Author Quest

Author Quest: Robert Frost

Robert Frost was an accomplished American poet who used the simplicity of words to perplex his readers. Born in San Francisco, in 1874, Frost was an accomplished poet, school-teacher, farmer, cobbler, and editor of a country news paper. His spent his later years living in England, where he wrote some of his finest pieces. Throughout his lifetime, Frost has won many different awards for his works, including the Pulitzer Prize for poetry. Frost has made many contributions to the world of literature.
Frost published his poetry throughout his life time (1874-1963). Some of his best pieces were written in the second half of his life. The four poems that I will be taking a closer look at and referring to are: “The Road Not Taken”, “Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening”, “Home Burial” and “Design”. Frost is rarely, directly an autobiographical poet, but his poetry reveals his personality, beliefs, and values.
What makes Frost’s poems so effective is his erratic use of rhyme and his attempt to avoid traditional verse forms. If you take a closer look at one of his poems, they flow evenly and rhyme occasionally, but they avoid the sing-song monotony of some modern poets. “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.” (Gwynn 616). Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening is one of Frost’s most overly criticized pieces. People are too quick to make assumptions and an interpretation without having prior knowledge of Frost’s writing style.
Frost’s techniques are never experimental. He is not an innovator. His poetry is so effective due to his use of many poetic practices of the past. Frost’s career fully spans

across the modern time period. Frost cannot be classified as anything other than a modern poet, but his work contradicts this. According to James M. Cox, "it is difficult to place him in the main tradition of modern poetry." Cox continues by elaborating; “Frost stands at the crossroads of nineteenth-century American poetry and modernism, for in his verse may be found the culmination of many nineteenth-century tendencies and traditions as well as parallels to the works of his twentieth-century contemporaries.”
According to critics, Frost has developed and original, modern idiom and a sense of directness and economy that reflect the imagism of Ezra Pound and Amy Lowell. His poetry is entirely unlike other writers such as Eliot, Stevens, or Yeats. Frost developed his own ways of writing. Looking at, Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening, one can easily understand why this poem is so well known.
After completing further research, I found that this poem is full of uncertainties and ambiguity. Frost prided himself in his simplicity in writing. Sometimes when something is so simplistic, people tend to over analyze it and over interpret it. Through careful word choice and astounding imagery, Frost is able to create a multilevel poem. All of his pieces have countless surfaces to them.
This factor makes Frost’s pieces suitable for readers of all age levels. If a younger adolescent was analyzing this poem, they would interpret the poem on the most simplistic, straight-forward level. A college class, on the other hand, would probably grab onto the ambiguities and attempt to define them. I question whether this was Frost’s intent. I think he wanted the reader to take his pieces for their “face value” and apply their own interpretation.

Throughout my educational career, I have encountered this piece in numerous English courses. The four poems that I am focusing on today, all seem very straight-forward, sometimes lacking in depth, and easy to interpret. Every time my high school or college class viewed one of Frost’s poems; the teacher’s interpretation would vary. Each instructor chose to approach the poem from a different level and perspective.
The subject in “Stopping by the Woods” is never identified. I think Frost intentionally created a smooth, calm piece, and left room for the reader’s mind to question and wonder. Most people overanalyzing this piece would jump to assume that this is a cold poem about suicide. I believe that it is merely a young man, pausing in life to reflect on where he or she is presently at, and appreciate what god has given him. This poem has some parallels to “The Road Not Taken”.
“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, / and sorry I could not travel both” is a line that should sound familiar to most English majors. In “The Road Not Taken”, Frost uses carefully imagery and scare rhyming to create a wondrous story or picture in the reader’s mind. After reading this piece, I could picture walking through a beautiful woods and choosing what path to follow.
This poem is written in 4 stanzas, each consisting of 5 lines. This poem has an appealing flow. Its rhyme scheme is: A-B-A-C-B. I think Frost’s choice in rhyme scheme helps to make this poem somewhat hesitant or uncertain, similar to how a person would be feeling if they were choosing a path to take in life, and feeling unsure.
If you take careful notice, the stanzas are intertwined, to give the reader the feeling that the entire piece is tied together. This poem also has countless possible
interpretations. The main idea in the poem makes the reader question what kind of path or road the author is speaking of. Although this piece is full of meaning, the author uses very common words. The vocabulary is plain, but not boring. This is evident on most of Frost’s pieces and helps to bring clarity to the piece.
The poem, “Design” shows a large amount of Frost’s emotion, in some of his most difficult times. Unlike other well-known pieces, the reader is required to interpret more. Frost’s use of metaphor in this piece helps to bring meaning. “On a white heal-all, holding up a moth/ Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth-/” According to Robert Johnson, "Frost not only acknowledges the presence of the appalling in physical reality, but wonders if there is any cosmic design at all.” The rhyme scheme in “Design” is A-B-B-A-A-B-B-A. The flow and readability is more difficult than the other pieces we have discussed.
The fourth poem that is crucial in defining Frost’s as an author is “Home Burial”. This is one of the few pieces by Frost that reflects a certain tragedy or occasion in his life. Frost doesn’t mention events in his life, unless they are noted in an ambiguous nature. This piece is speculated to reflect the death of Frost’s son Elliott, who passed away at age three. Unlike most of Frost’s work, this piece is written in a longer 116 line free verse.
To conclude, what makes some of Frost’s most common poems valuable are their dynamic views of our daily life. Frost is capable of taking an ordinary object or occurrences in life and viewing it from a new level or perspective. This theme is evident is his pieces such as “Design”. He questions if there is a higher being. In Frost’s work, he uses basic language and applies it on a level that adds depth and meaning.
Works Cited

Gwynn, R.S. Literature a Pocket Anthology, 2nd ed. “Robert Frost” p. 609-616. Pearson Longman, New York. 2005.

Contemporary Authors Online. Thompson and Gale. 2006. “Robert Frost”. 11/04/2007