By: Anooj Patel
“No poet is more emblematically American than
Robert Frost”(Thompson, Lawrence).
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Robert Frost was born on
March 26, 1874 in San
Francisco
After 12 Years, his father,
William Prescott Frost Jr.,
died From TB.
He and his mother, along
with his sister, moved to
Lawrence, Massachusetts.
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He went to high school there, where he met his future
love, Elinor White.
After he graduated high school, he went to Dartmouth
University for several months. He ended up leaving.
He got his first poem published in a New York journal.
The poem was “My Butterfly: an Elegy”
He ended up proposing to Elinor, but he got rejected.
He later tried again and they ended up getting married
and having a child, named Elliot.
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Frost moved his family to a farm in New Hampshire
where they attempted to settle down and live a slightly
modest life.
Though they attempted to make a family, they had
many issues as 2 of their children developed mental
illnesses and 2 of them died.
Despite their hardships, Frost ended up setting into the
farm life and began writing poems about the
countryside.
Issues arose as only 2 of his poems were actually able
to be published.
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In 1912, they both decide to move to England in search
for publishers that were looking for new poets.
He luckily finds a publisher, which he sticks with
throughout his life time.
His fame rises as he meets other famous poets until
war breaks out in 1914.
In hopes of evading the war, Frost and his wife leave
for the US in 1915.
On his return to the US, he was overwhelmed in
popularity.
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He bought a farm again in New Hampshire
and settles down.
For 45 Years he writes poems and lectures on
and off at universities such as Dartmouth and
University of Michigan.
Over his lifespan, he earned many honorary
awards.
He sadly died on January 29, 1963
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He received 4 Pulitzer Prizes in 1923, 1931,
1937, and 1943.
He offered to recited his poem, “ The Gift
Outright” at John F. Kennedy’s inauguration
address. He accepted to recite it.
He earned 40 honorary degrees from various
different universities.
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Fire And Ice
The Road Not Taken Nothing Gold Can Stay
Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening
Mending Wall
Acquainted With the Night
Birches
After Apple-Picking
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His exact style is very difficult to pin point
from his poems
He uses an extensive amount of symbols
within his poetry
His writing style is a combination of 20th
century modernism and 19th century
Romanticism
He rears away from standard modernistic
writing style unlike his contemporaries.
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He avoided “artificial” poetic diction by
employing the accent of a soft spoken New
Englander.
Frost’s belief was to write with common
experience but uncommon in expression.
Frost used nature to illustrate the human
psychological day to day feelings.
In his poems, he uses a good deal of imagery to
further depict the scenario the protagonist is in.
His imagery was in all forms.
Summary:
 When the speaker sees bent birch trees, he likes to
think that they are bent because boys have been
“swinging” them.
 He knows that they are, in fact, bent by ice storms.
Yet he prefers his vision of a boy climbing a tree
carefully and then swinging at the tree’s crest to
the ground.
 He used to do this himself and dreams of going
back to those days. He likens birch swinging to
getting “away from the earth awhile” and then
coming back.
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Themes prevalent within the poem:
Alienation: Felt by the boys, trees and the
narrator.
Estrangement: Seen again with the boy and
even the narrator.
Journey of Life: Frost, like in other poems, uses
nature (the woods) as a metaphor. In this case,
he describes the path of life to a journey
through woods.
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A Major symbol with this poem, is the Birches
They represent the alienation that humans feel
physiologically, as these birches are in
competition with the other “straighter, darker
trees.”
Another important symbol is the boy, that the
narrator imagines. The boy represents the
destruction, and self destruction that is formed
from this estrangement that he feels.
”the iced branches shed ‘crystal shells’”
Here Frost uses visual imagery.
 “It's when I'm weary of considerations/ And
life is too much like a pathless wood, “
He uses a form of organic imagery.
 “Where your face burns and tickles with the
cobwebs ”
Another use of tactile imagery.
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Summary:
The narrator comes upon a fork in the road while walking
through woods.
He considers both paths and concludes that each one is
equally well-traveled and appealing. After choosing one of
the roads, the narrator tells himself that he will come back to
this fork one day in order to try the other road.
However, he realizes that it is unlikely that he will ever
have the opportunity to come back to this specific point in
time because his choice of path will simply lead to other
forks in the road (and other decisions).
The narrator ends on a nostalgic note, wondering how
different things would have been had he chosen the other
path.
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Theme: Individualism: The Narrator is forced
to come up with a decision on the spot for
which road to take.
Symbols:
Narrator’s Interaction: Frost takes the simple
idea of choosing a path, in which both are
similar, and relating it under the text to a
decision making many of us face today.
The “Ruts” in the road: Frost uses these ruts to
symbolize the past egoists who pasted before
him and placed the ruts into the earth.
Imagery:
“long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;”
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“And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.”
"Robert Lee Frost." 2013. The Biography Channel website. Mar 16 2013.
http://www.biography.com/people/robert-frost-20796091.
"Robert Frost." : The Poetry Foundation. N.p., 2013. Web. 16 Mar. 2013.
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/robert-frost.
Lewis, Brian. "Figurative Language." ROBERT FROST. N.p., 2011. Web. 18 Mar.
2013. https://www.msu.edu/~lewisbr4/frost.htm.
Finger, Larry. "Frost's Reading of 'The Road Not Taken.'." Robert Frost Review
(Fall 1997): 7376. Rpt. in Poetry Criticism. Ed. Michelle Lee. Vol. 71. Detroit: Gale, 2006.
Literature Resource Center. Web. 15 Jan. 2013.
Smith, Erica. "Critical Essay on 'Birches'." Poetry for Students. Ed. Elizabeth
Thomason. Vol.
13. Detroit: Gale Group, 2001. Literature Resource Center. Web. 15 Jan. 2013.
Barron, Jonathan N. "Critical Essay on 'Birches'." Poetry for Students. Ed. Elizabeth
Thomason.
Vol. 13. Detroit: Gale Group, 2001. Literature Resource Center. Web. 17 Jan. 2013.
"The Road Not Taken." Poetry Criticism. Ed. Michelle Lee. Vol. 71. Detroit: Gale,
2006.
Literature Resource Center. Web. 31 Jan. 2013.