Robert Frost Achievements

Robert Frost

One of the most well known writers in America is Robert Frost. Frost is famous for his amazing poems about the seasons. Frost was a four-time Pulitzer Prize winner in poetry in 1924, and has received more than 40 honorary degrees. Frost had also become a poetic force and the unofficial “poet laureate” of the U.S. Frost was even a special guest at John F. Kennedy’s inauguration. Robert Frost wasn’t very popular until he exploded on the scene at the beginning of World War One. Even though he had some great achievements, Frost still had his flaws in life.

Robert Frost was just an average guy for the first forty years of his life. He was always intrigued by writing. Robert Frost was born on March 26, 1874 in San Francisco, California.

This is where he spent the first 11 years of his life. Frost tried going to school but dropped out. Frost spent these 11 years with his father William Prescott Frost Jr. who was a journalist. William had died from tuberculosis in 1885. After his father's death he moved to Lawrence Massachusetts with his mom Isabelle, his sister Jeanie and his grandparents, who forced him to attend school again.
Frost’s family stayed in Lawrence for a year until moving to Salem Depot, New Hampshire in 1887 where his mom would take on a job teaching 5th to 8th grade. In June 1888, Frost passed his entrance examinations to join Lawrence High School. When he accomplished this his mom stopped teaching. He was the smartest in his class and was even able to finish a year ahead of his class in 1889. In 1891, Frost passed his preliminary entrance examinations to enter into Harvard College. While Frost was in Harvard, he fell in love with Elinor Miriam White. Elinor and Frost stayed together and when they both graduated in 1892, Elinor was Co-valedictorian. Frost had started school again but dropped out after a short period of time.
When Frost dropped out he worked many jobs that were unfulfilling in his life. In 1894, Frost had sent in one of his poems, “My Butterfly: an Elegy” and had it published in a New York City literature journal that was published weekly. The name of the article was “The Independent”. Elinor, who still wanted to attend school, started attending St. Lawrence. While Elinor was still attending St. Lawrence, Frost proposed to her. She turned him down because she wanted to finish school first. Frost, after being turned down, decided that he would go to Virginia on a trip.
By the time Frost arrived back, Elinore was finished with school. Frost decided to propose again and this time, Elinor said yes. Frost and Elinor married on December 19, 1895. Not long after, they had their first child, Elliot, in 1896. When 1897 came around Frost joined Harvard University. Sadly Frost had to drop out due to health concerns. When Frost had arrived home he returned to his wife who was pregnant with their second child, Lesley.
Three years passed and in 1900 the family moved to a farm in New Hampshire. Thankfully enough, Frost was lucky that his grandfather had bought the farm for him. Frost and his family lived on this farm for twelve years trying to make a good life for themselves. Sadly, Frost’s personal life was terrible. When they first moved there, Elliot got sick with cholera and died shortly after. On the bright side though, his writing career was going great.
After Elliot had died, Elinor had four more kids. The first was her son, Carol. Carol was born in 1902, and later committed suicide in 1940. Her second, was her daughter Irma. Irma was born in 1903, and when she was growing up she developed a mental illness. The third was Marjorie, who was born in 1905. Marjorie died in her late twenty’s, due to complications after giving birth. The fourth, Elinor, was born in 1907 and was named after her mother but died a few weeks after birth.
During this time at the farm, Frost acclaimed himself to the rural life, loving the outdoors and taking in nature's beauty. This is why many of Frost’s poems are about the countryside. Two of Frost’s poems were published in 1906. The poems are “The Tuft of Flowers” and “The Trial by Existence”. Frost was only 38 when these two poems were published.
Frost was having trouble finding someone to publish his poems, so him and Elinor decided to move the family to England to find some publishers who like his work.

They ended up selling the farm in New Hampshire and settled in England fairly quickly. Frost’s luck went up, and after only a few months, a publisher printed two of his poem books. The books “A Boy’s Will” and “North of Boston” were published only a year later.

There were two people who had a big impact on Frost’s life. Their names are Ezra Pound and Edward Thomas. They were the ones who loved Frost’s work and encouraged him to keep on writing. Frost was so inspired by Edward Thomas that he wrote a poem about how Edward keeps on going, and Frost called it “The Road Not Taken”.

Robert Frost and his family loved England but forced to move back to America. They moved back in August 1914, due to the start of World War One but, when they returned to America, publishers were searching for Frost so they could publish his work. One publisher, Henry Holt, was the one that Robert Frost chose to publish his work. Henry and Frost became great life long friends. Holt published a collection of Frost’s work from England and called it Frost’s Mountain.

Frost had many of the people that he asked to publish his work come crawling back after rejecting him the first time he was in America. Frost just sent the ones he had sent before and again asked if they would

them.
Even though Frost was busy with his writing career, he was a teacher at several colleges.

Frost taught at Amherst College for the most part and he taught there from 1916 to 1938. Frost had many jobs including: teaching, a cobbler, a journalist and a bobbin boy for a cotton mill.

Frost had quit teaching due to the death of his beloved wife Elinor. She died in 1938 due to cancer that she had been diagnosed with a year before. Elinor also had been diagnosed with heart problems, which didn’t help her

situation.
When the late 1950’s came around Robert Frost and two of his friends championed the release of Frost’s old friend from England, Ezra Pound. Ezra was involved in fascist in Italy which caused him to be put in a mental institution.
When 1960 came he was very extraordinarily popular. When 1963 January 29 arrived, Robert Frost died. He died due to prostate surgery complications. Frost was 88 years old when he died. He died in Boston, Massachusetts, US.

Work cited

Schmidt, Gary D. Ed. Poetry For Young People Robert Frost. New York: Sterling, 1994. Print.

Bio.com. A&E Networks Television. Web. 8 Dec. 2015.

Infoplease. Infoplease. Web. 8 Dec. 2015.