Robert Frost’s poetry

Nikola Benin, Ph.D

Robert Frost (1874-1963) was the most popular poet of twentieth century. He was
born in San Francisco, California on Mar 26, 1874. He is a well-known modern poet. He is
generally regarded as a poet, teacher, and a man of wisdom. Many Americans recognize his
name, the titles of and lines from his best-known poems and even his face and the sound of
his voice. He was awarded Pulitzer Prize four times. Despite his popular image as a farmer-
poet, those ten years, which he spent after his grandfather’s death, were the only period of
Frost's life in which he worked seriously at farming, and in the last five of them he also found
it financially necessary to teach school.
He had a profound knowledge of literature, history, science and philosophy. Hence he
can be termed as classicist of very high order. Frost neither describes the situations and
conditions of life of modern society, nor does he write about political and economic problems
of his age. He does not aloof himself from the contemporary society. He has penetrated from
social actions to intellectual problems of his age.
 He was a poet who spoke with rhyme and meter of all things natural, and in so doing
plumbed the depths of emotions of people in all walks of life. Louis Untermeyer best
describes Frost's work as "poetry that sings and poetry that talks ... his poems are people
talking" (xxi). In describing a simple act of nature, the mundane, or the heartfelt grief of
people, Robert Frost displays an insight into the sometimes simple instances in our lives that
when brought together constitute our very lives. One aspect of life that touches everyone is
death, whether it is the loss of a friend, neighbor, or beloved one. Some of Frost's most
beautiful work displays this stark reality of life. Robert Frost is one of few poets in English
literature that shall never become outdated because poetry is an echo of every sensitive man’s
experiences and his limitations. The main theme of his poetry is the despairing state of man in
his life. In all of Frost's works, the reader sees encapsulated in verse, a depth and level of
human emotion that is not easily discerned by the eye, but rather felt and nurtured in the heart.
Frost uses nature at its most beautiful to explain life at its harshest.
“With his down-to-earth approach to his subjects, readers found it easy to follow the
poet into deeper truths, without being burdened with pedantry”.
Robert Frost’s chief concern is with man. The focus in his poetry is on man’s position
and attitude and especially on his feelings. Robert Frost reveals a good deal about his
conception of universe and external reality in his poetry. But what is important to him? It is
man’s thought, emotions and behavior as they determine or reflect his relationship with the
universe. What does man do, and how does he feel in a universe as dark as this? That is the
central question for Robert Frost. The answer is found largely by the fact that man is sharply
limited as Robert Frost sees him. Man is limited both in his intellectual power and his
awareness and understanding. He has a different way of seeing this universe. He is different in
his thought and in his intellectual power.
Behind the largely unruffled public facade was a personal life of great stress and
sorrow. None of the traumatic experiences of his personal life found their way directly into
Frost's poetry. To the broad public, Frost may be a painter of charming postcard scenes and
a front-porch philosopher dispensing consolation and cracker-barrel wisdom, but behind
these stereotypes there is in Frost's work a tragic and (in Lionel Trilling's phrase) a
terrifying poet, whose deepest note is one of inevitable human isolation.
In a life more painful than most, Frost struggled heroically with his inner and outer
demons, and out of that struggle he produced what many consider to be the single greatest
body of work by any American poet of the twentieth century. He uses traditional forms and
structures while exploring modern themes of alienation and isolation. Throughout his poetry,
we find motifs of seasons, alternation of night and day, natural phenomenon and rural images.
Frost’s poetry is commented on as:
“A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom, begins as a lump in the throat, a
sense of wrong, homesickness, lovesickness. No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader.”
Nature:
The omnipresence of nature in frost’s poetry can very well be felt in the mountains
that rear high above man’s head; in the curve of valleys; in the leaf-strewn roads; in the
crowding of trees; singly or in dense dark woods; in the blooming of turf flowers; in the
brooks that race downhill; in the happy description of seasonal changes, taking care not to
leave to minute detail concerning the changes the earth wears. The cycle of growth, the light
giving way for darkness, the parade of stars firing man’s aspiration all go hand in hand to
frame Frost’s memorable world, where he touches man’s life at all points. Nature can at once
be a destroyer, causing frustration and disappointment. Frost driving a middle path seems to
declare, that man’s relation to nature is also both together and apart. In nature, Frost discloses
the presence of both the friend and foe:
There is much in nature against us. But we forget:
Take nature altogether since time began,
Including human nature, in peace and war,
And it must be a little more in favor of man
Say a fraction of one percent at the very least.
Nature is a dominant theme in the poetry of Frost, but he is not a Nature-poet in the
tradition of Wordsworth or Thomas Hardy. He is a nature poet of a different kind. His best
poetry is concerned with the drama of man in Nature, whereas Wordsworth is generally best
when emotionally displaying the natural world. Frost himself said in 1952:”I guess I’m not a
Nature poet. I have only written two poems without a human being in them.” In the epitaph
that Frost proposed for himself, he said that he had “a lover’s quarrel with the world”. This
lover’s quarrel is Frost’s poetic subject and throughout his poetry there are evidences of this
view of man’s existence in the natural world. His attitude towards nature is once of armed and
amicable truce and mutual respect. His descriptions of the natural objects are characterized by
accuracy and minuteness. In “Birches”, we get a concrete and faithful description of the
‘habit’ of birches and how they react to a storm:
When I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy's been swinging them.
 ---------------They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Frost’s love of nature is more comprehensive, many sided and all-inclusive than that
of Wordsworth. Wordsworth loved to paint only the spring-time beauty of nature, or what
Coleridge called “Nature in the groove”, but Frost has an equally keen eye for the sensuous
and the beautiful in nature, as well as for the harsher and the unpleasant.
Frost also sees in nature; rather, it is they which give his song birds, wild flowers,
brooks and tress their poignant appeal. The charm of many of the nature-lyrics results from
the vividness with which sweet, delicate things stand out against the somber
background. “You cannot have the one without the other love of natural beauty and
horror at the remoteness and the indifference of physical world, are not opposite but
different aspects of the same view.”
Man is not idealistically integrated with nature and so Frost shows man as lonely in
the midst of nature, as in Stopping by woods on a Snowy Evening; Wordsworth’s man is not
completely alone, as in Daffodils. Brower writes, “Frost’s speaker, by being so surely fixed
in the physical world, the neutralized nature of the late nineteenth and twentieth
century, is much more surely alone.”
Frost places a great deal of importance on Nature in all of his collections. Because of
the time he spent in New England, the majority of pastoral scenes that he describes are
inspired by specific locations in New England. However, Frost does not limit himself to
stereotypical pastoral themes such as sheep and shepherds. Instead, he focuses on the dramatic
struggles that occur within the natural world, such as the conflict of the changing of seasons
(as in "After Apple-Picking") and the destructive side of nature (as in "Once by the
Pacific"). Frost also presents the natural world as one that inspires deep metaphysical thought
in the individuals who are exposed to it (as in "Birches" and "The Sound of Trees"). For
Frost, Nature is not simply a background for poetry, but rather a central character in his
works.
Throughout Frost’s work, speakers learn about themselves by exploring nature, but
nature always stays indifferent to the human world. In other words, people learn from nature
because nature allows people to gain knowledge about themselves and because nature
requires people to reach for new insights, but nature itself does not provide answers. Frost
believed in the capacity of humans to achieve feats of understanding in natural settings, but he
also believed that nature was unconcerned with either human achievement or human misery.
Indeed, in Frost’s work, nature could be both generous and malicious. The speaker
of “Design”, for example, wonders about the “design of darkness” that has led a spider to
kill a moth over the course of a night. While humans might learn about themselves through
nature.
Man in Frost’s poetry:
Robert Frost while pondering a lot over man as an individual emphasizes that in spite
of the amiable socialization of man, he is basically single and alone with his fate. To him life
covers both possibility of terror and potential of beauty. Man must educate himself to know
which it is to be. It becomes the primary task of a man to understand him and his place in this
world. This can be achieved by observation and self-analysis. Repetitive portrayals of harvest
and mowing and in particular, poems upon abandoned dwellings can be taken as evidence for
Frost’s belief in man’s hapless position in the ever changing world. Within the terribly limited
period of existence, he is destined to face the changes that take place in almost everything
around him. The nature cycles preach man that he is no inevitable end, which shatters off all
his hopes and dreams. The thing that can’t be altered must be understood and accepted. Frost
stresses in Acceptance, that man must learn to bow and accept the ‘end’.
“Let what will be, be.”
Among the various themes of Frost, man’s relationship to his fellows can be
considered as an interestingly significant one as it comprises of
both apartness and togetherness. Frost strongly advocates individualism. Man caught within
the boundaries laid by nature, strives to achieve with whatever talents he has been granted.
Frost thinks if man is isolated, he can’t be achiever. This isolation might lead man to
egocentrism or even to lonely madness. Frost always being a moderator tries to achieve an
ideal reconciliation between the individual and the group.
Frost’s observation regarding man’s relationship to man is quite opposing. For
instance, The Turf of Flowers speaks of the bond that lies between the individuals effecting
universal brotherhood:
Men work together, I told him from the heart,
Whether they work together or apart.
In most of his poems, we find Frost’s people are quite willing to offer a friendly hand.
A Time to Talk presents the farmer who responds to the invitation of his neighbor for a
friendly talk, without any inhibitions.
When a friend calls to me from the road
-------------------------------------
 I don’t stand still
---------I go up to the stone wall
For a friendly visit.
Isolation
In several Frost’s poems, solitary individuals wander through a natural setting and
encounter another individual, an object, or an animal. These encounters stimulate moments of
revelation in which the speaker realizes his or her connection to others or, conversely, the
ways that she or he feels isolated from the community. Some poems feature speakers who
actively choose solitude and isolation in order to learn more about themselves, while the other
return focus to solitude, exploring how encounters and community only heighten loneliness
and isolation. This deeply pessimistic, almost misanthropic perspective sneaks into the most
cheerful of late Frost poems.
The majority of the characters in Frost’s poems are isolated in one way or another.
Even the characters that show no sign of depression or loneliness, such as the narrators in The
Sound of Trees or Fire and Ice, are still presented as detached from the rest of society,
isolated because of their unique perspective. The old-style farmer in Mending Wall not only
refuses to pull down the useless barriers but, to make matters worse, insists upon having the
last word:
“Good fences make good neighbors”.
The girl in The Fear of Man, who walks breathlessly at midnight to her home,
symbolizes man’s thronging for warmth and reassurance. The timid professor in A Hundred
Collars, his unwarranted suspicion resulting up in isolation, dramatize a familiar human
conflict. The struggle between the need for companionship and the innate fear of the
unfamiliar becomes quite prominent. He dislikes isolation, but he sees its inevitability.
A concern with barrier is the predominant theme in Frost’s poetry. Man is always
erecting and trying to bring down barriers----between man and man, between man and
environment. To Frost, these barriers seem favorable to mutual understanding and respect.
Frost insists on recognizing these barriers instead of trying to tear them down as in the
modern trend. And he even builds them wherever necessary.
Barrier between man and the universe:
First, there is the great natural barrier, the void, the space, which separates man
from the stars. Man foolishly tries to bridge this gap, but all his efforts in this respect are of no
avail. Such efforts only make him more conscious of his own littleness. In the poem
entitled Stars, the poet tells us how man gets attracted by nature only to be disillusioned by it.
Here, the stars shining in the sky at midnight do not lend any glory or state to the gazer.
Rather, they produce a note of disenchantment:
“And yet with neither love nor hate
Though the stars like some snow-white
Mine roars snow like marble eyes
Without the gift of sight.
In another poem, we find how clever human plans to establish relationship with nature
are thwarted. The protagonist of The Star-Splitter, purchases a telescope with the insurance
money that he gets by burning his house down. He gazes at the stars but cannot escape the
question that raises its ugly head towards the end:
We have looked and looked
But after all where are we?
Barrier between man and nature:
Secondly, there are the barriers, between man and the immediate natural world,—the
barren and desert places—which man must conquer, reclaim and cultivate. He must
constantly wage a war against such wildernesses, if he is to survive in an environment which
seems hostile to him, which at least, is not meant for him and in which he is an alien.
Says Marion Montgomery, "there are those souls, of course, who are content to have a
barrier stand as a continual challenge which they never quite accept; such is the old
teamster of The Mountain who lives and works in the shade of the mountain he always
intends to climb but never does. And there are those who accept the challenge and go down
in defeat; the deserted village of the Census Taker with its gaunt and empty buildings is
evidence of such failure”. The woman in A Servant to Servants has lost out to the wilderness
by losing her sanity. Her days are spent in caring for the house while the men are away, and
the emptiness of the world has overcome her. There are others on the border line of tragic
failure. The Hill Wife, though not out of her mind, still has a fear of her house once she has
left it, deserted it, and has to return to it. When she comes back she has to reconquer it:
They learned to rattle the lock and key
To give whatever might chance to be
Warning and time to be off in flight.
Courage is needed to reclaim at home. In Generations of Men the boy and girl meet
for the first time at the ruins of an old home place, sit on the edge of the cellar, and talk about
families and the decayed places. In the end they are in love, or about to fall in love, and have
made a pact to return and rebuild the old home place. Alone and helpless as he is, man must
wage a constant war against his physical environment which is inimical to human existence.
The Otherness of Nature:
Thirdly, Man's physical existence itself is a barrier which divides man from the soul or
spirit of nature. While Wordsworth denied the very existence of barriers between man and
nature, for Frost a wide gulf separates man and nature, spirit and matter. In a number of
poems he stresses the otherness and indifference of Nature, and shows that it is futile to
expect any sympathy from the spirit of soul which moves or governs the
world. Individual man and the forces of nature are two different principles, and the boundaries
which separate them must be respected. A Minor Bird also stresses the active barriers
between man and nature. The poet is bored by the bird which sings at his window and wishes
it away:
I have wished the bird would fly away,
And not seen by me have of day
Have clapped my hands at him from the door
When it seemed as if I could hear no more--
Barrier between man and man:
Fourthly, there are barriers which separate man from man. Such barriers come in the
way of social communication and lack of communication leads to social alienation and
emotional isolation and loneliness. Mending Wall is an ironic comment on those who raise
walls between themselves and their neighbors, because they think, "good fences make good
neighbours". Read symbolically, the poem is a comment on racial, religious, national and
ideological barriers which divide and separate man from man. Such barriers come to the way
of human relationship; generate tensions, which result in neurosis and emotional imbalance
verging on insanity. North of Boston is full of such emotionally isolated and alienated people.
In the Home Burial there is a grievous lack of communication between the husband and the
wife, and the mother's grief deepens into insanity. The shadow of their dead child is the
barrier which divides them and alienates them from each other. The essential loneliness of
the human spirit is also expressed convincingly in poems like Acquainted with the Night, An
Old Man's Winter Night, Stopping by Woods, etc.
Provide, Provide evokes an agonizing emotion of alienation which no amount of
bantering can attenuate or overcome. No one can miss the pronounced tragic tone of the ironic
lines:
Die early and avoid the fate
 Or if predestined to die late
Make up your mind to die in state.
Isolation/Separateness from God:
Fifthly, man's reason and intellect is the barrier that alienates him from God, his
Maker. His rational bias deprives him of the bliss of communion with God. The theme of
the Masque of Reason is that reason combined with faith alone can lead to understanding and
wisdom. It is only through faith that man can work out his own salvation and make life
agreeable.
Though barriers and alienation loom large in the poetry of Frost, it does not mean that
he is against democracy or the brotherhood of man. Speaking psychologically, Frost’s
concern with loneliness is an expression of his intensely felt need for human love, sympathy
and fellowship.
Communication:
Communication or the lack thereof, appears as a significant theme in several of Frost's
poems, as Frost presents it as the only possible escape from isolation and despair.
Unfortunately, Frost also makes it clear that communication is extremely difficult to achieve.
For example, in "Home Burial," Frost describes two terrible events: the death of a child and
the destruction of a marriage. The death of the child is tragic, but inability of the husband and
wife to communicate with each other and express their grief about the loss is what ultimately
destroys the marriage. Frost highlights this inability to communicate by writing the poem in
free verse dialogue; each character speaks clearly to the reader, but neither is able to
understand the other. Frost explores a similar theme in "Acquainted with the Night," in
which the narrator is unable to pull himself out of his depression because he cannot bring
himself even to make eye contact with those around him. In each of these cases, the reader is
left with the knowledge that communication could have saved the characters from their
isolation. Yet, because of an unwillingness to take the steps necessary to create a relationship
with another person, the characters are doomed.
I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
-----------------------------
But not to call me back or say good-bye
(Acquainted with night)
Everyday Life:
 Frost is very interested in the activities of everyday life, because it is this side of
humanity that is the most "real" to him. Even the most basic act in a normal day can have
numerous hidden meanings that need only to be explored by a poetic mind. For example, in
the poem "Mowing," the simple act of mowing hay with a scythe is transformed into a
discussion of the value of hard work and the traditions of the New England countryside. As
Frost argues in the poem, by focusing on "reality," the real actions of real people, a poet can
sift through the unnecessary elements of fantasy and discover "Truth". Moreover, Frost
believes that the emphasis on everyday life allows him to communicate with his readers more
clearly; they can empathize with the struggles and emotions that are expressed in his poems
and come to a greater understanding of "Truth" themselves.
There was never a sound beside the wood but one,
And that was my long scythe whispering to the ground.
-------------- -------------- ----------
Something, perhaps, about the lack of sound—
And that was why it whispered and did not speak.
Isolation of the Individual:
This theme is closely related to the theme of communication. The majority of the
characters in Frost's poems are isolated in one way or another. Even the characters that show
no sign of depression or loneliness, such as the narrators in "The Sound of Trees" or "Fire
and Ice," are still presented as detached from the rest of society, isolated because of their
unique perspective. In some cases, the isolation is a far more destructive force. For example,
in "The Lockless Door," the narrator has remained in a "cage" of isolation for so many years
that he is too terrified to answer the door when he hears a knock. This heightened isolation
keeps the character from fulfilling his potential as an individual and ultimately makes him a
prisoner of his own making. Yet, as Frost suggests, this isolation can be avoided by
interactions with other members of society; if the character in "The Lockless Door" could
have brought himself to open the door and face an invasion of his isolation, he could have
achieved a greater level of personal happiness.
It went many years,
But at last came a knock,
And I thought of the door
With no lock to lock.
---------- -----------
So at a knock
I emptied my cage
To hide in the world
And alter with the cage.
Duty:
Duty is a very important value in the rural communities of New England, so it is not
surprising that Frost employs it as one of the primary themes of his poetry. Frost describes
conflicts between desire and duty as if the two must always be mutually exclusive; in order to
support his family, a farmer must acknowledge his responsibilities rather than indulge in his
personal desires. This conflict is particularly clear in "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy
Evening," when the narrator expresses his wish to stay in the woods and watch the snow
continue to fall. However, he is unable to deny his obligation to his family and his
community; he cannot remain in the woods because of his "promises to keep," as he says:
The woods are lovely, dark and deep
But I have promises to keep
And miles to go before I sleep
And miles to go before I sleep.
Similarly, in "The Sound of Tree," Frost describes a character who wants to follow
the advice of the trees and make the "reckless" decision to leave his community. At the end of
the poem, the character does not choose to leave (yet) because his sense of duty to those
around him serves as the roots that keep him firmly grounded.
I shall make the reckless choice
Some day when they are in voice
And tossing so as to scare
The white clouds over them on.
I shall have less to say,
But I shall be gone.
Rationality versus Imagination:
This theme is similar to the theme of duty, in that the hardworking people whom
Frost describes in his poetry are forced to choose between rationality and imagination; the two
cannot exist simultaneously. The adults in Frost's poetry generally maintain their rationality as
a burden of duty, but there are certain cases when the hint of imagination is almost too
seductive to bear. For example, in "Birches," the narrator wishes that he could climb a birch
tree as he did in his childhood and leave the rational world behind, if only for a moment. This
ability to escape rationality and indulge in the liberation of imagination is limited to the years
of childhood. After reaching adulthood, the traditions of New England life require strict
rationality and an acceptance of responsibility. As a result of this conflict, Frost makes the
poem "Out, Out--" even more tragic, describing a young boy who is forced to leave his
childhood behind to work at a man's job and ultimately dies in the process.
Rural Life versus Urban Life:
This theme relates to Frost's interest in Nature and everyday life. Frost's experience
growing up in New England exposed him to a particular way of life that seemed less
complicated and yet more meaningful than the life of a city dweller. The farmers whom Frost
describes in his poetry have a unique perspective on the world as well as a certain sense of
honor and duty in terms of their work and their community. Frost is not averse to examining
urban life in his poetry; in "Acquainted with the Night," the narrator is described as being
someone who lives in a large city. However, Frost has more opportunities to find
metaphysical meaning in everyday tasks and explore the relationship between mankind and
nature through the glimpses of rural life and farming communities that he expresses in his
poetry. Urban life is "real," but it lacks the quality and clarity of life that is so fascinating to
Frost in his work.
Youth and the Loss of Innocence:
Youth appears prominently in Frost’s poetry, particularly in connection with
innocence and its loss. A Boy’s Will deals with this theme explicitly, tracing the development
of a solitary youth as he explores and questions the world around him. Frost’s later work
depicts youth as an idealized, edenic state full of possibility and opportunity. But as his poetic
tone became increasingly jaded and didactic, he imagines youth as a time of unchecked
freedom that is taken for granted and then lost. The theme of lost innocence becomes
particularly poignant for Frost after the horrors of World War I and World War II, in which he
witnessed the physical and psychic wounding of entire generations of young people. Later
poems, including “Birches” (1916), “Acquainted with the Night” (1928), and “Desert
Places” (1936), explore the realities of aging and loss, contrasting adult experiences with the
carefree pleasures of youth. In Home Burial, the lady suffers from a terrible sense of self-
alienation, as well as alienation from her surroundings. And more than the physical loneliness,
man suffers from the loneliness within.
They cannot scare me with their empty spaces
Between stars--on stars where no human race is.
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places.
 (Desert places)
Human limitation:
Practically all of Frost’s poems depict the theme of human limitation. The universe
seems chaotic and horrific because man’s limited faculties cannot comprehend its meaning.
Walls, physical and real, mental and invisible separate man from nature. Neither Out Far Nor
In Deep shows man’s limitation concerning the universe. Frost’s human beings are aware of
the gap between the actual and the ideal. In “After Apple-Picking”, the apple-picker set out
on his work with great hopes, but faces disillusionment.
For I have too much
Of apple-picking: I am overtired
Of the great harvest I myself desired
Frost is aware of the limited capacity of man for changing the world and therefore
shows man’s partial control of nature, as in Birches or Stopping by Woods on a Snowy
Evening. In Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening the traveler is charmed by nature but
his spirit impels him to get along to do his duty. Frost indicates that nature requires man’s
awareness and shows the earning of a livelihood in several of his poems. In some poems,
however, Frost does indicate that man can exceed his limitation in his thought as in “Sand
Dunes”.
Extinction or death:
Theme of extinction or death runs through the major works of Frost. In many a poems,
he writes of “sleep” which is associated with death. “Fire and Ice” is a noteworthy poem on
destruction by excess of desire or hatred. “Stopping by Woods On a snowy evening” , “After
Apple-Picking”, “An Old Man’s Winter Night” all these poems have a reference to death.
In most of Frost’s poems, the speaker undergoes a process of self-discovery. The
wood-chopper of Two Tramps in Mud Time realizes by the end of the poem that he chops
woods for love of work only but love and need should not be separated.
Theme of Affirmation:
Theme of affirmation is also found in some of his poems. Frost ultimately presents the
needs for man to make the most of his situation. Aware of man’s limitations, he yet desires
man to explore and seek knowledge and truth. Man should learn to accept things and his
limitations cheerfully. He suggests stoical will and effort in face of adversity as in “West
Running Brook”.
In the face of the mystery and the riddle of life there is necessity for determined
human performance.
 But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
Theme of love is central to Frost’s poems. If there is any force that can help man meet
the challenges of the universe, it is love. In several of Frost’s poems, the significance of love
between man and woman, or friendly love is brought out. It is when love breaks down or
fades off that life becomes unbearable especially for women in Frost’s poetry.

Frost does not deal with the type of themes which we come across in T.S.Eliot, but
that does not mean that he is any the less modern. Lynen observes: “Subject matter is a poor
measure of a poet’s modernity.” Frost’s attachment with New England and rural life generally
cause a misinterpretation of his themes. Thus a number of critics think that Frost never
wanted to be characterized by topical labels. He ignores many of the overwhelming subjects
of the twentieth century, to be specific the two world wars and the problems of urbanization
and mechanization. But a point worthy to be stressed here is that the work of his
contemporary writers who are characterized by topical labels became lusterless and outdated
as the year passed. Meanwhile Frost’s poems retain their freshness, as they are less reliant on
contemporary idioms, events and people.

Notes

"Robert Frost". The Poetry Foundation. Retrieved 18 February 2015.

"Robert Frost". Encyclopædia Britannica (Online ed.). 2008. Retrieved 2008-12-21.
Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Jean C. Stine, Bridget Broderick, and Daniel G.
Marowski. Vol. 26. Detroit: Gale Research, 1983. p110
Watson, Marsten. Royal Families - Americans of Royal and Noble Ancestry. Volume
Three: Samuel Appleton and His Wife Judith Everard and Five Generations of Their
Descendants. 2010
Ehrlich, Eugene; Carruth, Gorton (1982). The Oxford Illustrated Literary Guide to the
United States. vol. 50. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-503186-5.
Nancy Lewis Tuten; John Zubizarreta (2001). The Robert Frost encyclopedia.
Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 145. ISBN 978-0-313-29464-8. Halfway through the spring
semester of his second year, Dean Briggs released him from Harvard without prejudice,
lamenting the loss of so good a student.
 Jay Parini (2000). Robert Frost: A Life. Macmillan. pp. 64–65. ISBN 978-0-8050-
6341-7.
Jeffrey Meyers (1996). Robert Frost: a biography. Houghton Mifflin. Frost remained
at Harvard until March of his sophomore year, when he decamped in the middle of a term ...
Orr, David (2015-08-18). The Road Not Taken: Finding America in the Poem
Everyone Loves and Almost Everyone Gets Wrong. Penguin. ISBN 9780698140899.
Meyers, Jeffrey (1996). Robert Frost: A Biography. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. pp.
107–109. ISBN 9780395728093.
"PHI BETA KAPPA AUTHORS". The Phi Beta Kappa Key. 6 (4): 237–240. 1926.
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