Robert Frost is known for his poems about nature, he writes about trees, flowers, and animals. This is a common misconception, Robert Frost is more than someone who writes a happy poem about nature. The elements of nature he uses are symbolic of something more, something darker, and something that needs close attention to be discovered. Flowers might not always represent beauty in Robert Frost’s poetry. Symbolism is present in every line of the nature’s poet’s poems. The everyday objects present in his poems provide the reader an alternative perspective of the world. Robert Frost uses all the elements of poetry to describe the darker side of nature. After analyzing the Poem Mending Wall and After Apple Picking it is clear that nature plays a dark and destructive role for Robert Frost. This dark side of Frost’s poetry could have been inspired from the hard life he lived. The vivid imagery, symbolism, metaphors make his poetry elusive, through these elements Frost is able to give nature its dark side. It is these elements that must be analyzed to discover the hidden dark meaning within Roberts Frost’s poems. Lines that seemed simple at first become more complex after the reader analyzes the poem using elements of poetry. For example, in the poem Mending Wall it appears that Robert frost is talking about two man arguing about a wall but at a closer look the reader realizes that the poem is about the things that separate man from man, which can be viewed as destructive. In After Apple Picking, the darkness of nature is present through the man wanting sleep, which is symbolic of death. It might seem that the poem is about apple picking and hard work but it is actually about the nature of death. Poets use events in their lives as a... ... middle of paper ... ...y. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2002. Print. Conder, John J. Frost: Centennial Essays. Jackson: University of Mississippi, 1974. Print. Frost, Robert, and Robert Faggen. The Notebooks of Robert Frost. Cambridge, MA: Belknap of Harvard UP, 2006. Print. Kemp, John C. Robert Frost and New England: The Poet as Regionalist. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1979. Print. Lentricchia, Frank. Robert Frost: Modern Poetics and the Landscapes of Self. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 1975. Print. Lindsay Nash. "Mending Wall: Playing the Game of Neighborhood Ordering." Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities 5th ser. 21.1 (2009): n. pag. Web. 1 Dec. 2013. . Parini, Jay. Robert Frost: A Life. New York: Henry Holt, 1999. Print. Richardson, Mark. The Ordeal of Robert Frost: The Poet and His Poetics. Urbana: University of Illinois, 1997. Print.
Pritchard, William H. Frost: A Literary Life Reconsidered. Amherst: The University of Massachusetts Press, 1985. 43.
Frost, Robert. “The Road Not Taken.” Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. 7th ed. Boston: Pearson, 2013. 689. Print.
Frost, Robert. "The Road Not Taken." The Norton Introduction to Literature.Eds.Alison Booth, J. Paul Hunter, and Kelly J. Mays. Shorter 9th ed. New York: Norton, 2006. 988
Robert Frost is regarded as one of the most distinguished American poets in the twentieth century. His work usually realistically describes the rural life in New England in the early twentieth century and conveys complex social and philosophical themes. But his personal life was plagued with grief and loss, which is also reflected in his poems and the dark energy distinguishes Robert Frost’s poems, frequently conveyed in the use of lexical words like dark and its derivatives or synonyms, woods, snow, night, and so on. (Su, Y)
Robert Lee Frost was born in San Francisco, California on March 26 of 1974 and died in Boston, Massachusetts on January 29 of 1963. Though he did not truly start publishing poems until age thirty-nine, Frost obtained four Pulitzer prizes in his writing career and was deemed one of the greatest twentieth century poets. His pastoral writing and skilled use of meter and rhythm has captured the attention of reader’s and critics for decades (Academic American, 345). Frost was very fond of nature and the beauty of things around him and illustrated this in many of his poems. A reviewer stated that Frost was “always occupied with the complicated task of simply being sincere” (Faggen, I). This statement describes the writer well in the sense that Frost’s works are very full of emotion. His use of the English language and the fact that he often seemed to be holding a little something back in his writing has made him one of the most celebrated American writers ever.
Frost, Robert. “The Road Not Taken.” Literature and the Writing Process. Ed. Elizabeth McMahan et al. 8th ed. Upper Saddle River: Pearson, 2007. 695-696. Print.
Lentricchia, Frank. Robert Frost: Modern Poetics and the Landscape of Self. Durham: Duke University Press. 1975. 103-107.
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...
March, Thomas and Harold Bloom. "The Poetry of Robert Frost and the Creative Genius of
This paper is about “After Apple Picking,” by Robert Frost, from the perspectives of Carl Phillips and Priscilla Paton. I would like to focus more on Carl Phillips discussion of “After Apple Picking” as his article has more focus on an actual argument on what “After Apple Picking” is about compared to Paton’s article which is more about how Frost went about writing his poems though his usage of metaphors and vague colloquialisms . Neither article was solely about “After Apple Picking,” but both had a few good observations and comments about the poem. Phillips main observation, and argument, was that “After Apple Picking” was about restlessness and ambition. “It’s a poem of restlessness, the restlessness of an ambition that spurs us towards greater achievement.” (Phillips 134).
Frost, Robert. “The Road Not Taken”. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. 7Th Ed. Nina
Nature has inspired countless poets from primitive times to the present. They have used it as a metaphor for virtually all human emotions-his stormy brow, her sky blue eyes, as wild as a summer storm. Very few, however, have so masterfully crafted their verse to fully express the range of nature’s power and influence, or suited the tone of a poem to encompass both human nature and ‘true’ nature. This is true in the poetic works of Robert Frost. The aspects of nature that are continually demonstrated in the poems of Frost symbolize both the physical world and its changes, and the nature of humans.
Thompson, Lawrance. Robert Frost: The Years of Triumph. Notes. Online. World Wide Web. 21 Jul 2000. .
1. Frost, Robert. Robert Frost’s Poems. Ed. Louis Untermeyer. New York: Washington Square Press, 1968. 194.
Often called the most popular American poet of the twentieth century, Robert Frost achieved a worldwide reputation as a major poet early in his career. He and his family spent three years in England, where he published his first two collections of poetry, A Boy’s Will and North of Boston. Initially uncertain about the reception he would receive in the United States, he returned to New England in 1915 to find that his poetry had gained massive popularity among Americans. Frost’s poetry continues to claim a place in the hearts of today’s readers. If asked to name a poet, many would name Robert Frost. Elementary school children learn “The Road Not Taken” and “Mending Wall”. Frost’s poetry earned and keeps its popularity due to its appeal to a wide range of readers. Even those who don’t often read poetry can find something to enjoy. At first glance, Frost writes simply about nature, but beneath the beautiful imagery lays deeper meaning. Frost uses nature to convey his messages, some of which reflect the ideas of the earlier Romantic writers, such as the love of nature and the distrust of industry. While Robert Frost expresses beliefs shared by writers of the Romantic Period, he also describes his own ideas about love, death, and interpersonal relationships.