“Robert Frost was born in San Francisco in 1874. He moved to New England at the age of eleven and became interested in reading and writing poetry during his high school years in Lawrence, Massachusetts. He was enrolled at Dartmouth College in 1892, and later at Harvard, but never earned a formal degree. In 1895, Frost married Elinor Mirian White, who became a major inspiration in his poetry until her death in 1938. By the nineteen twenties he was the most celebrated poet in America, with each new book his fame and honors increased. Robert Frost lived and taught for many years in Massachusetts and Vermont, and died on January 29, 1963, in Boston,”(American Poets).
In his poetry Robert Frost addresses many aspects of life. His poems range from love to humor, and to fear and rage. The themes of the poems are brought about in many ways. Many of his poems are influenced by nature. In the poems “Never again Would Bird’s Song Be the Same,” “Desert Places,” “The Road Not Taken,” and “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening,” Frost uses nature as figures of speech to establish the overall themes of the poems. The use of nature in Frosts poems is used in many ways to express the overall feeling and meaning of the entire poems.
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In the poem “Desert Places,” Frost uses nature to express the thoughts and feelings of the speaker. The speaker is sitting in his home looking outside into a dark snowy night. There is absolutely nothing living that is visible. It is empty and lonely outside. The speaker refers to animals in their lairs hidden away from the loneliness. It seems the speaker is envious of these animals because they can escape their desert places but he can’t escape his. The entire poem makes it seem that he fears being outside alone or off in space with nothing around. The last two lines of the poem however give the poem a whole new meaning. “The speaker generalizes about the scene: its loneliness will only intensify before it decreases,”(Kemp).
The Essay on Robert Frost Imagery Writing Poetry
Robert Frost wrote an interesting poem entitled, "After Apple-Picking." This poem has several fascinating images that cause the reader to wonder what he is really trying to convey. Through this poem, Frost could possibly be trying to suggest death. This death might either be of life itself, or of writing poetry. There are several times in the poem that he refers to winter, and just as spring is a ...
All of the places that the speaker speaks of throughout the poem do not bother him. The last two lines formulate the thesis of the entire poem. The speaker doesn’t worry about the places outside because he has his own empty lonely places that he fears. The speaker is referring to the distress the mind causes in life. Often people are put into difficult times or situation and the mind makes one worry or stress more than one should. When he says home the speaker is referring to his own mind. It is a much more dangerous place than the woods or outer space. The poem is a fixed form poem, and consists of four quatrains with an aaba rhyme scheme.
The poem “Never Again Would Birds’ Song Be The Same,” is a sonnet written by Frost in 1942. The tone of this poem is love, and the bird is the man and women’s connection of love. This is how Frost uses nature in this poem. The man and women in the poem are Adam and Eve but it seems that they are not together. “The oddity in the poem ‘s combination of touching intimacy and affection, with implicit suggestions of remoteness and distance,”(Lakritz).
The birds in the poem are messengers to Adam
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of what Eve is doing and saying. They make her sound beautiful and seductive, yet the two are both alone and without each other. The lines in the poem “Admittedly an eloquence so soft/Could only had an influence on birds/When call or laughter carried it aloft”(Frost, “Never Again Would Bird’s Song Be The Same” 6-8), are the main part of the poem that suggests that the only connection between the two are the birds. Toward the end of the poem it says that Eve has had such an effect on the birds that their songs of her will never end. And they will forever affect Adam as well. This poem was probably greatly influenced by the death of Frosts wife. She was dead at the time so it makes sense. She is in heaven so he has no direct contact with her. The birds that come from the sky sing a beautiful song that are as beautiful as she was. They hear her in heaven and relay it back to earth. The tone of this poem could be of sadness as well as love because of the distance between the two.
The Essay on Poems Tone Poem Road One
The Road Not Taken" I chose to do a poetry explication on Robert Frost's poem "The Road Not Taken." I enjoyed this poem and have read many poems written by him. First, I just want to give a little background information on him. Robert Frost was one of the most inspiring and loved poets of the twentieth century. His work is concentrated on the New England Landscape. Most of the poems written by ...
Another poem that uses nature and deals with distance and aloneness is “Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening.” The line “The darkest evening of the year”(Frost, Stoping By Woods 8), suggests that the person on the horse is hitting some hard times. Some critics of this poem suggest that the theme is of death and suicide. “The speaker is drawn to the woods and wants to lie down and let the snow cover and bury him”(Meyers).
The horse in the poem is confused and wants to keep going. The man however finds no need to move on. Then at the end he realizes that he has other things to do in life before he dies. This poem contains examples of alliteration in line 11with the words (“only other,” “sounds the sweep”) and examples of assonance with the words (“sound’s […] downy,” “sweep […] easy”).
This poem deals with darkness, emptiness and fear and is a lot like the poem “Desert Places.” The man does not need to look far to find misery and loneliness.
The poem “A Road Not Taken” is a comical poem yet there is a sort of seriousness to it. It is about making choices in life and choosing between two paths to go down. The woods in the poem are the symbol of the distance and differences of the two paths. By taking the one less traveled he is taking the one that is more difficult but has a better reward at the end. More people try to take the easy road because others have before them and they are afraid to do something different. “Because it was grassy and wanted wear,”(Frost, Road Not Taken 260:8) is explaining how little the road the speaker is taking taken. The poem leaves the reader thinking about the chances and experiences missed by taking either one of the paths. No matter the choice one makes there is going to be something that is going to be missed that is down the other road. “Somewhere ages and ages hence:”(Frost, Road Not Taken 260:17) is saying that everyone gets old but depending on the road one takes matters where one will be when they are old. The subject in the poem is happy with the road he took but wonders what would have happened if he took the other. This poem is a very powerful poem and caries much meaning dealing with normal life. The entire poem is a symbol of everyday life and of life as a whole.
The Essay on Comparing Poem To Everyday Life
Comparing Poem to Everyday Life This poem is ultimate truth of every youths life. Ambition to man is what fragrance to a flower. It is a force without constraints or restrictions. Whatever ones age or status is, everyone nurses in his heart a secret ambition. It is born out of todays discontent and looks up to a better or satisfying tomorrow. It is a driving force that spurs the inactive in to ...
These poems all use nature to deal with certain aspects or lessen in life. All of Frosts poems have different meaning to them all. The way they are depicted depends on the reader’s perception toward life and its surroundings.
Works Cited
Kennedy, X.J. and Dana Gioia, eds. An Introduction to Poetry Ninth Edition. New
York: Longman, 1998.
Frost, Robert. “Never Again Would Birds Son’s Be the Same.” The Witness Tree. New
York: Henry Holt, 1942.
Acadamy of American Poets. 1997-2002
<http://www.poets.org/poets/poets.cfm?prmID=196&CFID=7663211&CFTOKE
N=36320167.
Meyers, Jeffery. From Robert Frost: A Biography. 1996.
Lakritz, Andrew M. Modernism and the other in Stevens, Frost and Moore. Gainesville:
University Press of Florida, 1996: 71.
Kemp, John C. Robert Frost and New England: The Poet as Regionalist. Princeton UP,
1979.