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 American
poet, one of the finest of rural New England's 20th century pastoral
poets. Frost published his first books in Great Britain in the 1910s,
but he soon became the most read poet in his own country. He was
awarded the Pulitzer Prize four times.
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 greater
And would suffice.
Robert Frost was born in San Francisco, California. His father,
a journalist and local politician, died when Frost was eleven years
old. His Scottish mother resumed her career as a schoolteacher to
support her family. The family lived in Lawrence, Massachusetts,
with Frost's paternal grandfather. In 1892 Frost graduated from
a high school and attended Dartmouth College for a few months. Over
the next ten years he held a number of jobs, Frost worked among
others in a textile mill and taught Latin at his mother's school
in Methuen, Massachusetts.
In 1894 the New York Independent published Frost's poem
'My Butterfly' and he had five poems privately printed. In 1895
he married a former schoolmate, Elinor White; they had six children.
Frost worked as a teacher and continued to write and publish his
poems in magazines.
From 1897 to 1899 Frost studied at Harvard, but left without receiving
a degree. He moved to Derry, New Hampshire, working there as a cobbler,
farmed and teacher at Pinkerton Academy and at the state normal
school in Plymouth.
 In
1912 Frost sold his farm and took his family to England. There he
published his first collection of poems, A BOY'S WILL, was published
when he was 39. It was followed by NORTH BOSTON (1914), which gained
international reputation. The collection contains some of Frost's
best-known poems: 'Mending Wall,' 'The Death of the Hired Man,'
'Home Burial,' 'A Servant to Servants,' 'After Apple-Picking,' and
'The Wood-Pile.' The themes were drawn from his own life, recurrent
losses, written with blank verse or looser free verse of dialogue.
While in England Frost was deeply influenced by such English poets
as Rupert Brooke. After returning to the US in 1915, Frost bought
a farm near Franconia, New Hampshire, and taught later at Amherst
College (1916-38) and Michigan universities. In 1916 Frost was made
a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters. On the same
year appeared his third collection of verse, MOUNTAIN INTERVAL,
which contained such poems as 'The Road Not Taken,' 'The Oven Bird,'
'Birches,' and 'The Hill Wife.' Frost's poems show deep appreciation
of natural world and sensibility about the human situation. His
images - woods, stars, houses, brooks, - are usually taken from
everyday life, and with his down-to-earth approach to his subjects,
it is easy for the reader to follow the poet into deeper truths.
Often Frost used the rhythms and vocabulary of ordinary speech or
even the looser free verse of dialogue.
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.
(from 'The Road Not Taken')
In 1920 Frost purchased a farm in South Shaftsbury, Vermont, near
Middlebury College where he co founded the Bread Loaf School and
Conference of English. His wife died in 1938 and he lost four of
his children - his son, a frustrated poet and farmer, committed
suicide. Frost also suffered from depression and the continual self-doubt
led him desperately to desire a Nobel Prize that never came.
 Frost
continued to write poetry prolifically into old age. He participated
in the inauguration of President John Kennedy in 1961 by reciting
two of his poems, 'Dedication' and 'The Gift Outright.' He travelled
in 1962 in the Soviet Union as a member of a goodwill group. Among
the honours and rewards Frost received were tributes from the U.S.
Senate (1950), the American Academy of Poets (1953), New York University
(1956), and the Huntington Hartford Foundation (1958), the Congressional
Gold Medal (1962), the Edward MacDowell Medal (1962). In 1930 he
was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Amherst
College appointed him Saimpson Lecturer for Life (1949), and in
1958 he was made poetry consultant for the Library of Congress.
At the time of his death on January 29, 1963, Frost was regarded
as the unofficial poet laureate of the US. In his poems Frost depicted
the fields and farms of New England, observing the details of rural
life, endowed with universal meaning. Although his works were generally
praised, the lack of seriousness concerning social and political
problems of the 1930s annoyed some critics.
For further reading: The Poetry of Robert Frost by R.A.
Brower (1960); Robert Frost by P.L. Gerber (1966, rev. ed. 1982);
Frost by E. Jennings (1966); Robert Frost: The Early Years, 1874-1915
by L. Thompson (1966); Robert Frost: The Years of Triumph, 1915-1938
by L. Thompson (1970); Robert Frost by E. Barry (1973); Robert
Frost: The Later Years, 1938-1963 by L. Thompson and R.H. Winnick
(1976); Robert Frost and New England by J.C. Kemp (1979); Robert
Frost Handbook by J.L. Potter (1980); Frost: A Literary Life Reconsidered
W.H. Pritchard (1984); A Restless Spirit: The Story of Robert
Frost by N. Bober (1991); The Poetry of Robert Frost by J.R. Doyle
Jr. (1991); The Poems of Robert Frost by M. Narcus (1991) - For
further information: Robert Lee Frost - SEE Joseph Brodsky,
who mentioned Robert Frost in his Nobel Award speech. See also
English poet Robert Browning (1812-89), whose works have connections
with Frost's monologues.
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