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Analyzing Fire and Ice by Robert Frost
Analysis of the poems by Robert Frost
Analysis of the poems by Robert Frost
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“Some say the world will end in fire,/ Some say in ice./ From what I’ve tasted of desire/ I hold with those who favor fire./ But if it had to perish twice,/ I think I know enough of hate/ To say that for destruction ice/ Is also great/ And would suffice.” This poem by Robert Frost is an excellent example of how even though people tend to think that Frost’s poems are just fun easy to read poems, a lot of them actually have dark themes to them. The poem “Fire and Ice” quoted above is a poem all about death and his prefered way to die/ destroy the world. So, although the average reader will quote Robert Frost as being a poet of positivity, yet many of his poems actually point out the dark side of human existence. Robert Frost’s story starts on March 26, 1874 in San Francisco, California. Frost was born to father William Prescott and mother Isabelle Moodie; he also had a younger sister Jeanie. When Robert Frost was 11 years old, his father died of tuberculosis. Shortly after, Frost and his mother and sister, then 2 years old, moved to Lawrence, Massachusetts. In high school he became interested in reading and writing poetry. He enrolled in Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. He also enrolled in Harvard, but he never earned a formal college degree. After college, he had many jobs including being a teacher, cobbler, and editor of the Lawrence Sentinel. His first poem, ‘My Butterfly’ was published in the New York Newspaper, The Independent, in November 8, 1894. In 1895, he married his wife Miriam White and she was a major inspiration for his poetry. Then in 1912, they moved to England; it was here he met many contemporary British poets who influenced his writing. He befriended Ezra Pound who helped him promote and publish Frost... ... middle of paper ... ...ard, William . "Frost's Life and Career--by William H. Pritchard and Stanley Burnshaw." Frost's Life and Career--by William H. Pritchard and Stanley Burnshaw. Oxford University Press, 1 Jan. 1994. Web. 13 May 2014. Pritchard, William . "On "The Road Not Taken"." On "The Road Not Taken". A Literary Life Reconsidered, n.d. Web. 13 May 2014. . . "Robert Frost." Poets.org. Academy of American Poets, n.d. Web. 14 Apr 2014. . “Robert Frost.” PoetryFoundation.org. Harriet Monroe Poetry Institute. Web. 25 Apr 2014. . "Robert Frost." Poetry Foundation. Poetry Foundation, 1 Jan. 1963. Web. 13 May 2014. .
Frost created many poems with a correlation to death. A poem that easily displays this theme is “A Soldier” because it deals with the falling of a soldier at war. As Karen Hardison explains that “"A Soldier" is composed around an extended metaphor that is introduced in the first line: "He is that fallen lance ...." The soldier is compared to a fallen lance, a weapon, that lies on the ground” (1). Most of this poem involves a metaphor and imagery, which help the reader understand the theme. The fallen soldier lies dead on the ground and as time passes he begging to deteriorate yet he remain in the same location, just like the lance. Frost also condemns war and all of the consequences that occur because of it. Furthermore, another of Frost poem that containing the theme of death is “Nothing Gold Can Stay’, the poem indirectly references the theme of death. 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’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 last forever. When the poem states “nothing can
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).
... ice are, after all, the inextricable complementarities of one apocalyptic vision: that endlessly regenerative cycle of desire and (self) hatred that necessarily brings the productive poet to scourge his own voice as he mocks both the poetic vocation and the state to which poetry - and if poetry then all language - has come. Frost anticipates modernism's lament and, it may be said, prefigures in his dualism its dubious palliative of self-referential irony. The lyric birds and the weary speakers tell us the genuine Frostian wisdom of achieving a commonsensical accommodation with the fallen world, while inciting at another, and ineffable, level a profound disquiet.
2. Doreski, William. "Frost, Robert 1874—1963." American Writers: A Collection of Literary Biographies, Retrospective Supplement 1. Ed. A. Walton Litz and Molly Weigel. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1998. 121-144. Scribner Writers on GVRL. Web. 11 Dec. 2013.
Frost was known for writing poetry with an emphasis on nature. He used the changing of the seasons to symbolize events that were also occurring in the lives of the characters portrayed in his poems as well as to give a vivid depiction of the human condition. For instance, in “Nothing Gold Can Stay”, Frost opens the poem with a line about the shade of the leaves, but by the end of the poem it becomes evident that the gold in which he is describing has little to do with nature, but rather is a depiction of things valued in life and the frailty there of. Mordecai Marcus stated in his book The Poems of Robert Frost: an explication, “Frost's view resembles Emerson's idea that being born into this world is the fall implying that the suffering and decay brought by natural processes are what we know of evil… The "Nothing" of the last line, repeated from the title, receives special emphasis; the gold that cannot stay comes to represent all perfections” (Marcus) Using nature as a means to symbolize the cycle of human existence was a common thread in a large number of Frost’s poems.
But lurking in the shadows of the yellow wood of Frost’s poetry are much deeper meanings than are immediately apparent. As the modern poet Billy Collins says in his “Introduction to Poetry”, in order to find the true meaning of a poem we must “.hold it up to the light/ like a color slide” instead of “.beating it with a hose/ to find out what it really means” (1-16). When Frost’s poems are held up to the light, it is revealed that they contain the very themes of existence, themes which happen to be very dark indeed. Robert Frost uses simple language and images from nature in his poetry to explore the dark realities of life: destruction, humanity’s thirst for truth, and the temptation to submit to evil. Throughout his poems, Frost explores the inevitability of destruction.
Although Frost later came to have grave misgivings about his choice, he had picked Thompson his official biographer in 1939. Collections of Frost materials are in the Jones Library in Amherst, Mass., Amherst College Library, Dartmouth College Library, University of Virginia Library and the University of Texas Library in Austin.
Pritchard, William H. "On "The Road Not Taken"" On "The Road Not Taken" N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Apr. 2014
There have been many exceptional literary figures throughout American history, but very few are as revered as Robert Frost. Frost is considered to be one of the most prominent figures of the modernist period. The modernist period took place during the first half of the twentieth century, and it is characterized by its use of experimentation and belief in individualism (Rahn, 2011). After the death of his father, an eleven-year-old Frost and his family moved to Massachusetts, where he would spend most of his life (“Robert Frost and His Poems,” n.d.). New England is where Frost drew most of his literary inspiration and is the setting for most of his work. After a brief stint at Dartmouth College, Frost returned home, and in 1894 he sold his first
Frost’s childhood was quite dynamic. At age eleven, in 1885, Frost’s father perished from tuberculosis, and soon after, the family moved to Massachusetts. In the past, Frost played a lot of basketball and gallivanting with friends. Frost went to Dartmouth College after high school; however it was short-lived because he dropped out in less than a semester. He entered Harvard University next, which was a college that his father graduated from. However, due problems related to health, he only lasted two years. Without Frost actually graduating, he has not gotten a proper college degree. Over his life, he has earned four Pulitzer prizes of poetry y in the years 1924, 1931, 1937, and 1943. From the encyclopedia World Book F 7, on page five hundred and forty-two, it inscribes: “In 1960, Frost earned a gold medal from congress in recognition of his poetry.” Frost also recited a poem to John Fitzgerald Kennedy during his inauguration. Frost had many notable life events, some of which is when he created his first poem, or when he moved to England in 1912.
Robert Frost was born on March 26, 1874 in San Francisco, California. At the age of eleven Frost’s father died from tuberculosis, then Frost, his mother, and his sister moved to Lawrence, Massachusetts (Robert Frost). Frost became interested in poetry and writing it during his high school years, and it has stuck with him since. After high school, he attended Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, and then a year later he attended at Harvard University
“Fire and Ice” is a poem that paints a bleak picture of the future in which there are two paths, fire and ice, that both lead to the end of the world. Frost uses language throughout the poem that appears to be simple, but is actually very effective at communicating deeper, insightful meanings. He connects fire and ice to desire and hate and creates multiple levels of complexity. For example, the simple passage “Some say the world will end in fire, / Some say in ice.” (“Fire and Ice” 1-2) introduces the two main symbols in the poem, but, at the same time, pulls the reader in because desire and hate are so personal and such a significant part of human nature. After the symbols are presented, the narrator involves himself or herself in the poem by saying “From what I’ve tasted of desire / I hold with those who favor fire.” (“Fire and Ice” 3-4). A clear decision is made here in favor of fire, implying that the narrator favors desire. Frost believes that the world will eventually be destroyed by destructive and negative human traits: desire, greed, and jealousy. Yet in Frost’s mind, these traits are still preferable to hate. This opinion is demonstrated by the narrator’s choice of fire. Frost prefers the heat of passion and fire to the ...
Robert Frost’s works have been included in 36 books, plays, and other various works. Some of these works include A Boy’s Will (David Nutt, 1913), From Snow to Snow (Holt, 1936), “Hard not to be a King (House of Books, 1951), In the Clearing (Holt Rinehart and Winston, 1962), The Cow’s in The Corn: A One Act Irish Play in Rhyme (Slide Mountain Press, 1929), and Family Letters of Robert and Elinor Frost (State University of New York Press, 1972).
In the critical analysis that I read, the critics were hard on Frost’s work “Road not taken.” The first critic, William George, starts off by attacking other critics, saying they misin...
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.