Paper-13 Robert Frost as a Poet

Hitesh S. Vaghani

Roll no. - 21

SEM - III

Paper no. – 13

Year – 2010-11

Topic: Robert Frost as a Poet

Submitted to Dr.Dilip Barad

Department of English,

Bhavnagar University.

Robert Frost as a Poet

             Robert frost,”the voice of America” Acoording to graves fit to   be placed beside emerson hawthorne, and theory.he wrote many volumes of poems like ‘a boys will (1913),’north of boston’(1914),’the younentain internal’(1916),’new hempshire’(1923),’west running brook’(1928),’a further range’(1932).a popular and offenquated poet,frost  was honoured frequently during his lifetime,receiving for puiltzer prizes for poetry on the occasion of the inauguration of the U.S.A, he was cayed upon to recite one of his most most patriotic poems the fift outright’and another ofhis lovely lyrics’stopping by words on  a snowy eveninngs’was the stay and solace of Jawaharlal Nehru during the last days of his life.

         Frost has written on almost every subject,but alienation , isolation, barriers and boundries are the major bthemes or his poetry.he portrays the disintegration of values in modern life and the disillysionment of modern man.man of his poems deal with a person testing from loneliness frustration,loss and diseases.frost asserts the value of individual perception against the frost ntarian experience of the contemporary phenomena , barriers regarding self responsibilities can be seen in ‘ stopping by woods on a snowy evening’ in this poem,the poet is charmed by the enchantment of nature and decides to stay for the enjoyment of its beauty. But at the same time,he reminds his duty and responsibility and has to depart fom the spot. Thus,his duty and responsibility become barriers and boundaries in the way of nature..

            There are barriers which separate man from man; such barriers come in the way of social communication and lock of communication leads to social alignation and emotional isolation in the home barial ‘there is a greous lack of communication between the husband and the wife, and the mother’s grief dipends into insanity. The shadow of their dead child is the barriers which divide them, and alienates them for each other. In this poem, mother replies her husband , when husband asks her ‘what is it you see from up there always’?

                               “just that I see

                                 You don’t tea

                                Me what is this”

           Social restriction can also be seen in this poem as wide can’t be leave her husband alone in the home by the dear of society. ‘The death of the hired mans ‘presents a terrifying picture of the loneliness of a socially alienated old servant, silas, who must work even in his old age to support himself. his pride keeps him away from his own brother, and moves on, alone helpless like a striken deer. The theme of capitalism or class –conflict can be found in his poem ‘design’ in which spider prays moath by using its cob. In the same way upper-class people exploit the poor and on the other side, the poor people can’t escape from cobweb of society and they have to be exploited with them. another theme ‘complexity of modern era’ is seen in ‘fire and ice’. These two words are symbolished as passion and hatred which would become a cause for the destruction of this word.

           Realism is another aspect of frost poetry. According to frost there are two types of realism; there is one who offers good deal of dirt with his potato to show that it is a real world and there is a one who is satisfied with the potato crushed in.  I am inclined  to be  the second one. To me, the thing that art does for life is to clean it, strike it to form the problems which human beings  are facing in modern era are family crisis ,global warning, capitalism, possessiveness a human mentality, tlight of fency, are seen in his poems. In his poem, ‘birches’, he mentiones the condition of human being, and wishes to escape from reality. He says,

                                         “and life is too much

                                           Like a pathless wood,

                                           Where your face burns

                                            and tickles with the

                                            cola webs,

                                            broken across it, and

                                            one eye is weeping,

                                            I’d like to get away

                                           From earth a while.”

 Robert frost is highly regarded for his realistic depiction of rural life and his command of American colloquial, speech. The background to his poetry is provided by country-scenes and sights. He writes of riral people and rural occupations and pleasures-apple-picking, gum gathering. Hay-collecting, birth – swinging. in his poetry, we do not find the city scenery and city people to whom we are used in modern poetry. as we find in birches’; the poet, imagines,

                     “as he went out and in

                     To fetch the cows-

                     Some boys too far from

                    Town to learn baseball,

                    Whose only play was that

                   He found himself,

                  Summer or winter ,and

                  Could play alone.”

               Thus, pastoral elements can be seen in his poems. Frost is compared with wordsworth so far as nature is concerned frost was not only glorified nature but also revealed the destructive side of nature. He reminds us of P.B, Shelley, who said in ‘ode to west wind’,’nature is both: preserver and destroyer.’

              The use of the dramatic monologue another striking feature of his poems dramatic monologue reveals the struggle, tacking place. In the inner mind of the character. We find dramatic monologue in ‘home burial’ in which husband expresses his helplessness in his words,

                         “the nearest friends can

                        Go with anyone to death,

                       Comes so far short they might as well not

                   Fry to go at all

                 No, from the time when

                 One is sick to death.”

          These above lines show the condition of the modern man. we can also find dramatic monologue in ‘west running book’ and death of a hired man.’

           The first thing which strikes us is the extreme simplicity of his poetry. The writes of the simplest subjects, and he says what he has to say in the most lacid and simple manner but this simplicity of frost is deceptive. As a matter of fact, frost is both for the masses and the classes. A careful; reading of his poems reveals that he is extraordinarily subtle. compare , and intricate they have layers within layers of meaning. Frost makes extensive use of symbols to convey profound truth, and in this respect, he is one with such modern poets as eliot, yeats, pound, auden. ilis complexity is seen in his habit of bringing together the opposite of life in the manner of the metaphysical poets, like ‘fire and ice.’

   ‘home burial’, ‘death of a hired man’, ’birches’, ‘west running book’ thus almost all the title of his poems are itself symbolised. Thus use of iuxtaposition is one his peculiar qualities.

               Frost uses a different kind of languages appropriate for each of these thus. Kinds of lyrics. in the pure, personal lyric frost’s languages has a rare smoothness, force and sublimity. The communication is direct without any interruption and breaks in the form of asides, pauses. And parentheses on the other hand, in the longer dramatic lyrics the medium is the conversational languid and so diction is replace with the characteristics of the spoken tongue. The most important things in the diction of poems like ‘home burial’ are the breaks, the dashes, the asides, and the exclamation his poems also have a dramatic quality. He brings poetry in harmony with the spoken words and thus satisfies the words worthian theory of diction.

              There is no doubt that frost takes a rather bleak and gloomy view of man’s earthy. Existence, but he can not be concerned as a pessimist merely for this reason. In fact, he is a realist and an ameliorist. He does not shut his eyes. To the evil, sorrow and suffering which best man’s life on this earthl, his approach is never cynical and nihilistic’, he does never suggest that the life is not worth living or that it would have been better not to have been born at all. He loves the world, as it is found in ‘birches’ express his love nicely. He wants to escape from reality but very next moment, he decides to return to earth,

                                   “Earth is the right place

                                    For love

                                    I do not know where

                                    It is likely to go

                                    Better.”

       The life of human beings is full of thorns but it can be made bearable by doing one’s duty, sincerely and devotedly.