Robert Frost (1874-1963)
Robert Frost(1874-1963)
※ The most popular
American Poet
20th Century
4 Pulitzer Prize winner
※ read poetry at a presidential
inauguration.
※ received honorary degrees from 44
colleges
※ unofficial poet Laureate, one of
the most celebrated
American’s
modernist poets
Robert Frost on the farm in New England
The farmhouse in Derry
Biographical Information
 Born in San Francisco in 1874, died in Boston in
1963.
 After his father's death in 1885, young Frost left
California with his family and settled in
Massachusetts.
 Attended high school in Mass., entered
Dartmouth College, but remained less than one
semester.
Biographical Information
 Did odd jobs: teaching school and working in a
mill and as a newspaper reporter.
 Attended Harvard College as a special student
but left without a degree.
 Over the next ten years he wrote (but rarely
published) poems, operated a farm in Derry,
New Hampshire, and supplemented his
income by teaching at Derry's Pinkerton
Academy.
Literary Career
 At 38, he sold the farm and took his family to
England.
 In England, his efforts to establish himself as a
poet was almost immediately successful. A Boy's
Will was published 1913, followed a year later by
North of Boston.
 Favorable reviews on both sides of the Atlantic
resulted in American publication of the books.
 Determined to win recognition in his native land, Frost
sailed for the United States in February 1915 and landed in
New York City.
 After he returned to the US, he settled on a farm in his
native land.
 Sales of his books enabled Frost to buy a farm in Franconia,
N.H.; to place new poems in literary periodicals and publish
a third book, Mountain Interval (1916); and to embark on a
long career of writing, teaching, and lecturing.
 when he was eighty-seven he read his poetry at the
inauguration of President John F. Kennedy.
Frost’s poetic theory
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He emphasized on the dramatic qualities of poetry.
He believed that all poetry is essentially metaphorical.
He insisted that poetry cannot be forced into being.
He thought that poetry serves as a means of giving
patterns to man’s existence.
Major Features of Frost’s Poems
 He was an essentially pastoral poet often associated
with rural New England.
 He used the rural world as a source of symbols,
whose philosophical dimensions transcend any region.
 His adopts traditional verse forms, plain language
and everyday speech to explore the complexity of
human existence through treating seemingly trivial
subjects.
II. Main Works
 A Boy’s Will 1913
<<一个男孩的意愿>>
 North of Boston, 1914
<< 波士顿的北部>>
 Mountain Interval, 1916
<<山间>>
 New Hampshire 1923
<<新罕布什尔>>
 Collected Poems 1930
<<诗集>>
 A Further Range 1936
<<又一片牧场>>
 A Witness Tree 1942
<<见证树>>
Frost's most popular poems:
 Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
 The Road Not Taken,
 After Apple-picking
 Mending Wall
Nothing gold can stay
The Road Not Taken
-Robert Frost
The Road Not Taken
 Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,  And both that morning equally lay
And sorry I could not travel both
In leaves no step had trodden black
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
And be one traveler, long I stood
Yet knowing how way leads on to
And looked down one as far as I could
way,
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
I doubted if I should ever come back.
 Then took the other, as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim,  I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Because it was grassy and wanted
two roads diverged in a wood, and I -wear;
I took the one less traveled by,
Though as for that, the passing there
And that has made all the difference.
Had worn them really about the same,
About the Poem “The Road Not Taken”
 Frost claims that he wrote this poem about his friend Edward
Thomas, with whom he had walked many times in the woods
near London. Frost has said that while walking they would come
to different paths and after choosing one, Thomas would
always felt wondering what they might have missed by not
taking the other path.
 About the poem, Frost asserted, “You have to be careful of that
one; it’s a tricky poem– very tricky.”
 Superficially, the poem has been and continues to be used as an
inspirational poem, encouraging self-reliance, not following
where others have led.
 But a close reading of the poem proves not so.
The Framework of the Poem
 Stanza One---- Describes Situations (position)
 Stanza Two---- Decides to Take Less-travelled Road (Decision )
 Stanza Three---- Continues Description of Road (exposition)
 Stanza Four----Recalls the Road Taken and Not Taken
(reflection)
 Rhyming scheme: abaab
Appreciating the Poem “The Road Not Taken”
Reflective Questions:
 1. According to this poem, is Frost an innovative poet or not?
Why?
 2. What does the speaker do when facing two diverged roads?
What is the speaker’s initial response?
 3. Describe the similarities and differences of these two roads.
Why does he choose the other road?
 4. How do you understand the word “sigh”?Is it a kind of
nostalgic relief or regret?
 5. What might the two roads stand for in the speaker’s
mind? (the symbolic meanings)
 6. Why does Frost himself claim that this is a tricky
poem? What does he want to convey in this poem?
4. How do you understand the word “sigh”?Is it a
kind of nostalgic relief or regret?
 The word “sigh” is a tricky word. Because sigh can be
interpreted into nostalgic relief or regret.
 If it is the relief sigh, then the difference means the
speaker feels glad with the road he took.
 If it is the regret sigh, then the difference would not
be good, and the speaker would be sighing in regret.
Hence, sigh is ambiguous here for the speaker is not
showing whether his choice is right or wrong.
5. What might the two roads stand for in the speaker’s mind?
 Clearly, this poem is endowed with abundant symbolic
meanings. In the speaker’s mind, the two roads not only refer
to the real roads he has to take while walking in the yellow
wood, more significantly, it means two different ways of life
when one hesitates before the life’s crossroad. Different
choices will lead to different futures.
 For the poet, it also shows his attitude towards poetry
creation. “He prefers to take the less-travelled road” suggests
that he doesn’t follow suit but employs the traditional pattern
in spite of the influence of modernist innovation
6. Why does Frost himself claim that this is a tricky poem?
What is the theme this poem?
 Three things make his poem tricky---- the time frame, and the
words “sigh” and “difference”.
 Traditionally, this poem has been understood as an
inspirational poem, seeming to encouraging people to be selfreliant and not following where others have led.
 Actually, it does not moralize about choice, it simply says that
choice is inevitable but you never know what your choice will
mean until you have lived it.
 This is also the theme of the poem.
Fire and Ice
 Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
Scientific Interpretation of Fire and Ice
 Some think that the earth may be burnt up by the sun
(fire),
 Others say Ice Age will kill life on the Earth.
Spiritual and Psychological meaning of the
Symbols in the poem
1. Fire - a symbol of desire, or love

Helen of Troy

Cleopatra, Egyptian queen
The two beauties had wars fought over them.
2. Ice - a symbol of hatred
These are the two weaknesses of human beings
that are as destructive as natural disasters
III. Frost’s View and Theme
 His poetry concerns New England’s nature. He saw nature as a
storehouse of analogy and symbol, so his concern
with nature reflected deep moral uncertainties.
 His poetry often probes mysterious of darkness and
irrationality in the bleak and chaotic landscapes of an
indifferent universe.
 The quest of the solitary person to make sense of the world
has become the central theme of all Frost’s collections and
made his poetry among the most accessible of modern writers.
 The poetry of Robert Frost combined pastoral imagery with
solitary philosophical themes.
IV. Frost’s Style
 rejected the revolutionary poetic principles of his
contemporaries, used traditional forms such as the blank verse,
plain language of rural New Englanders, and a graceful style.
 there is a steady tone of wry humor, and a virtually
inexhaustible verbal grace.
 He used symbols from everyday country life to express his
deep ideas.
 As a whole, Frost’s art is an act of clarification, which, without
simplifying the truth, renders it in some degree accessible to
everyone.
That’s all,
Thank you!