Robert Frost
(1874 - 1963)
 The most popular 20th
Century American Poet,
 A four-time winner of the
Pulitzer Prize.
3. Robert Frost
Robert Frost on the farm in New England: A web site
The farmhouse in Derry
II. His works:
1.
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
6)
2.
1)
2)
3)
4)
Collection of poems:
A Boy’s Will（1913）
North of Boston（1914）
New Hamphshire（1923）
Collected Poems（1930）
A Further Range（1936）
A Witness Tree（1942）
Poems:
Birches
After Apple-Picking
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
The Road Not Taken
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.
The Frosts sailed for the United States in
February 1915 and landed in New York
City.
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.
Frost’s poetic theory
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.
Frost's most popular poems:
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
The Road Not Taken,
After Apple-picking
Mending Wall
Birches
Stopping by
Woods on a
Snowy
Evening
- Robert Frost
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy
Evening
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
And miles to go before I sleep.
Points of the poem
1. The analogy between
the specific experience of the rural traveler
the general experience of any individual
whose life is so frequently described as a
journey; a journey including pleasures and
hardships, duties and distances.
2. Theme of the poem: The poem is
primarily oriented towards the pleasures of
the scene and the responsibility of life.
Understanding of the Poem
Metaphors:
Promises – Our own promises or duties
that we must fulfill.
 Miles - experience we must travel through
before death
Sleep - death
Interlocking enclosed rhyme
The first stanza rhymes in “aaba” and “b”
becomes the new repeated end rhymes in
the second stanza. That makes stanza 2
rhyming in “bbcb”. Similarly, the third
stanza rhymes in “ccbc”, whereas the very
last stanza rhymes in a consistent “d”
which brings the poem to a harmonious
end.
The Road Not Taken
-Robert Frost
The Road Not Taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
two roads diverged in a wood, and I -I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Understanding of the poem
 Realistic nature description
 Portrayal of basic qualities of human
nature.
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