Robert Lee Frost(1874-1963)

1. “National Poet of America” "New England's most authentic poet“ Vermont's state poet laureate Robert Lee Frost(1874-1963)

2. Four Pulitzer Prizes • Honorary degrees from forty-four colleges and universities

3. Transplanted New Englander • Born in San Fransico, Robert L. Frost moved to New England at eleven after his father died and became interested in reading and writing poetry. • In 1895 Frost married Elinor White and they had six children later. But a son, Elliott, and a daughter, Elinor, died before 1907, and this tragedy was one of many which affected Frost’s poetry, and his view of life. 

4. In 1894, he sold his first poem, 'My Butterfly: An Elegy', to a New York magazine, The Independent. • In 1897, Frost entered Harvard College but remained there just two years because of financial difficulties and poor health. • In 1900, he settled with his family on a farm in Derry, New Hampshire.

5. The Frost farm, where the family lived from 1900-1911

7. Robert and Elinor Frost at Plymouth, New Hampshire, 1911

8. stone walls

9. Discovering Frost in England（1913-1920） • In the fall of 1912, Frost moved with his family to England. The American poet andexpatriate,Ezra Pound, encouraged Frost in writing and helped him get his first volume of poetry published. • It was Ezra Pound who discovered Frost brought him belatedly to the attention of America.

10. A Boy's Will (1915) • North of Boston (1915) • Mountain Interval (1916)

11. Reception • "simple phrasing and patient sincerity" --Morton Payne • “Madness” of the characters in North of Boston -- Amy Lowell

12. "a winsome personality, unassuming but not shy . . . well built; a finely modeled head, mobile features and sensitive, dark brown hair of youthful abundance . . . expressive blue eyes, tinged with a lightness as of summer mist at dawn." -- Sylvester Baxter

13. Flush Times (1920-1930 ) • England's entry into the First World War hastened Frost's return to America early in 1915. • He spent the rest of his life writing poetry, lecturing, and serving as a poet in residence at several universities in America and won great population.

14. Years of Trial (1930-1940) • He was criticized severely, called not only unrepresentative of American life but fully as “moribund” (垂死的)as the vanished way of life. • His work was perceived by the politically oriented only within the narrow limits permitted by the ideologies of Marxist critics.

15. Times of Triumph( 1940-1960 ) • Having survived the turmoil of the 1930s with his readership undiminished, Robert Frost saw his public reputation widen and grow ever more secure, while his honors, including a fourth Pulitzer Prize for A Witness Tree (1942) accumulated further.

16. In 1960, the U.S. government awarded him a gold medal for his contribution to American culture. • In 1961, he was invited to read his poetry "The Gift Outright,"at the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy.

17. Poetry • A Boy's Will (David Nutt, 1913; Holt, 1915). • North of Boston (David Nutt, 1914; Holt, 1914). • Mountain Interval (Holt, 1916). • Selected Poems (Holt, 1923) • New Hampshire (Holt, 1923; Grant Richards, 1924). • Several Short Poems (Holt, 1924). • Selected Poems (Holt, 1928). • West-Running Brook (Holt, 1929). • The Lovely Shall Be Choosers (Random House, 1929). • Collected Poems of Robert Frost (Holt, 1930; Longmans, Green, 1930). • The Lone Striker (Knopf, 1933). • Selected Poems: Third Edition (Holt, 1934). • Three Poems (Baker Library, 1935). • The Gold Hesperidee (Bibliophile Press, 1935).

18. From Snow to Snow (Holt, 1936). • A Further Range (Holt, 1936; Cape, 1937). • Collected Poems of Robert Frost (Holt, 1939; Longmans, Green, 1939) • A Witness Tree (Holt, 1942; Cape, 1943). • Steeple Bush (Holt, 1947). • Complete Poems of Robert Frost, 1949 (Holt, 1949; Cape, 1951). • Hard Not To Be King (House of Books, 1951). • Aforesaid (Holt, 1954). • A Remembrance Collection of New Poems (Holt, 1959). • You Come Too (Holt, 1959; Bodley Head, 1964) • In the Clearing (Holt Rinehart & Winston, 1962) • The Poetry of Robert Frost, (New York, 1969).

19. Plays • A Way Out: A One Act Play (Harbor Press, 1929). • The Cow’s in the Corn: A One Act Irish Play in Rhyme (Slide Mountain Press, 1929). • A Masque of Reason (Holt, 1945). • A Masque of Mercy (Holt, 1947). • Prose • The Letters of Robert Frost to Louis Untermeyer (Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1963; Cape, 1964). • Robert Frost and John Bartlett: The Record of a Friendship, by Margaret Bartlett Anderson (Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1963). • Selected Letters of Robert Frost (Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1964). • Interviews with Robert Frost (Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1966; Cape, 1967). • Family Letters of Robert and Elinor Frost (State University of New York Press, 1972). • Robert Frost and Sidney Cox: Forty Years of Friendship (University Press of New England, 1981).

20. Theory of Poetry “begins in delight and ends in wisdom” • Subject matter: New England life and farming ; realistic depictions of rural life • Style :Profound simplicity ; Rhymed stanzas and blank verse

21. He used the old forms in a new way, in an informal style, as if talking face to face with a friend. • He used New England idioms, characters, and settings, recalling the roots of American culture, to get at universal experience.

22. Conclusion • Robert Frost’s work led back to aspects of Thomas Hardy, Emily Dickinson, and Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Wordsworth, John Donne, and the Latin idylls(田园诗) of Virgil. • But Frost's irony and ambiguity, his concreteness and colloquial tone, his skepticism and honesty bespoke the modern.

23. Thank You!