In Robert Frost's poem Nothing Gold Can Stay he says “Nature's first green is gold” and this alludes to the time period he was technically born in, realism, but he lived most of his life in the Modernism time period. The Modernism time period was a time where people believed that the assurance once provided by politics, religion, or society no longer worked. This idea was very strong after World War I. “It seemed to many that history itself was coming to an end and that modern life was horrific, chaotic, and ultimately futile.” (American Novel 2). Robert Frost’s calm images hinted at the darker truths beneath, Frost’s personal life was hidden by his poetry.
Frost had the ability to talk to common people and scholars in plain but poetic language and he could observe ordinary occurrences with wit and irony. (Salam 2) This contribution is well appreciated because people get bored of people talking in just plain talk. This is very significant because without this the Modernist era would be following the same sort of suit as all the other eras; for instance, during the American Realism period the majority of the writings were about the civil war. Frost also won the Pulitzer Prize four times. One was for “New Hampshire”, the others were Collected Poems, A further range and A Witness Tree. (Armenti 1) There are billions of people who love what Robert Frost has brought to the table of literature but there are some who don't.
In The Terror in Robert Frost by William Stafford, Stafford talks about how Frost was an emblem. Frost spent hours memorizing a poem written for his inaugural, but could not finish it. Frost said that he felt ashamed. But Frost caught the attention of the world and went on. Frost was Thirty-nine ye...
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...aveled by, and that has made all the difference” this is my favorite because our lives come down to the decisions we make.
Works Cited
"The American Novel . Literary Timeline . Movements ... - PBS." 2007. 7 May. 2014
Armenti, Peter, comp. "Robert Frost: Online Resources." Library of Congress. N.p., 30 Jan. 2013. Web. 22 May 2014. .
Beacham, Walton. "Critical Survey of Poetry: American Poets." America: History and Life. EBSCO, Jan. 2011. Web. 22 May 2014. .
Stafford, William. "The Terror in Robert Frost." Editorial. Ny Times. New York Times, 18 Aug. 1974. Web. 15 May 2014. .
Gray, Richard. A History of American Literature. John Wiley & Sons. November 21, 2011. 28 December, 2014.
The poem states that everything eventually comes to an end and that not even gold can remain unchanged. The poem explains this theme with many metaphors about everything that’s coming to an end. Freeman explains that “Even the poem's rhymes contribute to this sense of inevitability: Nature's gold we (or She) cannot hold; the flower lasts only an hour; the post flower leaf is like Eden's grief; the coming of day means that dawn's gold cannot stay”(2). The poem explains that everything has a natural cycle and that nothing lasts forever. When the poem states “nothing can stay gold”, Frost looks back at the flower and the time of day and implies that it all comes to an end.
...nd: A Study of the American Novel in the Nineteen-Sixties. Yale, 1973. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism, Vol. 3. Detroit: Gale,1975.
...n American Literature. By Henry Louis. Gates and Nellie Y. McKay. 2nd ed. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2004. 387-452. Print.
“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”.
Robert Frost is often known as one of the greatest American poets of all time. Although he is sometimes remembered as hateful and mean spirited, his life was filled with highs and lows. These differentiating periods are represented throughout his poetry. Frost once said that “A poem begins in delight, and ends in wisdom.” As can be seen, this quote not only reflected his poetry, but his life. Though many years of his life were troubled by misfortune, Frost always seemed to persevere. Robert Frost was a talented, thoughtful poet whose life was filled with complexity and tragedy (brainyquote.com).
Frost is far more than the simple agrarian writer some claim him to be. He is deceptively simple at first glance, writing poetry that is easy to understand on an immediate, superficial level. Closer examination of his texts, however, reveal his thoughts on deeply troubling psychological states of living in a modern world. As bombs exploded and bodies piled up in the World Wars, people were forced to consider not only death, but the aspects of human nature that could allow such atrocities to occur. By using natural themes and images to present modernist concerns, Frost creates poetry that both soothes his readers and asks them to consider the true nature of the world and themselves.
Robert Frost’s intricate meanings are stated in such a way that the reader must dwell so much deeper into the poem than one does when one just reads the poem. The poet has a major theme in all of his poems and that theme is nature. Nature is something that Frost could always relate to. In nature Frost sees life, people, and situations in life. In the poem “After Apple-Picking”, he uses the situation of a man picking an apple as another lesson on life. Picking apples is tedious work where one must observe and pick the ripest apples...
The Tragic Impermanence of Youth in Robert Frost's Nothing Gold Can Stay In his poem "Nothing Gold can Stay", Robert Frost names youth and its attributes as invaluable. Using nature as an example, Frost relates the earliest green of a newborn plant to gold; its first leaves are equated with flowers. However, to hold something as fleeting as youth in the highest of esteems is to set one's self up for tragedy. The laws of the Universe cast the glories of youth into an unquestionable state of impermanence.
Perkins, Geroge, and Barbara Perkins. The American Tradition in Literature. 12th ed. Vol. 2. New York: McGraw Hill, 2009. Print
“American Crisis.” The American Tradition in Literature, 12th ed. New York: McGraw Hill 2009. Print
Berkin, Carol, Lisa Olson. Paddock, and Carl E. Rollyson. Encyclopedia of American Literature. New York: Facts on File, 2002. Print.
Life and death are two things that we as humans must all face. The road from one to the other, from life to death, is a long and at times, both joyous and painful one. Robert Frost’s poems are a prime example of these times and trials. The poems I chose for this paper highlight them, and with Frost’s allegory, they present a sort of silver lining to the string of dark and dreary words he’s pieced together for these poems. The depressing tone to the poems “Acquainted with the Night”, “Nothing Gold Can Stay”, and “Stopping by the Woods on a Snowing Evening” could be attributed to the death of many of Frost’s family members, and how despite this he overcame it all, and at the end of his life, was a successful writer. These poems to not go into great explanation of the details of Frost’s life, however, I believe that they are representations of the things path that he’s walked, and how he viewed his actions and death in general.
Robert Frost is an amazing poet that many admire today. He is an inspiration to many poets today. His themes and ideas are wonderful and are valued by many. His themes are plentiful however a main one used is the theme of nature. Frost uses nature to express his views as well as to make his poetry interesting and easy to imagine in your mind through the detail he supplies.
Robert Frost, a poet that mastered the imagery of nature through his words. Such vivid details compressed in a few stanzas explains the brilliancy of his writing. He was born on March 26, 1874, in San Francisco. By the 1920s, he was the most celebrated poet in America; with his fame and honor increasing as well. His poems created themes like nature, communication, everyday life, isolation of the individual, duty, rationality versus imagination, and rural life versus urban life. The most controversial theme of this poems is nature and if his poems have a dark side in them. Readers can easily be guided to the fact that his poems are centered on nature; however, it is not. Frost himself says, "I am not a nature poet. There is almost a person in