Robert Frost

Robert Frost was born in San Francisco in 1874. He moved to New England at the age of eleven and became interested in reading and writing poetry during his high school years in Lawrence, Massachusetts. He was enrolled at Dartmouth College in 1892, and later at Harvard, but never earned a formal degree. Frost drifted through a string of occupations after leaving school, working as a teacher, cobbler, and editor of the Lawrence Sentinel. His first professional poem, "The Butterfly," was published on November 8, 1894, in the New York newspaper The Independent.In 1895, Frost married Elinor Miriam White, who became a major inspiration in his poetry until her death in 1938. The couple moved to England in 1912, after their New Hampshire farm failed, and it was abroad that Frost met and was influenced by such contemporary British poets as Edward Thomas, Rupert Brooke, and Robert Graves.There are probably three things that account for Robert Frost's poetry.

In his poems, he uses familiar subjects, like nature, people doing everyday things and simple language to express his thought. His poems may be easy to read, but not necessarily easy to understand. Almost all of Frost's poems are hiding a secret message. He easily can say two things at the same time. For example, in "The Road Not Taken", Frost talks about being a traveler, but the hidden message is about decisions in life.

In lines 19 and 20, he expresses that he did the right thing, by choosing to go down the path that made the difference. Also, "in Birches", lines 48-59, it shows that the poem is about being carefree. Frost wishes he could be like the boy swinging from the birch trees. The poem sets the picture of a boy swinging from the tree branches, but he really is talking about being carefree. He says that earth is the right place for love.

He says that he doesn't know where he would like to go better, but he would like to go swinging from the birches.Another example of symbolic description comes from the poem "Desert Places" he talks about how he will not be scared of the desert places, but of the loneliness. He is scared of his own loneliness, his own desert places.Most of Frost's poems are about nature. All three of the mentioned poems are about nature. In "The Road Not Taken" he talks of the woods and paths to follow (line1).