Biographical sketch

Robert Frost has done many things over his lifetime. Frost has made both good and bad choices and even got criticism that attacks the fundamentals of his poetry.

Robert Frost was born on March 26, 1874 in San Francisco, CA. Frost’s passion for poetry started at an early age and can be traced back to Massachusetts where he moved in 1884 after his father died. While living in Massachusetts, he attended Lawrence High School. He ended up spending a significant amount of time learning about life in more rural parts of America as he lived in a city so he couldn’t experience it . In 1900, Robert Frost decided to move further inland to New Hampshire with his wife. As a poet, he specializes in using themes in his poetry such as rural life, philosophy, and complex social problems involving psychology. One of his most famous philosophical poems “The Road Not Taken” created many waves in poetry circles and is even used during graduation ceremonies today. Robert Frost later became the poet laureate of Vermont on July 22, 1961 and died 2 years later on January 29, 1963 at the age of 88 years old in Boston, MA.(Poetry Foundation, n/d.)

Poets Influence and Importance

Robert Frost’s poetry was Influenced by his early life and personal background later in life.

While traveling abroad he met quite a few British poets such as Edward Thomas, Rupert Brooke, and Robert Graves who ended up influencing his poetry with their own personal unique poetry styles albeit not enough to spark a change in style.(as cited in poetry.org, n/d.)

A major event that did influence Frost's poetry was when he met Ezra Pound in England and Ezra helped him publish his works (along with other renowned poets & authors) and was well known for promoting creations effectively to a wide range of the population and the specific target audience(poets.org, N/A, para. 1).

His Poetry was later heavily influenced again, and ended up helping promote the vernacular literary writing style which he ended up adopting as his main writing style.

Robert Frost’s poems reflected common themes of this style. Vernacular literature focuses on including a more relatable everyday life style kind of writing and not grand stories of schemes and heroes. His poem “The Road Not Taken” is a good example of this. “The Road Not Taken” uses vernacular writing by having it be about daily decisions that seem meaningless but can end up changing your life in a major way, or not at all.

Frost’s poetry also ended up influencing poetry as a whole with the more mundane meanings of his work. It showed that relatable poems can still connect to people really well and that poems don’t have to be relatable with stereotypes or tropes such as having a hero, or charming personalities to enrapture the audience.

Some contributions Robert Frost has made to American Literary Heritage that is still recognized today, is his poem “The Road Not Taken” which is frequently given during high school graduations (Keeffee, 2022).

Robert Frost has many other famous poems. "Fire and Ice" along with "Mending Wall" are just a couple of them

"Fire and Ice" Response

This poem is quite unique for Robert Frost as he usually writes poems that are many times longer. In fact one of his longest poems is 1399 words long!(Poetry Foundation, n/d.) With how short this poem is, it is surprising on what topic it involves and what the poem is able to invoke with only 51 words.

I think the meaning behind the poem “Fire and Ice” is that Robert Frost says that he would rather die from a slow world collapse that ends life instead of a sudden violent burst like nuclear war. An example of this is lines five through eight talk about how he already has experience with hate(likely cause for the fire ending) that he wouldn’t want to go out that way if possible(Frost, lines 5-8). I like how Robert Frost mentions that he prefers Ice, but also hints on line 9 that it would only “suffice” and that can imply that he is fine with either, or that he would still prefer no world ending event in the first place(Frost, line 9).

"Mending Wall" Response

This poem is unique as it has a rhythm but does not rhyme at the end of each line.

I think that the meaning of this poem is to let others know that putting up walls around oneself isn’t always a bad thing and to respect others who have put up their own walls and not take offense at said walls. I enjoy some of the potential symbolism in lines 24 through 26 where it talks about not intruding into each other's possessions and taking it for themselves and how that relates to the main quote that gets repeated of “Good fences make good neighbors” as the wall keeps each side honest. I also like that even though the wall gets damaged often and stops them from potentially getting profits from taking the other person’s stuff, that they both willingly repair it often and protect each other’s privacy & possessions(Frost, lines 24-26).

Read left to right, top to bottom.

The literary criticism about Robert Frost “Analysis of Robert Frost’s ‘The Road Not Taken’” which was written by Consuelo Dequito-Samson talks about common themes in Robert Frost’s writing style(specifically his poem “The Road Not Taken”) such as using his poems to tell stories. Dequito-Samson mentions how “The Road Not Taken” can mean to not regret making decisions that can’t be undone or changed, but also that it could mean that the less traveled path didn’t work out so well for the people who traveled down it(Dequito-Samson, 2018). Most of Dequito-Samson’s analysis seems correct and matches what is known about Robert Frost, but it may just be a coincidence as Dequito-Samson repeatedly states “circumstances will force him to make a choice which prohibits him from taking other choices” multiple times throughout his analysis as if he doesn’t fully agree with what he is saying and needs to repeat it multiple times.(Dequito-Samson, 2018, p. 3)

This poem is probably one of, if not the most popular poem Robert Frost has ever written. The imbedded video details a reading of the poem.

I dug around for some background info to see if this poem is still being retailed today, and I found out that this specific poem is commonly said at high school graduation ceremonies. The poem itself personally does not fit my taste, but this poem does have a few lines that I do enjoy, one of which is lines 14 through 15 where it shows that the traveler regrets not knowing what will be on the other path and knows that he won’t be able to come back to this spot and travel the other path ever again. (Frost, lines 14-15). This section also has some real life symbolism where no one knows if what actions are decided will be good in the long run or harmful, and how these important changes are unable to be changed once decided. The poem has similar themes to this by giving a warning to not regret what path(s) is taken and to continue carrying onwards.

Conclusion

I sadly haven’t learned too much about them. Robert Frost has made some very famous poems, but I guess not famous enough to be talked about commonly by any non poets. Some interesting things about Robert Frost is that he doesn’t usually have many rhymes (if any in the first place) in his poems and are more focused on story telling than any kind of fancy wordplay. Ultimately, I don’t think Robert Frost ended up becoming important. He made some breakthroughs in poet groups and helped re-define certain styles(Vernacular), but in my opinion all truly important people in fields like this has their changes go into more than one field. An example of this is Einstein whos inventions went into every field imaginable, or Shakespeare who was also a poet but had his works be transformed into movies and plays and repeated countless times with countless unique variants over time. Meanwhile I never heard of Robert Frost before this, and his poems(that are used today) are only used for certain scenarios like graduations. Therefore he is ultimately, not important.

References

A conversation with Robert Frost.(2021, May 20). Poets & Writers.

https://www.pw.org/content/a_conversation_with_robert_frost

About Robert Frost. (n.d.). Poets.org. https://poets.org/poet/robert-frost

Bernard K. (2019, Mar 26). What I don’t get about Robert Frost’s ‘The Road Not Taken’

https://bernardokeeffe.com/what-i-dont-get-about-robert-frosts-the-road-not-take /

Dequito-Samson, C. (2018). “An Analysis of Robert Frost’s ‘The Road Not Taken.’” paperpublications.org.

https://www.paperpublications.org/upload/book/An%20Analysis%20of%20Robert-1120.pdf

Fire and ice.(n.d.). Poetry Foundation

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44263/fire-and-ice

Mending wall. (n.d.). Poetry Foundation.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44266/mending-wall