden neurosis and emotional imbalances. North of Boston is packed with individuals who are mentally distant and isolated. There is a significant loss of touch between the husband and the wife in the "Home Burial," and mother's sorrow is deepened into folly. Her dead child's shadow is the pillar that separates and alienates them. In poems like "An Old Man Winter Night, Stopping by Woods," etc., the basic solitude of the human spirit is often convincingly articulated. Provide an agonizing alienation feeling that cannot be attenuated or resolved through every measure of turmoil. The pronounced tragic sound of the ironic lines cannot be missed: ―Kick the bucket early and stay away from the destiny Or on the other hand whenever foreordained to bite the dust late Decide to kick the bucket in state.‖
Isolation/Separateness from God:
Fifth, man's intelligence and purpose are the obstacle to his Creator and God. His logical inclination takes away the pleasure of fellowship with Heaven. The Mask of Justification's theme is that rationality coupled with faith alone will contribute to insight and knowledge. The only way to attain one's redemption and make existence fun is through faith. While Frost's poetry includes great obstacles and isolation, it implies he is not hostile to freedom and
Communication:
Communication or the absence thereof, as the only relief from loneliness and depression is provided by Frost in many of Frost's poetry. Unfortunately, Frost also indicates that contact is very hard to accomplish. Frost mentions two dreadful incidents of "Home Burial," for instance: a kid's death and marriage ruin. The death of the infant is devastating, but the husband and woman are not willing to connect and convey remorse over the tragedy, which eventually ruins marriage. Frost emphasizes this failure to interact in openly verse conversation by writing the poem; each character communicates directly to the reader but the other cannot be heard. The narrator cannot break out of his misery and the narration cannot even come into touch with others around him, Frost explored the same topic in "Acquainted with the Night," For any scenario, the reader learns that dialogue should have rescued the protagonists from loneliness. Yet the protagonists are doomed because they are not able to take the requisite measures to establish a friendship with another human. ―I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet When far away an interrupted cry
-----------------------------
But not to call me back or say good-bye (Acquainted with night)‖
Everyday Life:
Frost has a keen interest in daily interaction, and he is the most "real" side of mankind. Even the simplest gesture in regular daytime may have several secret significances, which only a poetic mind requires to discover. For eg, the clear mowing of the foe and the sky in the poem "Mowing" becomes an illustration of the importance of hard labour and the customs in the countryside of New England. As Frost suggests in the poem, a poet should look for the needless elements of imagination and find "reality," with the emphasis on "Truth" the actual behaviour of real people. Moreover, Frost claims it helps him to connect more directly with his readers with the focus on daily life; he recognizes the difficulties and feelings reflected in his poetry and understands "Truth" himself. ―There was never a sound close to the wood however one,
-------------- -------------- ----------
Something, maybe, about the absence of sound— What's more, that was the reason it murmured and didn't talk.‖
Isolation of the Individual:
The theme of connectivity is directly linked. In the poetry of Snow, the bulk of characters are separated in any way. Particularly those characters, including the narrators of "The Sound of Trees" or "Fire and Ice," who display little indication of sadness or isolation, are also depicted as being removed from the rest of civilization, segregated from their particular viewpoint. The separation is a far more damaging factor in certain situations. The narrator has resided for too many years in a "The Lockless Door," of loneliness in "cage" for example, that they are so fearful of answering the door when he sees a knock. This enhanced loneliness stops the narrator from understanding his personal ability and making him eventually an inmate. But this alienation may, as Frost implied, be stopped by interactions with other community members; if character should have led himself to open the door and confront an infringement of his isolation in the ―Lockless Door‖. ―It went numerous years, Be that as it may, finally came a thump, What's more, I thought about the entryway With no lock to bolt.
---------- -----------
Thus, at a thump I exhausted my confine To cover up on the planet Also, modify with the confine.‖
Duty:
Duty is of considerable significance in New England's agricultural areas, so it's not shocking that Frost uses it as one of his most significant themes. In order to sustain his family, a farmer must consider his obligations rather than his personal interests. Frost responds to the dilemma between ambition and responsibility as though these must always be mutually exclusive; This tension is especially evident as the narrator communicates his urge to remain in the forests and see the snow fall more in "Stopping ―The forested areas are beautiful, dull and profound However, I have vows to keep What's more, miles to go before I rest
Also, miles to go before I rest.‖ Likewise, Frost defines a character in "The Sound of Tree," who decides to obey the advice of the trees and make the choice to abandon his group with "reckless" At the end of the poem, the individual does not (still) wish to depart, since his sense of obligation towards the people around him acts as his roots. ―I will settle on the careless decision Sometime when they are in voice Furthermore, throwing in order to terrify The white mists over them on. I will have less to say, However, I will be no more.‖
Rationality versus Imagination:
This subject is close to the duty theme, because the hard-working people, mentioned by Frost in his poem, are forced to choose between reason and creativity. In Frost's poetries, adults usually retain their rationality as a responsibility, but certain individuals are perhaps too seductive to bear the touch of imagination. In "Birches," the writer, for example, would like himself, if just for only a moment, to ascend a birch tree as he did throughout his youth. The desire to resist reason and to free creativity is restricted to children's years. Following adulthood, New England's values seek absolute logic and accountability. Frost makes the poetic "Out, out—" much more devastating as a consequence of this struggle, depicting a little boy who is compelled to give up his life to work for a man and dies eventually.
Rural Living relative to Urban Life:
This subject applies to the concern of Frost for nature and daily life. In New England, Frost's journey introduced him to a particular form of life that appeared less complex but more important than a city dweller's life. A distinctive outlook as well as some sense of honour and responsibility for their jobs and their families are provided by the agriculturists Frost mentions in his poetry. The However, Frost has additional chances to find metaphysical significance in daily work and to research the connection between society and nature through his visions of rural and pastoral societies. The urban life is "real," yet Frost's work is so intrigued by the nature and transparency of life.
Youth and the Loss of Innocence:
In Frost's poetry, young people appear prominently, particularly with regard to innocence and their loss. A Will of a Child specifically discusses this subject and traces the creation of a lonely youth, thus discovering and interrogating his environment. Later Frost portrays young people as an idealized, Edenic state full of potential and possibilities. But as his romantic style grew more and more jaded and instructive, he spoke of youth as an age of unchecked freedom, taken for granted and then lost. In the wakening of World and World War I horrors in which Frost experienced the physical and psychological injuries of generations of young people, the subject of lost childhood appears especially touching. Subsequent poems such as "Desert Places" (1936), "Birches," "Acknowledge with the Night" (1928), discuss the truths of age and setbacks, comparing adult encounters with carefree pleasures. In Home Burial, the lady is feeling an awful sense of isolation from her environment. And above and beyond actual isolation, people suffer from depression inside themselves. ―They can't scare me with their vacant spaces Between stars- - on stars where no human race is. I have it in me such a lot of closer home To startle myself with my own desert places.‖
Human limitation:
Virtually any poem by Frost represents the topic of human restriction. The world is unpredictable and horrific because the limits of human capacity cannot grasp its importance. Mansions, both actual and real, divide man from nature, mental and intangible. "Neither Out Far nor In Deep" reveals the world weakness of man. Frost people recognize the difference between the true and the ideal. The apple picker begins with much optimism in "After Apple-Picking" but is disillusioned. ―For I have excessively Of apple-picking: I am overtired Of the extraordinary collect I myself wanted‖ thus reveals the man's partial power over the universe. The visitor was charmed by nature, ―In Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening‖ but his mind forced him to do his research. Frost suggests that nature requires knowledge of the human being and reveals how much of his poetry earn a living. However, in some poetry Frost shows that in his thoughts as in "Sand Dunes" man can surpass his constraints.
Extinction or death:
The extinction or death motif is covered by Frost's main works. He writes in several poems of "sleep," which is connected to death. The poetry on devastation by excesses of lust or hate "Fire and Ice" is extraordinary. Many of these poems have a link with mortality, ―Stopping by Woods On a snowy evening‖, ―After Apple Picking,‖ ―Winter Night of the Old Man.‖ The author undergoes a period of self-discovery in several of Frost's poetry. At the end of the poem "Two tramps in Mud Time‖ wood-chopper learns that wood cannot be chopped away for the sake of passion but just love and need.
Theme of Affirmation:
Any of his poems often display theme of confirmation. At the end, Frost poses the desire for others to take advantage of his condition. Knowing the limits of humanity, he also wants people to discover and look for information and reality. Guy should cheerfully learn to recognize things and limits. In the face of hardship as in "West Running Brook" he proposes stoical will and effort. ―Given the secret and enigma of life, decided human achievement is significant. Yet, I have vows to keep, What's more, miles to go before I rest, What's more, miles to go before I rest.‖ Love theme is important in the poems of Ice. If a power will help humans face the universe's obstacles, it is compassion. The value of love between man and woman or friendly love is exposed in many Frost's poetry. Life becomes intolerable particularly for women in Frost's poetry when love breaks or disappears.
CONCLUSION
Frost doesn't struggle with the kind of topics we see in T.S. Eliot, but it isn't the least new. ―Subject matter is a poor measure of a poet‘s
that Frost never needed topical stickers. He does not take into consideration many of the daunting issues of the 20th century, especially the two world wars and the urban and mechanization dilemma. However, one argument worth stressing here is that as the year progressed, the writing of his contemporary authors who are labelled with revised marks becomes frank and obsolete. The poems of Frost maintain their freshness, since they depend less on contemporary languages, events and individuals.
REFERENCES
[1] "Robert Frost". The Poetry Foundation. Retrieved 18 February 2015. [2] "Robert Frost". Encyclopædia Britannica (Online ed.). 2008. Retrieved 2008-12-21. [3] Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Jean C. Stine, Bridget Broderick, and Daniel G. Marowski. Vol. 26. Detroit: Gale Research, 1983. p110 [4] Watson, Marsten (2010). Royal Families - Americans of Royal and Noble Ancestry. Volume Three: Samuel Appleton and His Wife Judith Everard and Five Generations of Their Descendants. [5] Ehrlich, Eugene; Carruth, Gorton (1982). The Oxford Illustrated Literary Guide to the United States. Vol. 50. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-503186-5. [6] Nancy Lewis Tuten; John Zubizarreta (2001). The Robert Frost encyclopedia. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 145. ISBN 978-0-313-29464-8. Halfway through the spring semester of his second year, Dean Briggs released him from Harvard without prejudice, lamenting the loss of so good a student. [7] Frost, Robert (1995). Poirier, Richard; Richardson, Mark (eds.). Collected Poems, Prose, & Plays. The Library of America. 81. New York: Library of America. ISBN 1-883011-06-X. [8] "Robert Frost Stone House Museum | Bennington College". www.bennington.edu. [9] Muir, Helen (1995). Frost in Florida: a memoir. Valiant Press. pp. 11, 17. ISBN 0-9633461-6-4. [11] Parini, Jay (1999). Robert Frost: A Life. New York: Henry Holt and Company. pp. 408, 424–425. ISBN 9780805063417. [12] "The MacDowell Colony – Medal Day". Archived from the original on 2016-11-06. Retrieved 2015-07-02. [13] "John F. Kennedy: A Man of This Century". CBS. November 22, 1963. [14] "The Poet - Politician - JFK The Last Speech". JFK The Last Speech. Retrieved 2018-10-25. [15] Udall, Stewart L. (1972-06-11). "Robert Frost's Last Adventure". archive.nytimes.com. Retrieved 2018-10-25. [16] "Robert Frost Collection". Jones Library, Inc. website, Amherst, Massachusetts. Archived from the original on 2009-06-12. Retrieved 2009-03-28. [17] Jarrell, Randall. "Fifty Years of American Poetry." No Other Book: Selected Essays. New York: HarperCollins, 1999.
Corresponding Author Roopa Manjunath*
Lecturer in English, Seshadripuram Composite P. U. College, Bangalore roopakabadi07@gmail.com