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The Deeper Meaning of The Road Not Taken, Fire and Ice, and Birches, by Robert Frost

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“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 Lee Frost was born on March 26, 1874 in San Francisco. When his father died, he moved to Massachusetts with his family to be closer to his grandparents. He loved to stay active through sports and activities such as trapping animals and climbing trees. He married his co- valedictorian, Elinor Miriam White, in 1895. He dropped out of both Dartmouth and Harvard in his lifetime. Robert and Elinor settled on a farm in Massachusetts, which his grandfather bought him. It was one of the many farms on which he would live in throughout his lifetime. Frost spent the next 9 years writing poetry while poultry farming. When poultry farming did not work out, he went back to teaching English. He moved to England in 1912 and became friends with many people who were also in the writing business. After moving back to America in 1915, Frost bought a farm in New Hampshire and began reading his poems aloud at public gatherings. Out of the blue, he suddenly had many family disasters. Frost’s youngest daughter and wife died and his son committed suicide, soon after which another daughter institutionalized. Darker poetry, su...

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...and Work, Critical Companion. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2007.
Bloom's Literature. Facts On File, Inc. Web. 8 May 2014
.

Fagan, Deirdre. "'Fire and Ice'." Critical Companion to Robert Frost: A Literary
Reference to His Life and Work, Critical Companion. New York: Facts On File,
Inc., 2007. Bloom's Literature. Facts On File, Inc. Web. 8 May 2014
.

Fagan, Deirdre. "'The Road Not Taken'." Critical Companion to Robert Frost: A Literary
Reference to His Life and Work, Critical Companion. New York: Facts On File,
Inc., 2007.Bloom's Literature. Facts On File, Inc. Web. 8 May 2014
.
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