Robert Frost

Robert Frost once said, “Always fall in with what you’re ask to accept. Take what is given, and make it over your way. My aim in life has always been to hold my own with whatever’s going. Not against: with”(Quotes). Frost’s life and time period exemplified his quote as he experienced the technological changes of the twentieth century. Through these experiences, he entertained and taught his readers through his competitive poetry like his poem “The Road Not Taken”.

Robert Frost was born on March 26, 1874, in San Francisco, California. William, his father, was a Journalist and Isabelle, his mother, was a teacher. His parents’ occupations sparked his early interest as a writer. Isabelle shared her love of literature and poetry with her son. When Frost was eleven, his mother took him and his sister, Jeanie, to live with his father’s parents in Lawrence, Massachusetts. William’s death left Robert and his family poor and dependent upon their cynical family members who believed Isabelle to be at fault for William’s death (DeFusco 13-15).

Robert attended Lawrence High School where his mother encouraged him to maintain high academics. His desire to write poetry did not begin until the first two years of high school. Frost’s home life and inability to adjust to life in the North created his artistic aspirations. His first poems were published in the school newspaper his sophomore year. After he graduated, Frost’s grandparents ordered him to attend Dartmouth College, but he dropped out after seven weeks (DeFusco 15-16).

Then Frost decided to work at a wool mill to save enough money to marry Elinor White. In the winter of 1895, at the age of twenty-one, Elinor and Frost were married. His first son was born a year later, named Elliot. Ag...

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...ntieth century. This theme was one of the many ideals that sparked the Progressive Movement allowing people to have the equal opportunity determine their own destiny. When people are suddenly exposed to freedom of choice, they are slow to react and do not have a grasp of what they want. This inexperience makes people not able to differentiate between two choices thus causing a person to hesitate and doubt oneself when finalizing their judgment.

When writing this poem, Frost believed that the content of the poem was more important than the style. He however paid close attention to meter using iambic pentameter and a rhyme scheme of abaab. The only style he refused to write in was free verse because he believed “a good map carried its own scale of miles”(cite). He wrote his poetry instead in “natural speaking patterns” because it was more appealing to readers.