Robert Frost is one of
the greatest American poets who expressed the American life and natural beauty
in a simple typical style through conventional verse. Frost was born on
march 26th,1874 in San Francisco. His father was of New
England region and his mother was a Scot woman. When Frost was eleven, his
father, working as a head master, died. He attended Dartmouth College in New
England. In 1892 he left his studies and did various jobs. In 1895 he married
his classmate, Elinor White. In 1897 he joined Harvard to continue his studies.
In 1899 he left again. He did shoe-making, edited a country newspaper, worked
as a teacher at Pinkerton Academy from 1905 to 1911, and finally worked in his
grandfather’s farm near Derry.
As a man who worked in
various professions, Frost captured the experiences and feelings of common man
in his simple conversational style; yet there is depth of meaning with symbolic
undertones beneath his simple use of language. He was known for “his
realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloquial
speech” and “for using them to examine complex social and philosophical
themes.”
In 1912 he went to
England and made friendship with Edward Thomas, a famous poet. He published “A
Boy’s Will” a collection of poems in 1913. According to Edward Thomas these
poems are revolutionary because they lack the exaggeration of rhetoric. In 1914
Frost published “North of Boston” which brought him name and fame. He returned
to America in 1915 and taught at Amherst College. His other famous works are:
Mountain Interval (1916), New Hampshire (1924) and West Running Brook (1928).
In 1924 he won Pulitzer Prize for his poetic collection “New Hampshire”. In
1957 he was awarded Honorary degrees from Cambridge and oxford. Frost won
Pulitzer Prizes three more times again in 1931 for “Collected Poems”, in 1937
for “A Further Range” and in 1943 for “A Witness Tree” respectively.
During his life time he was conferred 44 honorary degrees by various
institutions. John Kennedy described him as “the best poet of our time.”
As a regional poet of New England, more particularly of New Hampshire, Frost used realistic themes with a broader perspective. Though his descriptions, speech, rhythms and vocabulary are regional, he discovered universal truths in memorable characters in every poem. Wisdom comes distilled from experience processed by insight. Though he is a regional poet, his regional slant has a universal appeal. In this sense he is not a regional poet but is a metaphysical poet in the tradition of Emerson and Emily Dickinson. But his imagery is less complex and his style is more lucid. Frost confessed that poetry to him was essentially dramatic.
Though like
Wordsworth he wrote pastoral poetry, it is not decorative like that of Virgil.
Frost defined poetry as “a connection of two things in verse” and as “inclusion
of mind and emotions”, something similar to metaphysical concept of “fusion of
intellect and emotion”. For him a poem begins with delight and ends in wisdom.
It is “a clarification of life”. “The poet is essentially an accidental
collector of impressions.” Frost believed in the fusion of form and content. He
was not a believer in the saying that art should teach. He believed in endless experimentation
in form and content. Regarding his deceptive simplicity, Geoffrey Moore said,”
Frost’s poetry is deeper and tougher than it seems.”
As an American poet
Frost depicted the pastoral and rural life of America in a sensitive manner.
Like Whitman he was concerned with brotherhood and fellowship of man and
democracy. Though he is a new England poet, he added universal meaning to his
regional themes. Though he is not a visionary like Wordsworth or Shelley, his
message is that we should love our work, help our fellowmen, understand their
views, accept our limitations, face the life fearlessly, make the best use of
our energies and skills, and above all have faith in God and not feel lonely in
the world. Elizabeth Jennings noted that there is an almost total absence of
despair or pessimism in Frost’s poetry.
As a Nature poet Frost
described Nature in relation to man. His descriptions of Nature are not
idealized pictures, but realistic ones. In his view man has to face hardships
and challenges in Nature with courage and live with dignity and fortitude. He
made rural new England an artistic medium to express the alienation of modern
man. Man is helplessly alone in an indifferent universe. Frost brings to our
attention the terrible things of human life. Nature is ambivalent to him. A
variety of emotions are aroused on different occasions by Nature. He draws his
images from Nature which he observed carefully in all its moods and
seasons.
Frost’s treatment of
mankind is based on realism, variety in his characters represents different
aspects of man’s life. He lets his characters speak freely. A sense of
alienation, fear and uncertainty and loneliness are revealed in his characters.
A dismal and helpless picture of the common folk against the aggressive urban civilization
is poetically picturized. That is the main reason why Lionel Trilling finds a
terrifying picture of life in frost’s poems beneath their apparent simplicity
and innocence. Yet most of his characters are brave and heroic in the face of
adverse situations. Frost looks on the rural characters with a humorous, ironic
and sympathetic detachment. He used the speech of common folk. There are
philosophical undertones behind his simple use of language. He employs
provincialisms. His poems show variety in attitude and approach. Like Yeats and
Auden he handled a great number of English meters. His verse is smooth cadenced
and flows with ease without any artificial decoration. Regarding his style and
diction Frost believed that poetry is derived from common speech. New England
speech rhythms and simple diction are used in his poetry.
His long dramatic poems
reproduce with amazing faithfulness the speech and sentiments of the people. (e.g.:
“West-running Brooke, “The Death of the Hired man”, “Home-Burial etc.) His
vocabulary and syntax are also simple. His allusions and images are derived
from common life. He adopts a conversational tone and offers aphoristic wisdom
in his poems. Frost’s long poems are studies in various characters. His use of
blank verse is suitable for “poetry of talk.” It is a fit vehicle for
expression of deep thoughts and feelings. It has the power to blend observation
and imagination. It re-enacts the movement of thought in a dramatic way with
conversational ease. There is an undercurrent of psychological analysis beneath
his light, playful tone. His dramatic dialogues are not rhetorical speeches but
short clipped and meaningful ones. They are comparable to dramatic, character-analyzing
speeches of Chaucer and Robert Browning. The use of New England speech rhythms
with simple diction in loose blank verse gives a spontaneous and realistic
touch to his long poems. The abrupt breaks and broken syntax reveal the inner
workings of mind with all its moods and reflections.
According to John E. Lynen "Frost's regionalism is both symbolic and creative." "Like Faulkner Frost stands forth as both the interpreter and the representative of his regional culture. "He uses New England as a means of revealing what is universal rather than merely local. frost's rural world is interesting because it symbolizes the world, we ourselves know. Our main concern must be to discover how he has shaped his world as an image of everyman's experience." According to Marion Montgomery "His best poetry is concerned with the drama of man in Nature." According to Louis Untermeyer, Frost's poetry lives with a particular liveliness because it expresses living people. "They are drawn with affection but not with a blurring sentimentality."
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28th July, 2021 Somaseshu Gutala
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