Robert Frost

1. Robert Frost By: Colt Fridand Mario D’Angelo

2. Robert Frost

3. Objectives • Students will be able to: • 1) Understand the basic history of Robert Frost; • 2) Understand the type of literature that was Robert Frost’s preference; • 3) Understand the importance of Robert Frost’s work.

4. Who is Robert Frost ? • Robert Frost was one of the most recognized American poets in history. Someone has yet to surpass his record of receiving 4 Pulitzer Prizes for his literary contributions. • He worked for quite a few universities and colleges. He received over 40 honorary degrees. • His works are important enough to have the place where he wrote most of it become registered as a historic site. His New Hampshire farm.

5. What did he do? • Robert Frost authored 4 books of poetry that earned him a Pulitzer Prize for each. • Frost became hugely popular. • He was asked to read one of his poems at John F. Kennedy’s inauguration. • He was able to leave a significant record of his existence on this earth.

6. When did he live? • Lived in the Modernist/ Imagist/ Confessional Era • He has been through World War I, The Roaring Twenties, The Dirty Thirties, and World War II. • 1874 - Robert Lee Frost is born on March 26 in San Francisco • 1963 – Died January 29

7. Where did he live? • San Francisco • Cincinnati • Massachusetts • New Hampshire • Dartmouth College • Harvard College • Gloucestershire • New England • Florida • Cambridge • Miami

8. Why is he important? • Robert Frost was able to achieve great popularity with his literary achievements, while also having such depth in his poetry as to allow others to debate their meanings.

9. Timeline • Robert Frost was a great American Poet. The major points of his life are as follows: • 1874 - Robert Lee Frost is born on March 26 in San Francisco, first child of Isabelle Moodie and William Prescott Frost Jr. • 1885 - Father dies of tuberculosis on May 5, leaving family with only $8 after expenses are paid. Family moves to Lawrence, Massachusetts to live with grandparents. • 1901 - Grandfather William Prescott Frost dies on July 10; his will gives Frost use of the Derry farm for ten years, after which Frost is to be given ownership of the farm. • 1924 - Awarded Pulitzer Prize for New Hampshire. • 1931 - Awarded Pulitzer Prize for Collected Poems. • 1937 - Awarded Pulitzer Prize for A Further Range. • 1943 - Awarded Pulitzer Prize for A Witness Tree. • 1961 - Reads his poetry at John F. Kennedy’s Inauguration. • 1963 - Awarded the Bollingen Prize for Poetry. Suffers another embolism on January 7. Dies shortly after midnight on January 29.

10. Modernist Poetry • Is generally considered to have emerged in the early years of the 20th century with the appearance of the Imagists • Another important feature of much modernist poetry in English is a clear focus on the surface of the poem. Much of this focuses on the literal meaning of the words on the page rather than any metaphorical or symbolic meanings that might be imputed to them. • Much of early modernist poetry took the form of short, compact lyrics. As it developed, however, longer poems came to the fore. These represent the main contribution of the modernist movement to the 20th-century English poetic canon.

11. Imagist • It was a short-lived poetic movement centered in London at the dawn of the 20th century. It signalled the birth of Modernism and its effects are felt in all British and American poetry since that time.

12. Confessional Poetry • Poetry about the poets personal life, usually dark secrets. Confessional would be considered as to confess your sins.

13. After Apple Picking My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a treeToward heaven still,And there's a barrel that I didn't fillBeside it, and there may be two or threeApples I didn't pick upon some bough.But I am done with apple-picking now.Essence of winter sleep is on the night,The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.I cannot rub the strangeness from my sightI got from looking through a pane of glassI skimmed this morning from the drinking troughAnd held against the world of hoary grass.It melted, and I let it fall and break.But I was wellUpon my way to sleep before it fell,And I could tellWhat form my dreaming was about to take.Magnified apples appear and disappear,Stem end and blossom end,And every fleck of russet showing clear.My instep arch not only keeps the ache,It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round. I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend.And I keep hearing from the cellar binThe rumbling soundOf load on load of apples coming in.For I have had too muchOf apple-picking: I am overtiredOf the great harvest I myself desired.There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall.For allThat struck the earth,No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble,Went surely to the cider-apple heapAs of no worth.One can see what will troubleThis sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.Were he not gone,The woodchuck could say whether it's like hisLong sleep, as I describe its coming on,Or just some human sleep.

14. Mending Walls 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 neighbour 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 until our backs are turned!" We wear our fingers rough with handling them. Oh, just another kind of out-door 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 the cones under his pines, I tell him. He only says, "Good fences make good neighbours." Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder If I could put a notion in his head: "Why do they make good neighbours? 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 offence. 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 neighbours."

15. Home Burial 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 sunlightOn 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 armThat rested on the banister, 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." HE saw her from the bottom of the stairsBefore she saw him. She was starting down,Looking back over her shoulder at some fear.She took a doubtful step and then undid itTo raise herself and look again. He spokeAdvancing toward her: "What is it you seeFrom 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 helpWith the least stiffening of her neck and silence.She let him look, sure that he wouldn't see,Blind creature; and a while 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.

16. Home Burial Cont... 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.If you had any feelings, you that dugWith 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 lightlyAnd 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 stairsTo look again, and still your spade kept lifting.Then you came in. I heard your rumbling voiceOut 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 shoesOf the fresh earth from your own baby's graveAnd talk about your everyday concerns.You had stood the spade up against the wallOutside there in the entry, for I saw it." "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 offence.I don't know how to speak of anythingSo as to please you. But I might be taughtI should suppose. I can't say I see how.A man must partly give up being a manWith women-folk. We could have some arrangementBy which I'd bind myself to keep hands offAnything 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 muchUnlike other folks as your standing thereApart 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 thingTo take your mother-loss of a first childSo inconsolably--in the face of love.

17. Home Burial Cont... "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 dayWill 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 rotTo do with what was in the darkened parlour.You couldn't care! The nearest friends can goWith anyone to death, comes so far shortThey 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 pretence of following to the grave,But before one is in it, their minds are turnedAnd making the best of their way back to lifeAnd living people, and things they understand.But the world's evil. I won't have grief soIf 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!--"

18. Home Burial Analyses Basically this is a poem about a couple whose first born has died. The husband and the wife are caught up in severe crisis at the loss of their first born. They have been through this tragic experience but a man and a women behaves in two different ways at this moment of grief. A woman is unable to take up her life at the death of only child but the husband on the other hand has accepted the death of his son. This poem shows that there is grievous lack of communication between the couple and the sad shadow of death of their child alienates them more from each other.

19. The Road Not Taken Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,And sorry I could not travel bothAnd be one traveler, long I stoodAnd looked down one as far as I couldTo where it bent in the undergrowth;Then took the other, as just as fair,And having perhaps the better claim,Because it was grassy and wanted wear;Though as for that the passing thereHad worn them really about the same,And both that morning equally layIn leaves no step had trodden black.Oh, I kept the first for another day!Yet knowing how way leads on to way,I doubted if I should ever come back.I shall be telling this with a sighSomewhere ages and ages hence:Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--I took the one less traveled by,And that has made all the difference.

20. New Hampshire I met a Californian who would Talk California—a state so blessed, He said, in climate, none bad ever died there A natural death, and Vigilance Committees Had had to organize to stock the graveyards And vindicate the state's humanity. "Just the way Stefansson runs on," I murmured, "About the British Arctic. That's what comes Of being in the market with a climate." I met a poet from another state, A zealot full of fluid inspiration, Who in the name of fluid inspiration, But in the best style of bad salesmanship, Angrily tried to male me write a protest (In verse I think) against the Volstead Act. He didn't even offer me a drink Until I asked for one to steady him. This is called having an idea to sell. It never could have happened in New Hampshire. I met a lady from the South who said (You won't believe she said it, but she said it): "None of my family ever worked, or had A thing to sell." I don't suppose the work Much matters. You may work for all of me. I've seen the time I've had to work myself. The having anything to sell is what Is the disgrace in man or state or nation. I met a traveler from Arkansas Who boasted of his state as beautiful For diamonds and apples. "Diamonds And apples in commercial quantities?" I asked him, on my guard. "Oh, yes," he answered, Off his. The time was evening in the Pullman. I see the porter's made your bed," I told him.

21. A Further Range • There are several parts to this book: • Desert Places • Leaves Compared With Flowers • Neither Out Far Nor In Deep • Provide, Provide • They Were Welcome To Their Belief • Two Tramps In Mud Time • Design • Departmental

22. A Further Range / Desert Places And lonely as it is, that lonelinessWill be more lonely ere it will be less�A blanker whiteness of benighted snowWith no expression, nothing to express.They cannot scare me with their empty spacesBetween stars�on stars where no human race is.I have it in me so much nearer homeTo scare myself with my own desert places. Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fastIn a field I looked into going past,And the ground almost covered smooth in snow,But a few weeds and stubble showing last.The woods around it have it�it is theirs.All animals are smothered in their lairs.I am too absent-spirited to count;The loneliness includes me unawares.

23. A Further Range/Departmental An ant on the tableclothRan into a dormant mothOf many times his size.He showed not the least surprise.His business wasn't with such.He gave it scarcely a touch,And was off on his duty run.Yet if he encountered oneOf the hive's enquiry squadWhose work is to find out GodAnd the nature of time and space,He would put him onto the case.Ants are a curious race;One crossing with hurried treadThe body of one of their deadIsn't given a moment's arrest-Seems not even impressed.But he no doubt reports to anyWith whom he crosses antennae,And they no doubt reportTo the higher-up at court.Then word goes forth in Formic:"Death's come to Jerry McCormic,Our selfless forager Jerry. Will the special JanizaryWhose office it is to buryThe dead of the commissaryGo bring him home to his people.Lay him in state on a sepal.Wrap him for shroud in a petal.Embalm him with ichor of nettle.This is the word of your Queen."And presently on the sceneAppears a solemn mortician;And taking formal position,With feelers calmly atwiddle,Seizes the dead by the middle,And heaving him high in air,Carries him out of there.No one stands round to stare.It is nobody else's affair It couldn't be called ungentleBut how thoroughly departmental

24. A Further Range/ Design

25. A Witness Tree • There are three parts to this book: • A Question • Come In • The Silken Tent

26. A Witness Tree/ Come In As I came to the edge of the woods,Thrush music -- hark!Now if it was dusk outside,Inside it was dark.Too dark in the woods for a birdBy sleight of wingTo better its perch for the night,Though it still could sing.The last of the light of the sunThat had died in the westStill lived for one song moreIn a thrush's breast. Far in the pillared darkThrush music went --Almost like a call to come inTo the dark and lament.But no, I was out for stars;I would not come in.I meant not even if asked;And I hadn't been.

27. A Witness Tree/ A Question  A voice said, Look me in the starsAnd tell me truly, men of earth,If all the soul-and-body scarsWere not too much to pay for birth.

28. A Witness Tree/ The Silken Tent She is as in a field a silken tentAt midday when the sunny summer breezeHas dried the dew and all its ropes relent,So that in guys it gently sways at ease,And its supporting central cedar pole,That is its pinnacle to heavenwardAnd signifies the sureness of the soul,Seems to owe naught to any single cord,But strictly held by none, is loosely boundBy countless silken ties of love and thoughtTo every thing on earth the compass round,And only by one's going slightly tautIn the capriciousness of summer airIs of the slightlest bondage made aware.

29. The End...If Time is Left!

30. Stopping By The Woods Whose woods these are I think I know.His house is in the village though;He will not see me stopping hereTo watch his woods fill up with snow.My little horse must think it queerTo stop without a farmhouse nearBetween the woods and frozen lakeThe darkest evening of the year.He gives his harness bells a shakeTo ask if there is some mistake.The only other sound's the sweepOf 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.

31. Nothing Gold Can Stay Nature's first green is goldHer hardest hue to hold.Her early leaf's a flower;But only so an hour.Then leaf subsides to leaf.So Eden sank to grief,So dawn goes down to day.Nothing gold can stay.