Robert Frost

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Robert Lee Frost was born in San Francisco on March 26, 1874 and died in Boston on January 29, 1963. Frost was considered to be one of America’s leading 20th century poets and a four-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize. He was an essentially pastoral poet who was often associated with rural New England. Frost wrote poems of a philosophical region. His poems were traditional but he often said as a dig at his archrival Carl Sandburg, that “he would soon play tennis without a net as write free verse.” Frost said this because he believed he was a pioneer of rhythm and meter and in the poetic use of vocabulary and inflections of everyday life and speech. Frost’s poetry is considered to be traditional, experimental, regional, and universal (Robert 1997).

Frost was born of two teachers. At the age of ten, Frost suffered the loss of his father. After the death of his father, his mother moved to Lawrence, Massachusetts. He grew up in a teaching atmosphere, along with its problems. Early in Frost's school career, he was extremely careless and preferred fun and game to his studies. In high school, he decided to apply and involve himself in many areas. He graduated in three years from high school at the head of his class. After high school he attended Dartmouth and Harvard but ended up not finishing at either due to personal problems (Newdick).

He was destined to be a teacher. Frost after not making it in college, went to teach at his mother's school in Salem, New Hampshire. In 1912 he went to England to be with his family, and in his publication of North of Boston, in 1914, he was finally hailed as the great artist that he truly was. After he returned to America in 1915, he went to Harvard and read a poem for some exercises, and was instantly honored by institutions of higher learning by their conferring degrees on him (Biography).

Throughout Frost's 60 years of existence, he spent 30 of those years teaching a half a dozen subjects. He has taught in schools ranging from plain white country schoolhouses in his native land of New England to the proud American Universities. He has gained half a lifetime of considered experience and philosophical observations (Libraries).

In the critical analysis that I read, the critics were hard on Frost’s work “Road not taken.” The first critic, William George, starts off by attacking other critics, saying they misin...

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... with right or wrong situations, and the speaker has to choose which road, or decision, to take. I like to think that I can somewhat relate to the speaker. I have had to make many choices throughout my life and I will never know whether my choices were right or wrong until I made them.

The speaker kind of concludes the poem by saying that he is relieved that he chose the right road to take. I look back and wonder if I had chosen a few different roads, how everything would have come out. I think that a lot of the roads I chose to take have been good, as far as I know.

Work Cited

“Biography” www.pro-net.co.uk/home/catalyst/RF/bio.html. 2000.

Cervo, Nathan "Frost's The Road Not Taken" Proquest March 27.

George, William "Frost's The Road Not Taken" Proquest March 27.

"Libraries/media centers: Robert Frost Elementary school." American school and University; Overland Park; Aug 1999.

Newdick, Robert S. "Robert Frost and the American college." The Journal of Higher Education; Columbus; Sep./Oct. 1999.

“Robert Frost on the Web” http://www.amherstcommon.com/walking_tour/frost.html.1997.

“Robert Frost (1874-1963)” http://www.lit.kobe-u.ac.jp/~hishika/frost.htm 2000.

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