Authors write poetry for many reasons including to prove a point, share life stories or to just make the reader think. But the main reason that they write poems is because of their background and other influences. Robert frost is a great example of a poet influenced by his experiences. These influences show up in most of his poetry but especially in “The Road Not Taken” and “Birches”. Moving to the New England region, influential people and his views on society, and World War I influenced Robert Frost to write much of his poetry and brought him to a stage of worldly fame.
Robert Frost was born in San Francisco on March 26th of 1874. His father was William Prescott Frost Jr., who was a journalist, and his mother was Isabelle Moodie (“Biography of Robert Frost”). William Frost Jr. was an Englishman who immigrated to New hampshire and Isabelle Moodie was of Scottish descent. His mother and father had just moved from Pennsylvania (“Biography of Robert Frost”). When his father died of tuberculosis in 1885, Robert moved to Lawrence, Massachusetts with his mother and little sister (“Robert Frost”).
He became interested in poetry during his high school years in Lawrence (“Robert Frost”). Robert Frost got into Harvard, but was not able to attend because of a lack of money. He went to Dartmouth in 1892 and worked at a variety of teaching and jobs. Later he went to Harvard, but never got a college degree for poetry (“Birches”). Frost married Elinor White in 1895 whom he met in high school. She inspired much of his poetry until she died in 1938. He left in 1899 to support his family's farming business (“Birches”).
From moving to Lawrence, Frost was majorly influenced by the life and geography of New England in his poetry."My Butterfly" wa...
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- - -. "The Road Not Taken." Poetry Foundation. Poetry Foundation, 2014. Web. 26 Feb. 2014.
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Robert Frost is very successful poet from the 20th century, as well as a four time Pulitzer Prize winner. Robert Frost work was originally published in England and later would be published in the US. He was also considered one of the most popular and respected poets of his century. Robert Frost created countless of poems and plays, many of them containing similar themes. Some of the most popular themes found in his poems encompass isolation, death and everyday life.
“Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words,” Robert Frost once said. As is made fairly obvious by this quote, Frost was an adroit thinker. It seems like he spent much of his life thinking about the little things. He often pondered the meaning and symbolism of things he found in nature. Many readers find Robert Frost’s poems to be straightforward, yet his work contains deeper layers of complexity beneath the surface. His poems are not what they seem to be at first glance. These deeper layers of complexity can be clearly seen in his poems “The Road Not Taken”, “Fire and Ice”, and “Birches”.
In analyzing and comparing symbolism, form, and style of the literary work “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost and the short story of “A Worn Path” by Eudora, Welty I ask so what is the symbolic discovery that gives the reader new ideas, connecting experiences, considering deeper insights, and coming to conclusions with harmonious delight? Although we all have ‘roads’ or ‘paths’ to take on our journey in life it is in how we handle the experience; and what we gain from those life journeys that will either enrich our life or be our demise. I intend to show that detail in the short story gives us a more precise imagery giving a lead to our imagination than that of the poem. The Symbolism in both brings to light a positive message each in its own rhythm and to each individual reader a metaphor and food for life.
Robert Frost is known for being a poet, but he is not truly known as Robert Lee Frost the person. Who is the real Robert Frost? Was he the wholesome person that he appeared to be to the public? Was his life really full of beauty like he wrote in his poetry? Who was really behind the typewriter?
Robert Frost wrote poetry about nature and it is that nature that he used as symbols for life lessons. Many critics have been fascinated by the way that Frost could get so many meanings of life out of nature itself. Frost‘s poetry appeals to almost everyone because of his uncanny ability to tie in with many things that one is too familiar with and for many, that is life in itself. “Perhaps that is what keeps Robert Frost so alive today, even people who have never set foot in Vermont, in writing about New England, Frost is writing about everywhere” (294).
Keys, Marilynn. "'A Worn Path': The Way of Dispossession." Studies in Short Fiction 16 (Fall 1979): 354-56.
Robert Frost’s story starts on March 26, 1874 in San Francisco, California. Frost was born to father William Prescott and mother Isabelle Moodie; he also had a younger sister Jeanie. When Robert Frost was 11 years old, his father died of tuberculosis. Shortly after, Frost and his mother and sister, then 2 years old, moved to Lawrence, Massachusetts. In high school he became interested in reading and writing poetry. He enrolled in Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. He also enrolled in Harvard, but he never earned a formal college degree. After college, he had many jobs including being a teacher, cobbler, and editor of the Lawrence Sentinel. His first poem, ‘My Butterfly’ was published in the New York Newspaper, The Independent, in November 8, 1894. In 1895, he married his wife Miriam White and she was a major inspiration for his poetry. Then in 1912, they moved to England; it was here he met many contemporary British poets who influenced his writing. He befriended Ezra Pound who helped him promote and publish Frost...
Robert Frost was born in San Francisco on March 26, 1874. His father died of tuberculosis when he was eleven years old and because of that he moved with his mother and younger sister to Lawrence, Massachusetts. He later attended Lawrence High School, where he met his love and future wife, Elinor Miriam White. High school was where he first became interested in reading and writing poetry. After graduating in 1892, he attended Dartmouth University in Hanover, New Hampshire for a few months, until he returned home to work various unfulfilling jobs for several years. His first published poem, “My Butterfly,” appeared in The Independent, a weekly literary journal based in New York on November 8, 1894. He proposed and got married to Elinor White
Frost, Robert. “The Road Not Taken.” Mountain Interval. Mountain Interval, n.d. Web. 5 March 2014.
“The Road Not Taken” examines the struggles people run into when they come to a place in their life where a life altering decisions has to be made. The man who is described in this poem is traveling when he comes upon “two roads diverged” (1). He then has to choose which path he will take to continue on his journey. After standing at the diversion for a while, he knows he has to make a final decision. One path was worn down and “bent in the undergrowth” (5), so he took the other path, which was described as “perhaps the better claim/ Because it was grassy and wanted wear” (6-7). The man of the poem begins to ponder about a time when he will be telling his story of the path he took. Although we are not sure if the man regrets his decision or is relieved, he lets us know taking the road less traveled “has made all the difference” (20).
There Frost attended Lawrence High School where he met his future wife and co-valedictorian, Elinor White (1). The young not-yet poet became interested in reading and writing poetry during his years in high school (3). Frost published his first poem in his school's magazine. After graduating, Frost went to Dartmouth long enough to get into the Theta Delta Chi fraternity (4). Frost passed the entrance exams for Harvard, but instead attended Dartmouth in 1892, because it was cheaper, but also because his grandfather blamed Harvard for the bad habits of William. Frost stayed at Dartmouth for less than a term, then left (5). This caused a fit with Elinor, she wanted him to finish college and wouldn’t marry him until he graduated college.
The Road Not Taken is a twenty-line poem written in iambic pentameter with the rhyme scheme ABAAB. This poem starts with the author walking through the woods. He comes to a fork in the path and is torn by which path to take...does he take the path that is traveled by everybody, or the one rarely traveled upon? He decides to take the road less traveled by. By taking this path he changes his life in some way unknown to the reader.
Kemp, John C. Robert Frost and New England: The Poet as Regionalist. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1979. Print.
"The Road Not Taken: a Study Guide." Cummings Study Guides. Michael Cummings, n.d. Web. 3 Apr 2011. .