Research Paper On Robert Frost

Realistic Humanism, an Analysis of the Work of Robert Frost

The popular poetry of Robert Frost has been described by many as Transcendental, Romantic, Realistic, or even Modern. There are many opinions on the poetry of Frost, in part, because he was such a prolific writer; he published poems of many different genres. Most, though not all, of Frost's works were narratives, although those can be further divided into four more categories: ballads, linear narratives, dramatic monologues and dramatic narratives (Gioia 188). I will be analyzing one such narrative, “Birches” later in this essay. With so many different types of poems fitting into so many literary descriptions, it is little wonder that the works of Frost have been analyzed and interpreted
In addition, they brought him the wisdom necessary to write with authority on the human spirit. Frost lived in several very different places throughout his life. He grew up in San Francisco, California, before he moved at age eleven to Massachusetts. From there he moved to a farm in New Hampshire and from there to England for three years before returning to the United States after the start of World War I. Immersion in multiple local cultures gave Frost a good sense of humanity's commonalities. Frost was also no stranger to tragedy. His father's death when he was eleven was a precursor to the major upheaval of moving to New England. Later in life, Frost “suffered the deaths of his wife and three of his children, one of whom committed suicide. He also saw his sister and one of his daughters succumb to mental illness”(DiYanni 954). Frost also received many awards and recognition for his poetry, even reading hi poetry for the inauguration of President Kennedy. In short, Frost experienced all of the highs and lows that one might expect in life and then some. This breadth of experience translates directly into the depth of his
Transcendentalism, in common parlance, refers to a portrayal of nature as having a spirit or sense of self, such as a soul being attributed to a tree. While some elements of this do seem to appear in Frost's poetry, he is not a Transcendentalist because he always reigns in his spiritual language when referring to any non-human subject, leaving even his romantic portrayals of nature as simple appreciations of beauty, or as mirrors for a human subject. Romanticism, on the other hand can be rightfully attributed to Frost's work. Romanticism is an emphasis on inspiration and subjectivity; romanticists use imagery to portray their own or a subject's thoughts and feelings. Some would say that Frost's stark realistic language precludes romanticism, but the terms are not mutually exclusive. In Frost's words, “I have made poetry. The language is appropriate to the virtues I celebrate”(Dickstein 4). It is his accessible language and focus on common subjects that at once define Frost's work as Realism and, in its breaking from the trends of Frost's contemporaries, makes it interpretable as having Modernist properties. On the whole, however, Frost stuck to traditional