Robert Frost Research Paper

Robert Frost, a poet from the late 1800’s and the early 1900’s, is one of the most famous writers of his time, and is also one of the most prominent figures in American Literature. Belonging to both the Modernist and Existentialist movements in literature, Frost has a very unique style of writing. He not only was influenced by the jazz music that was very popular in the early 1900’s, he was also influenced by art movements such as the cubist and fauvist artists that were well known during the time period. Frost also was influenced in later years by World War II. Frost belonged to the two literary movements Modernism and Existentialism. Though they are different in many ways, they do also share some similarities. Modernism is a movement in

This branch of philosophy is concerned with an individual and the actions they take that create their life as they know it. It follows that they also believe that the consequences of those actions are deemed to be the full responsibility of the person who did them. The main idea of this branch of philosophy is that a person has free will, and what they do with it is up to them, and they therefore are entirely responsible for themselves.

A piece of Frost’s literature that demonstrates this branch of of philosophy is one of his most well known poems, “ The Road Not Taken.” In the poem, Frost talks about finding two paths deep in the woods. He tells how he is “...Sorry I could not travel both… I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.” The meaning behind this is that when one is presented with two options that they cannot choose between, take the path that will mean more to you, because that is what will make the biggest

Author, Anthropologist, and Ethnomusicologist Alan P. Merriam “...proposed 10 social functions that music can serve, … emotional expression, communication, and symbolic representation….” Because music is able to express emotions and communicate them to people, it makes sense that the emotions conveyed to Frost through the music he listened to would influence the poetry he would write. The music of the time that was popular was jazz. This type of music had a swing to it and was written in either very upbeat tempos or slow, or with a bittersweet, slower tempo. This is similar to the normal moods of Frost’s poems, which usually contained either upbeat poems, deep, thought provoking poems, or bittersweet, melancholy poems. One of Frost’s more melancholy poems is “Fire and Ice,” which talks about how many say the world will end in fire, but he believes that the world could also end in ice, because that is equally