Robert Frost's Imagery and the Poetic Consciousness

Research Journal Of English, 2019

is a famous American poet who used nature in his poetry to make readers think about life. Seldom would Robert Frost be given a seat in a Pantheon ofAnglo-American modernist poets, whereas Pound, Eliot, Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams and Marine Moor would all have a prestigious place. For, Frost is known as a gentle farmer poet who represents New England's nature and rural folk. He is judged to be an old fashioned nature poet who criticized "the avant-garde" and continued to make use of English literary tradition.

The poet/critic Randall Jarrell often praised Frost's poetry and wrote, "Robert Frost, along with Stevens and Eliot, seems to me the greatest of the American poets of this century. Frost's virtues as a poet and artist are extraordinary. No other living poet has written so well about the actions of ordinary men; his wonderful dramatic monologues or dramatic scenes come out of a knowledge of people that few poets have had, and they are written in a verse that uses, sometimes with absolute mastery, the rhythms of actual speech‖. Robert Frost loved nature. His poetry was full of emotional appearances about his personal life and behavior. In addition, his literary verses are uncomplicated and profound. He also wrote plain fictions about common people, usually inhabitants of rustic New England. Robert Frost wrote exceptional prose, applying ordinary and sincere language; his poems enclose concept of symbolism, obscure significances, sounds, rhyme, meter, metaphors and more. Robert Frost was, quite simply, one of America's leading 20 th century poets. It could be because he wrote poems about rural life drawing a distinct contrast between its innocence and peacefulness and the depression and corruption of city life. It could also be because he used traditional verse forms that were understood by one and all. It might even be that people sensed his step forward in the direction of modernizing the interplay of rhythm and meter while writing exactly how people spoke. His poetry has been called traditional, experimental, regional, universal, and even pastoral. The world of Frost's poetry is beautiful but it is also harsh and uncaring. Frost wrote that, ―Man has need of nature, but nature has no need of man‖. The poem Birches contains the image of slender trees bent to the ground temporally by a boy's swinging on them or permanently by an ice storm. But as the poem unfolds, it becomes clear that the speaker is concerned not only with child's play and natural phenomena, but also with the point at which physical and spiritual reality merge: ― I like to think some boy's been swinging them But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay As ice – storms do‖

Research Front, 2016

Robert Frost is an American poet who writes about nature and his poetry deals with the rural life. But Frost is not a nature poet in the tradition of William Wordsworth and other romantics. To him, nature is never an impulse of creation, but it always remains the background of his writing. The description of nature in poetry is accurate and lively. He seeks inspiration and enjoyment from the rural setting. His attitude towards nature as one armed truce, still manages to maintain the mutual respect between individual man and the forces of the nature.

EDULIA: English Education, Linguistic and Art Journal

The problem of this study is: “What kinds of imagery are used in the collection of Robert Frost’s poems?”. Therefore, the objective of this study is to describe the kinds of imagery in Robert Frost’s poems entitled “After Apple-Picking, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, The Road Not Taken, To Earthward, Wind and Window Flower, Out-Out, Fire and Ice, Nothing Gold Can Stay, Acquainted with the Night, and A Time To Talk”. The writer used content analysis to classify and analyze the data. The approach used in collecting the data was descriptive qualitative. After investigating the kinds of 10 collections of poems written by Robert Frost, the writer found 95 imagery. The imagery in Robert Frost’s poems has been analyzed in kinds: (1) 37 visual, (2) 20 auditory, (3) 17 kinesthetic, (4) 9 organic, (5) 5 olfactory, (6) 4 tactile, and (7) 3 gustatory. Keywords: Analysis, Imagery, Poems, Robert Frost

Article, 2015

Based on one single comment of Robert Frost (1874-1963) about his poetry, "A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom", the paper explores how the stratums of delight and wisdom of his poems are produced, and also it argues that because of Frost"s commonsense style and convincing portrayal of universal values and truth of common humanity, the poetry of Frost becomes the source of delight and wisdom for the readers. To explore the question or point already stated, some of the best poems of the poet, with special focus on the forms and styles used by Frost, have been taken into consideration, along with available critical approaches to the poet. Not only that, few of the earlier comments of the different school of poetry-from Aristotle to Horace onwards-have been engaged to analyze and answer the question Frost has produced by the comment about his own poems in particular and the poetry in general. This paper also focuses the fact that the delight and wisdom of Frost"s poems are derived not only from stylistic forms of his poetry but also from his inner experience of human soul and mind and outer observation of life and nature. Though the realm of Frost"s poetry basically presents a bleak picture of reality and human life, with seemingly occasional delightful picture of nature, it becomes a great source of delight and wisdom because of Frost"s truthful presentation of life, human values and nature. Thus this paper explores the issue of delight and wisdom in the poetry of Robert Frost.

The humans are violating the laws of nature. The retribution from the biosphere arises in the form of extinction of species, hole in the ozone layer, global warming, acid rain, famines, droughts, hurricanes and tsunamis etc. In ecology, man's tragic flaw is his anthropocentric vision. The present era witnesses man's compulsion to conquer, violate, exploit and domesticate every natural thing. Contrasted to biocentricism, the man-made potential horrors are nuclear holocaust, poisoning radiation, oil spills, toxic waste and destruction of tropical rain forest, depletion of green cover and so on. Thus, the study of the relationship between literature and the physical environment is ecocriticism that becomes a theoretical discourse negotiating between human culture and nature.

Resources for American Literary Study, 2014

Though questions about the place of Robert Frost in the canon of American literature endure, he remains a fascinating poet and public figure whose accessibility and inscrutability will surely engage the next generation of scholars, whether their approach is biographical, cultural, or theoretical. The scattering of archival material related to Frost and the hodgepodge of volumes of varying quality containing his letters, talks, and conversa tions will remain the chief problem for years even though ongoing efforts to consolidate the prose, the notebooks, the letters, and even his talks will mitigate this difficulty. The publication of Frost's letters over the next five years will certainly inspire a new biography, one less vexed than Lawrence Thompson's still-indispensable account. Inquiring scholars still have much to analyze in Frost's individual poems and volumes, not to mention his poli tics, his status as celebrity, and his relations to both verbal and visual artists. Robert Frost's (1874-1963) life and work continue to provide a rich area of study, even as the academic culture vigorously redefines the field of "American literature" within which Frost has been canonically lodged for years and even as he gets resifted to various levels in debates about his modernism. Developments during the past generation have made more documents accessible and have deepened and broadened our understand ing of Frost's art and life. There is still much work to be done in simply cataloging, assembling, and making more available the letters, interviews, talks, and readings, and in giving the biographical approaches and liter ary interpretations a more definitive cultural inflection than they have taken, but the field has a well-established collection of texts and compan ion works to guide and inspire scholars just approaching Frost, as well as those who have been working on him for years. Often regarded by scholars as regrettable, Frost's popularity across the ranks of readers, sometimes for the "wrong" reasons, has actually

This paper aims at exploring whether the American poet laureate Robert Lee Frost (1874 - 1963) was a regional poet, regionalism being the inclination to employ local colors and elements that focus on a certain locality which could be an indication of ethnic or local pride on one hand, or a criticism of certain regional features or situations on the other. Frost mainly wrote poems of rural settings and characters, this could mislead the casual reader to take him as a nature poet. Through his American voice, New-England setting, and tendency to extend his vision beyond the local, he expresses an attitude that let his natives see him as a national poet; in spite of the regionality of his setting, style, and characters, while others could touch the humanitarian and universal tendencies in his poetry. The paper opens with an introduction in which the definition of regionalism is discussed with reference to the literary implications of the term; the discussion is supported by various literary examples from world literature in general and American literature in particular. Then the regional features of the poet's writings are explained; they include, but are not limited to, the regional setting of New-England, the Puritan heritage, and the influences of American historical events on his attitude; especially the indictment of the Native American-Indian. The paper ends with a conclusion that summarizes the final findings of the paper.

2020

The repercussions from global warming sparks concern over the sustenance of the environment as well as of humankind. The purpose of this paper is to induce an ecologically-friendly initiative and responsibility amongst the readers through Robert Frost‟s poetry in the ecocritical perspective especially at a time when mankind grows detrimentally distant from the sustainable, natural world in favor of robust, widespread industrialization eliciting a picture of bleak present reality. The paper looks into how Transcendentalism and Realism are both present in Frost‟s poetry despite the long accustomed view of Frost not being a Transcendentalist. The physical and spiritual sustainability and interconnectedness of Nature and human lives are secured by the infusion of Realism and Transcendentalism. Conclusively, such a relation between Man and Nature evokes understanding the significance of Nature and human nature in evincing a crucially needed ecocentric attitude in the global, political, s...

Nature is the most excellent attribute of Robert Frost's poetry. Frost has a profound affection and compassion towards animals. However, traditional rural life is not the main focus of Frost's poetry. Frost reflects mostly on the extraordinary struggle that has taken place in the natural environment. His poems typically begin with the observation of Nature and continue to connect with the human psychological condition. According to Frost, Nature is not just a source of joy but also an impetus of human intelligence. People should be educated by thought, such that Nature is the main character in his poetry rather than only a backdrop.

Based on one single comment of Robert Frost (1874-1963) about his poetry, "A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom", the paper explores how the stratums of delight and wisdom of his poems are produced, and also it argues that because of Frost"s commonsense style and convincing portrayal of universal values and truth of common humanity, the poetry of Frost becomes the source of delight and wisdom for the readers. To explore the question or point already stated, some of the best poems of the poet, with special focus on the forms and styles used by Frost, have been taken into consideration, along with available critical approaches to the poet. Not only that, few of the earlier comments of the different school of poetry-from Aristotle to Horace onwards-have been engaged to analyze and answer the question Frost has produced by the comment about his own poems in particular and the poetry in general. This paper also focuses the fact that the delight and wisdom of Frost&q...

The Creative Launcher

The modern world has witnessed radical changes in all sorts of discourses. Different kinds of changes in environment, culture and humanistic approach have brought relevant dimensions in literature. The points are quite interesting, contemporary, burning and have masculine, vital and thought-provoking concerns. Everyone is running after ease and comfort forgetting the importance of nature and environment. This can be reiterated in the words of William Wordsworth that getting and spending we are busy in wasting our powers, health, knowledge, wisdom, human feelings. Further, he says that we have lost all our sensibilities to realize the relevance and grateful towards nature. Actually, we do not even realize the importance of nature in our life. The paper explores the concept of environmental, cultural and humanistic concerns in the poetry of Robert Frost, Kazuyosi Ikeda and Syed Ameeruddin.

isara solutions, 2020

Symbols are naturally words which are not merely connotative, but also evocative and emotive. In addition to their meaning, they also call up or evoke before the mind’s eye a host of associations connected with them, and are also rich in emotional significance. For example, the word ‘lily’ merely connotes a ‘flower’ but it also evokes images of beauty and innocence. It also carries with it the emotional overtone of pity resulting from suffering or oppression. In this way, through symbols a writer can express much more than by the use of ordinary words; symbols make the language rich and expressive. Concepts which by their very nature are inexpressible can be conveyed in this way. Thus, a symbol can be used to convey, “pure sensation’, or the poet’s apprehension of transcendental mystery. Frost poetry is easy and simple, but this apparent simplicity of his poetry is deceptive and misleading. In reality, he is a very complex and intricate poet, and this complexity arises from his extensive use of symbols.

2019

The lay of a people is often tethered to the lay of the land that they live in or leave behind; for the land holds all the associations of ancestry, heritage, and environment that constitute what Emile Durkheim would call "the collective conscious." Landscapes may assume near mythical dimensions in forming and framing the creative impulse of writers who draw their images and symbols, themes and motifs, and aspirations and apprehensions from their terrestrial roots and routes. In the present paper, I seek to reread a few poems of the famous Kashmiri-American poet Agha Shahid Ali with a view to highlighting his poetics of place that remains true to the kindred points of haven (America, the adopted land) and home (Kashmir, the homeland). Attempts will be made to shed light on the re-creative dynamics of his poetry that helps him to mythicize these two landscapes with the aid of "memory" and "imagination." My objective here is to foreground the process through which the poet's re-creation of place combines with the reader's focus on spatiality to situate Ali's poems such as "Postcard from Kashmir," "Snowmen," "A Wrong Turn," "Snow on the Desert," "Farewell," etc. In the poem, "Postcard from Kashmir" for example, the speaker holds the postcard that represents to him the land of his birth -"Kashmir shrinks into my mailbox,/ my home a neat four by six inches." The persistent pains of "exile" lead him to proximate the half-inch Himalayas to this "home," because he realizes "This is home. And this the closest I'll ever be to home." Similarly, in the poem "Snow on the Desert," the poet brings to bear all his imaginative elasticity to re-create the Papago's way of living in the Sonoran desert in the South Western part of the United States. His poetic narrative brings to the surface the native history of the Papagos people whose long lost lives are imaginatively re-created by a diasporic poet, keenly aware of the ancient glory of his own homeland as contrasted with its recent abjection.

The Concept of Nature in the Poetry of William Wordsworth and Robert Frost: A Comparative Study Muthanna Z. Almiqdady Department of English Language and Literature, Ajloun National University Jordan Abdel-Rahman H. Abu-Melhim Department of English Language and Literature, Al-Balqa’ Applied University, Jordan Mahmoud A. Al-Sobh Department of English Language and Literature, Ajloun National University, Jordan Abstract This research aims to investigate the different meanings for the term “nature”. Moreover, it seeks to identify the major similarities and differences in the use of nature in the poetry of William Wordsworth and Robert Frost. Since this research is theoretical in nature, it depends primarily on reviewing already published works on the topic. The researchers consulted a significant number of published references on the topic as well as specialized literary dictionaries, encyclopaedias, and the internet. The research concludes that the term “nature” has not always had the same meaning or carries the same level of significance. Also, the concept of nature in British literature should be studied, not only as it was employed by English romantic poets, but also as it was used by authors before and after the English Romantic Movement in order to see if nature was used in the same way. Moreover, scholars and literary critics should also research the concept of nature as used in the United States of America before and after Robert frost. Finally, the use of nature in poetry that reflects meditation under the influence of the bible should be explored especially that composed by early colonial poets. Keywords: Frost, nature, romanticism, transcendentalism, Wordsworth.