Similarities in Frost and Robinson Poetry

Voices of a Real Nation
“A little raw”, “great and beautiful simplicity of phrase” – that’s how American poets Ezra Pound and Amy Lowell have described the works of Robert Frost, one of the most widely read and bellowed American poet. American writer Edward Eggleston wrote, “you have given me a rare sensation: you have sent me a book that I can read…” His words he addressed to Edwin Robinson, another great American poet, tree times Pulitzer Prizes nominee. The reviews, mentioned above, have something identical in their tone. Namely, they point out similarities of poets’ writing style: simple words, coequal speech and clarity of the thought. During their literary activity both authors turned to the life of ordinary American people. They were using everyday language to satisfy tastes of common people, particularly “blue collar” workers, and show the American reality at the beginning of 20th century in its full diversity. Robinson and Frost’s introduced American poetry with common, rural English Language, easy to read and understand. In the poem Richard Cory, Robinson wrote, “whenever Richard Cory went down town, we people on the pavement looked at him: he was a gentleman from sole to crown, clean favored and imperially slim.” The “local touch”, simplicity of the form helped the author to paint a beautiful portrayal with only few strokes. Likewise Robinson, Frost’s common language has reached the same effect in his poem The Gift Outright. “The Land was ours. She was ours in Massachusetts, in Virginia, but we were England’s, still colonials…”This poem, recited at the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy, sounds as a very familiar review of American history of the times of Revolutionary War, patriotic appeal to the Nation, American identity in few lines.
The poetics of both authors are characterized by conciseness and unpredictable turn of thought, usually in the last lines of their poems. In Frost’s Out, Out- we read, “No one believed. They listened at his heart. Little-less-nothing-and that ended it. No more to build on there.” Everything is said to the point. The hero is dying. Nothing else to add. Nothing to omit. Very powerful and laconic sounds the last lines in Robinson poem House on the Hill. “There is ruin and decay in the house on the Hill: they are all gone away, there is nothing more to say.” As for me, this poem is discreet but not dry, deep philosophical issues of sorrow and nostalgia for irreversibility of times are expressed through the house that is gone.
During their literary activity Robinson and Frost depicted many social problems, characters’ internal and external conflicts, and disharmony in everyday life. Social exclusion and disappointment are the issues Frost expressed in his ballade Home Burial. “One is alone, and he dies more alone. Friends make pretense of following to the grave, but before one is in it, their minds are turned…” Very similar motives of hidden alienation and fear are presented in Robinson Richard Core. “In fine, we thought that he was everything; to make us wish that we were in his place…So on we worked and waited for the light, and waited for the meat and cursed the bread; and Richard Cory one calm summer night went home and put the bullet through his head.” In both poems Frost and Robinson portrayed the weight of loneliness and monotony of life; ask for the companionship -the simplest necessity for our social health.
Robert Frost and Edwin Robinson will always be remembered as poets of Rural America. Describing values of a quiet countryside, they used colloquial language, common rhythm and characters from an ordinary life. They were able to portray American reality at the beginning of the 20th century, its social, moral, psychological and spiritual complexity. They were truly national American poets -creative geniuses of their time!