Robert Frost

by Margaret Baker

"Breathes there a bard who isn’t moved
When he finds his verse is understood
And not entirely disapproved
By his country and his neighborhood?"

From On Being Chosen Poet of Vermont

It is my hope that this site will help its readers to better understand the poetry of Robert Frost.

Style

Robert Frost’s Style

The poetry of Robert Frost is well loved in America and he has even been called “the United States’ de facto poet laureate.”(Potter 3), and it’s easy to understand when we look at his writing style.

The first thing we can see from Frost’s works is that he uses traditional meters like iambic pentameter, free verse, or other easy-to-read forms (Lynen 85). Most of his poems roll off of the tongue with the easy of regular conversation and that is because of the careful placement of the words in each line.

The ease of reading is also aided by Frost’s use of the common language. Lascelles Abercrombie is quoted in John F. Lynyn’s book, The Pastoral Art of Robert Frost, as saying that Frost utilized “the traits and…habits of common speech, the minds and hearts of common folk”(8). But one question that is still being debated is this was pre-planned or natural. Is Frost’s style “a matter of pure technique”(81), or did he use it because it was what he knew? Whether studied or not the words of his poems are simple enough to make the reader feel that he is just talking with an old friend, not reading famous works of art.

A third aspect of Frost’s writing that fits in with his use of the vernacular is his point of view. Frost lived in the countryside of the northeastern United States for most of his life and he draws his poetry from the world he lived in. Most of his poems are set in the country, and many of the characters he portrays are farmers or farmers’ wives. This pastoral style is evident in poems such as After Apple Picking, Gathering Leaves, and The Need of Being Versed in Country Things.

So what category does Frost fit into? Here are a few names that Frost has been given through the years, but do they really fit?

American Transcendentalist

One category that Frost is sometimes put in is that of the American Transcendentalist.

The writings of transcendentalists like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Thoreau are full of nature and pastoral scenes, so in that respect Frost’s work is very similar to their style (Norton 1175).

Frost also shares the Transcendentalists’ love of individuality, a trait most likely developed by the rural lifestyle he led (1175).

But frost doesn’t totally fit into this category. Transcendentalists studied nature and saw it’s intricacies as proof of a creator; Frost “saw ‘no expression, nothing to express'" (1175).

This dichotomy of thought might come from the fact that frost wrote during a later time period than these other poets. Emerson, Thoreau, and the other Transcendentalists wrote during the nineteenth-century, a much more happy and innocent time, before the disillusionment of World War I came along to show us that life isn’t naturally good. Frost wrote during the disjointed first half of the twentieth- century: during World War I, the Depression, and the Era of the Lost Generation. So it’s no wonder that Frost’s writings are less affirming.

The Lost Generation

Some critics categorize Frost with his contemporaries, the Lost Generation. Writers during this time included T. S. Elliot, Katherine Anne Porter, and Zora Neale Hurston. But that only thing that Frost shares with these authors is the century in which they wrote.

The first difference between Frost and his contemporaries is the lack of a pervading sense of loss. The writers of the Lost Generation got their name from the obvious feeling of loss that was pervasive in their stories. After seeing the death of millions of young men in the First World War and then the empty materialism of the Roaring Twenties many of these writers began to use their writings to protest the lack of true purpose that they thought was so pervasive.

Another way that Frost differs from the other writers of his day is his lack of learnedness. The writings of the Lost Generation were full of references to ancient mythology, famous works of art, artists, books, and their authors. Elliot frequently references the Bible, Dante, and other major pieces of literature in his stories and poems, but this is not the case with Frost.

Because Frost’s poems don’t include references to major works of literature or wrestle with the major issues of society, it appears that they lack the complexity of other contemporary works as well. Works like Elliot’s “Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” and Katherine Porter’s “Pale Horse, Pale Rider” are hailed as great pieces of modern literature because they attempt to discover the meaning of life and how society works through allusions to other great works and a large vocabulary. Since Frost only uses the vocabulary of the common man and doesn’t attempt to write about anything more than he is familiar with, he is often described as simplistic or easy (Lynen 2).

Regionalist

One other category that Frost is put in is that of the Regionalist, because most of his works deal with the people and peculiarities of the northeastern United States. Other Regionalists include: Faulkner and O’Conner who wrote about the South, Harte and Twain who studied the West, and Jewett and Freeman who focused on New England.

Among these ranks I think Frost is most comfortable. He tells his stories from his point of view, that of a gentleman farmer in the northeastern United States.

As you can see different critics put frost into different categories. As you read him, think about these ideas and answer these questions:

Was Frost just a lover of nature, like Emerson, or is it something deeper?

Did the time in which he wrote (World War I, Roaring Twenties) affect his view of the world?

Is Frost just a New England version of Mark Twain, telling stories about a people he has studied?

I don’t think these questions don’t have definitive answers, and I don’t think we can ever totally understand what other people are thinking, but they might help you know him better.

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Collections of Poetry

Frost published six books of poetry during his career as a poet; they each have a different feel and often reflect the changes in his own life.

A Boy’s Will(1913)

This collection was Frost’s first and was arranged to “represent a personal psychological progression ‘ out of self-love and into his love for others.’”

North of Boston (1914)

Frost next book focuses more on northern New England, and it shows a more mature attitude than the earlier volume. Most of the poems it includes were begun at one of the Frost’s farms, and they are based on the experiences of he and his wife.

Mountain Interval (1916)

This collection can be described as the voice of the farm dweller because many of the poems mimic the spoken language. Many of the poems were begun at one of the Frost’s own farms and many reflect the personal experiences of Frost and his wife Elinor.

New Hampshire (1923)

This, Frost’s fourth collection, contents itself with the people and peculiarities of New Hampshire. It won him his first of two Pulitzer Prizes

West Running Brook (1928)

Like his previous collection, this book has a highly philosophical tendency.

Collected Poems (1930)

The last of his collections, this book rightfully earned its author another Pulitzer Prize.

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Poems and Expositions

Let’s look at a few of Frost’s poems and what they might mean.

This first poem was first published in 1923 in Frost’s collection New Hampshire .

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

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.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

(Frost, NAAL)

This poem is a prime example of Frost’s pastoral style. The woods, the horse, the village, all tell us where the speaker is, and since Frost lived most of his life in the New Hampshire countryside it is easy to assume that he is the speaker. Frost loves to use everyday activities to uncover simple truths. C. M. Bowra explains it this way, “Frost likes to make discoveries, to start from some quite usual situation and then to find in it an unanticipated excitement or paradox or pathos”(208).

In the case of this poem, the “usual situation” is riding by a wood at night. The rider is somehow drawn to the woods, their loveliness, depth and darkness.

In many other works of literature, the woods or forest represent evil or death, but that doesn’t seem to be the case in this poem. If the woods were a symbol for death I don’t think that he would long for it or call it “lovely”, and the same if it were evil. Instead the speaker laments all the promises he has to keep and the miles he must travel before he can rest. By his repeating the last two lines I think it gives the reader an idea of what he is longing for: rest from the chores mundane necessities of life.

This next poem was first read in frost collection North of Boston , published in 1914.

Mending Wall

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
‘Stay where you are till our backs are turned!’
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,
One on a side. It comes to little more,
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat and eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
‘Why do they make good neighbors? Isn’t it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down,’ I could say ‘Elves’ to him,
But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father’s saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’

(Frost, NAAL)

This is another of Frost’s pastoral poems, full of trees, animals and colloquialisms. And again he uses an easy to read rhythm. The iambic pentameter fits perfectly with the rise and flow of the human voice, and makes it perfect to be read aloud.

And again he uses an otherwise ordinary activity to contemplate a greater idea: in this poem he is questioning walls: are they good, are they bad, what are their purpose? The speaker sees no real need for the wall that he has to rebuild year after year, but he does it any way.

And what is his conclusion? Is there a conclusion? Patricia Wallace asks the same question, “Does the poem settle the question in favor of barriers or not? The point is not to settle the question. The poem explores the meaning and difficulty of Frost’s sense of separateness, the difficulty of community”(227).

The relationships of community continue to play a large role in many of Frost’s works, and the next one is another example of that. The Death of the Hired Man, which was first printed in North of Boston , debates the responsibility that members of a community have for each other.

This poem is also a different style from what we’ve looked at so far. It is what Lynen calls “dramatic dialogue” or a dialogue between two people centered on a dramatic struggle. And in this case, “The agon or dramatic struggle consists in Mary’s efforts to persuade her husband that they must accept their obligation to help the hired man in his broken and useless old age. Warren, who is more tied to practical considerations, objects that the old man is unreliable and will be of little use around the farm”(112-113).

The Death of the Hired Man

Mary sat musing on the lamp-flame at the table
Waiting for Warren. When she heard his step,
She ran on tip-toe down the darkened passage
To meet him in the doorway with the news
And put him on his guard. 'Silas is back.'
She pushed him outward with her through the door
And shut it after her. 'Be kind,' she said.
She took the market things from Warren's arms
And set them on the porch, then drew him down
To sit beside her on the wooden steps.

'When was I ever anything but kind to him?
But I'll not have the fellow back,' he said.
'I told him so last haying, didn't I?
If he left then, I said, that ended it.
What good is he? Who else will harbor him
At his age for the little he can do?
What help he is there's no depending on.
Off he goes always when I need him most.
He thinks he ought to earn a little pay,
Enough at least to buy tobacco with,
So he won't have to beg and be beholden.
"All right," I say, "I can't afford to pay
Any fixed wages, though I wish I could."
"Someone else can." "Then someone else will have to."
I shouldn't mind his bettering himself
If that was what it was. You can be certain,
When he begins like that, there's someone at him
Trying to coax him off with pocket-money,-
In haying time, when any help is scarce.
In winter he comes back to us. I'm done.'

'Sh! not so loud: he'll hear you,' Mary said.

'I want him to: he'll have to soon or late.'

'He's worn out. He's asleep beside the stove.
When I came up from Rowe's I found him here,
Huddled against the barn-door fast asleep,
A miserable sight, and frightening, too-
You needn't smile-I didn't recognize him-
I wasn't looking for him-and he's changed.
Wait till you see.'

'Where did you say he'd been?'

'He didn't say. I dragged him to the house,
And gave him tea and tried to make him smoke.
I tried to make him talk about his travels.
Nothing would do: he just kept nodding off.'

'What did he say? Did he say anything?'

'But little.'

'Anything? Mary, confess.
He said he'd come to ditch the meadow for me.'

'Warren!'

‘But did he? I just want to know.'

'Of course he did. What would you have him say?
Surely you wouldn't grudge the poor old man
Some humble way to save his self-respect.
He added, if you really care to know,
He meant to clear the upper pasture, too.
That sounds like something you have heard before?
Warren, I wish you could have heard the way
He jumbled everything. I stopped to look
Two or three times-he made me feel so queer-
To see if he was talking in his sleep.
He ran on Harold Wilson-you remember-
The boy you had in haying four years since.
He's finished school, and teaching in his college.
Silas declares you'll have to get him back.
He says they two will make a team for work:
Between them they will lay this farm as smooth!
The way he mixed that in with other things.
He thinks young Wilson a likely lad, though daft
On education-you know how they fought
All through July under the blazing sun,
Silas up on the cart to build the load,
Harold along beside to pitch it on.'

'Yes, I took care to keep well out of earshot.'

'Well, those days trouble Silas like a dream.
You wouldn't think they would. How some things linger!
Harold's young college boy's assurance piqued him.
After so many years he still keeps finding
Good arguments he sees he might have used.
I sympathize. I know just how it feels
To think of the right thing to say too late.
Harold's associated in his mind with Latin.
He asked me what I thought of Harold's saying
He studied Latin like the violin
Because he liked it-that an argument!
He said he couldn't make the boy believe
He could find water with a hazel prong-
Which showed how much good school had ever done him.
He wanted to go over that. But most of all
He thinks if he could have another chance
To teach him how to build a load of hay'
'I know, that's Silas' one accomplishment.
He bundles every forkful in its place,
And tags and numbers it for future reference,
So he can find and easily dislodge it
In the unloading. Silas does that well.
He takes it out in bunches like big birds' nests.
You never see him standing on the hay
He's trying to lift, straining to lift himself.'

'He thinks if he could teach him that, he'd be
Some good perhaps to someone in the world.
He hates to see a boy the fool of books.
Poor Silas, so concerned for other folk,
And nothing to look backward to with pride,
And nothing to look forward to with hope,
So now and never any different.'

Part of a moon was falling down the west,
Dragging the whole sky with it to the hills.
Its light poured softly in her lap. She saw it
And spread her apron to it. She put out her hand
Among the harp-like morning-glory strings,
Taut with the dew from garden bed to eaves,
As if she played unheard some tenderness
That wrought on him beside her in the night.
'Warren,' she said, 'he has come home to die:
You needn't be afraid he'll leave you this time.'

'Home,' he mocked gently.

'Yes, what else but home?

It all depends on what you mean by home.
Of course he's nothing to us, any more
Than was the hound that came a stranger to us
Out of the woods, worn out upon the trail.'

'Home is the place where, when you have to go there,
They have to take you in.'

'I should have called it
Something you somehow haven't to deserve.'

Warren leaned out and took a step or two,
Picked up a little stick, and brought it back
And broke it in his hand and tossed it by.
'Silas has better claim on us you think
Than on his brother? Thirteen little miles
As the road winds would bring him to his door.
Silas has walked that far no doubt today.
Why doesn't he go there? His brother's rich,
A somebody-director in the bank.'

'He never told us that.'

‘We know it though.'

'I think his brother ought to help, of course.
I'll see to that if there is need. He ought of right
To take him in, and might be willing to-
He may be better than appearances.
But have some pity on Silas. Do you think
If he had any pride in claiming kin
Or anything he looked for from his brother,
He'd keep so still about him all this time?'

'I wonder what's between them.'

‘I can tell you.

Silas is what he is-we wouldn't mind him-
But just the kind that kinsfolk can't abide.
He never did a thing so very bad.
He don't know why he isn't quite as good
As anybody. Worthless though he is,
He won't be made ashamed to please his brother.'

'I can't think Si ever hurt anyone.'

'No, but he hurt my heart the way he lay
And rolled his old head on that sharp-edged chair-back.
He wouldn't let me put him on the lounge.
You must go in and see what you can do.
I made the bed up for him there tonight.
You'll be surprised at him-how much he's broken.
His working days are done; I'm sure of it.'

'I'd not be in a hurry to say that.'

'I haven't been. Go, look, see for yourself.
But, Warren, please remember how it is:
He's come to help you ditch the meadow.
He has a plan. You mustn't laugh at him.
He may not speak of it, and then he may.
I'll sit and see if that small sailing cloud
Will hit or miss the moon.'

It hit the moon.

Then there were three there, making a dim row,
The moon, the little silver cloud, and she.

Warren returned-too soon, it seemed to her,
Slipped to her side, caught up her hand and waited.

'Warren?' she questioned.

‘Dead,' was all he answered.

(Frost, NAAL)

Frost has added another dimension to his poetry by using dialogue to further the story. In this case the dialogue is a positive component, “Frost creates two voices, each of which listens to, and takes in, something of the other”(Wallace 229). But Frost also uses dialogue to create tension in his works. Wallace goes so far to say that Home Burial is, “a dialogue poem about the failure of dialogue”(229).

This poem was also first seen in North of Boston.

Home Burial

He saw her from the bottom of the stairs
Before she saw him. She was starting down,
Looking back over her shoulder at some fear.
She took a doubtful step and then undid it
To raise herself and look again. He spoke
Advancing toward her: 'What is it you see
From up there always-for I want to know.’
She turned and sank upon her skirts at that,
And her face changed from terrified to dull.
He said to gain time: 'What is it you see,’
Mounting until she cowered under him.
'I will find out now-you must tell me, dear.’
She, in her place, refused him any help
With the least stiffening of her neck and silence.
She let him look, sure that he wouldn't see,
Blind creature; and awhile he didn't see.
But at last he murmured, 'Oh,' and again, 'Oh.’

'What is it-what?' she said.

‘ Just that I see.’

'You don't,' she challenged. 'Tell me what it is.’

'The wonder is I didn't see at once.
I never noticed it from here before.
I must be wonted to it-that's the reason.
The little graveyard where my people are!
So small the window frames the whole of it.
Not so much larger than a bedroom, is it?
There are three stones of slate and one of marble,
Broad-shouldered little slabs there in the sunlight
On the sidehill. We haven't to mind those.
But I understand: it is not the stones,
But the child's mound-‘

'Don't, don't, don't, don't,' she cried.

She withdrew shrinking from beneath his arm
That rested on the bannister, and slid downstairs;
And turned on him with such a daunting look,
He said twice over before he knew himself.
'Can't a man speak of his own child he's lost?’

'Not you! Oh, where's my hat? Oh, I don't need it!
I must get out of here. I must get air.
I don't know rightly whether any man can.’

'Amy! Don't go to someone else this time.
Listen to me. I won't come down the stairs.’
He sat and fixed his chin between his fists.
'There's something I should like to ask you, dear.’

'You don't know how to ask it.’

‘Help me, then.'

Her fingers moved the latch for all reply.

'My words are nearly always an offense.
I don't know how to speak of anything
So as to please you. But I might be taught
I should suppose. I can't say I see how.
A man must partly give up being a man
With women-folk. We could have some arrangement
By which I'd bind myself to keep hands off
Anything special you're a-mind to name’
Though I don't like such things 'twixt those that love.
Two that don't love can't live together without them.
But two that do can't live together with them.’
She moved the latch a little. 'Don't-don't go.
Don't carry it to someone else this time.
Tell me about it if it's something human.
Let me into your grief. I'm not so much
Unlike other folks as your standing there
Apart would make me out. Give me my chance.
I do think, though, you overdo it a little.
What was it brought you up to think it the thing
To take your mother-loss of a first child
So inconsolably-in the face of love.
You'd think his memory might be satisfied-‘

'There you go sneering now!’

'I'm not, I'm not!
You make me angry. I'll come down to you.
God, what a woman! And it's come to this,
A man can't speak of his own child that's dead.’

'You can't because you don't know how to speak.
If you had any feelings, you that dug
With your own hand-how could you?-his little grave;
I saw you from that very window there,
Making the gravel leap and leap in air,
Leap up, like that, like that, and land so lightly
And roll back down the mound beside the hole.
I thought, Who is that man? I didn't know you.
And I crept down the stairs and up the stairs
To look again, and still your spade kept lifting.
Then you came in. I heard your rumbling voice
Out in the kitchen, and I don't know why,
But I went near to see with my own eyes.
You could sit there with the stains on your shoes
Of the fresh earth from your own baby's grave
And talk about your everyday concerns.
You had stood the spade up against the wall
Outside there in the entry, for I saw it.’

'I shall laugh the worst laugh I ever laughed.
I'm cursed. God, if I don't believe I'm cursed.’

'I can repeat the very words you were saying.
"Three foggy mornings and one rainy day
Will rot the best birch fence a man can build.”
Think of it, talk like that at such a time!
What had how long it takes a birch to rot
To do with what was in the darkened parlor.
You couldn't care! The nearest friends can go
With anyone to death, comes so far short
They might as well not try to go at all.
No, from the time when one is sick to death,
One is alone, and he dies more alone.
Friends make pretense of following to the grave,
But before one is in it, their minds are turned
And making the best of their way back to life
And living people, and things they understand.
But the world's evil. I won't have grief so
If I can change it. Oh, I won't, I won't!’

'There, you have said it all and you feel better.
You won't go now. You're crying. Close the door.
The heart's gone out of it: why keep it up.
Amy! There's someone coming down the road!’

'You-oh, you think the talk is all. I must go-
Somewhere out of this house. How can I make you-‘

'If-you-do!' She was opening the door wider.
'Where do you mean to go? First tell me that.
I'll follow and bring you back by force. I will!-‘

(Frost, NAAL)

This poem is commonly thought to be based on a real occurrence in Frost’s life. In 1900 Frost and his wife Elinor lost their four years old son Elliot, and in 1907 their fourth daughter, Elinor Bettina, died two days after she was born (Potter xiii-xiv), so when he writes about the feeling of loss and isolationism that comes with losing it comes from personal experience.

That’s just a short look at a few of Frost’s poems. You can also go to the links page for further studies.

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Links

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Bibliography

Bowra, C. M. “Re-Assessments.” The Adelphi Vol. 27, No.1, November, 1950, pp.46-64.

Rpt. in Poetry Criticism. Ed. Robyn V. Young. Detroit: Gale Research Inc., 1991. 208

Frost, Robert. “Death of the Hired Man,” “Home Burial,” "Mending Wall,” “Stopping by

Woods on a Snowy Evening.”

Lynen, John F. The Pastoral Art of Robert Frost. Yale P, 1960

Porter, James L. Robert Frost Handbook. Pennsylvania State U P, 1980

Wallace, Patricia. “Separateness and Solitude in Frost ” Kenyon Review, n.s. Vol.6,

No.1, Winter, 1984, pp1-12. Rpt in Poetry Criticism. Ed. Robyn V. Young. Detroit: Gale

Research Inc., 1991. 227-229

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