AN ECOCRITICAL READING OF ROBERT FROST'S SELECT POEMS

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.

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‖

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...

International Journal of Linguistics, Literature and Translation

This paper attempts to investigate the depiction of nature in the poetry of Robert Frost and how this treatment simultaneously resembles and differs from that of romantic poetry. Though he belongs to the era of modernism, his poetry carries numerous characteristics of romantic poetry. The researcher tries to compare the poetry of Robert Frost and that of the Romantics how they are identical or dissimilar in the representation of nature. Robert Frost might be called the interpreter of nature and humanity. He shows that he is a close observer of both nature and people. On the other hand, Romantic writers see nature as a source of inspiration, solace in agony, healer in mental illness, rescuer in struggling period, etc. They treat nature as Mother Nature where their poetry tells us the beauty of green forestland, woods, hills and mountains, riverbanks, pastoral scenarios, breezes and winds, fresh air, sunrises, and sunsets, etc. Whereas Robert Frost always tries to make a bridge betwee...

Scholars Research Publisher , 2021

An attempt has been made to glimpse at the major themes of Robert Frost's poems. Frost is a modern American poet of the twentieth century whose poems are furnished with variegated themes. He is a poet who typifies the country's traditional cultural inheritance. He has absorbed the essence what constitutes America. He is also called the ‗voice of America' ; so to say, he has represented the faith, doubt, joys, sorrows, emotions, thoughts and ideas of the people of America. He is a poet of man whose poems deal with Man in relation with the universe crossing the border of America. Frost sees that man's environment is quite indifferent to man. To him, nature is neither absolutely benevolent to man nor hostile always. He regards nature as a beautiful but dangerous force, worthy of admiration, nonetheless fraught with peril. Thus man is essentially alone. A barrier is made between man and his immediate environment, between man and the universe, between man and man. His work shows strong sympathy for the values of the early American society. He employs themes from the early 1900's rural life in New England. He uses the pastoral setting to examine the complex social and philosophical themes. Frost concentrates on ordinary subject matters but his emotional range is wide and deep, and his poems shift dramatically from a tone of humorous banter to the passionate expression of tragic experience. He also uses language considering his subject matters. His poetry is structured within traditional metrical and rhythmical schemes, and vernacular speeches. Daniel Hoffman regards Frost as the founder of-a new aesthetic of poetry as speeches.‖ This article aims at discussing Frost's major themes highlighting his poetic mastery.

Frost, 2019

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.

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

William Wordsworth is universally recognized as a great poet of Nature. But he was not content to be thought as poet of Nature only, singing the sensuous bliss of a life lived in natural surroundings, like Cowper in The task: “God made the country, and Man Made the town”. Wordsworth is an outstanding philosophical poet, whose ultimate theme was not Nature only, but the heart of Man also. And the poetry of man took in his hands a rapid development as the poetry of Nature. Whereas Robert Frost is also a great poet of Nature but he is even greater as a poet of man. His landscapes are all landscape with human figures. Frost himself once remarked that he had hardly written two poems without a human being in them. He has written on almost every subject. He has illuminated things as common as a woodpile and as common as a Prehistoric pebble, as natural as a bird singing in its sleep and as ‘mechanistic’ as a revolt of a factory worker. On the other hand, Wordsworth’s poetry shows how human beings fit into the midst the interplaying forces of Nature. He believes that there is a pre-existing harmony between the mind of Man and Nature. Both the poets Wordsworth as a Romantic and Frost as a Modern, have different attitudes towards Nature and its relation to human beings.

Oeconomia Copernicana , 2022

William Wordsworth, English Romanticist and Robert Frost, American National Poet celebrate nature as their subject matter. The paper tries to compare the ideas of nature and its philosophy in both poets writing. Though there are obvious similarities between the two poets' takes on the subject, their perspectives on Nature couldn't be more different. Wordsworth is without a peer when it comes to nature poets. He holds a high reverence for the natural world and considers himself a priest or devotee. He has developed an entire philosophical system, a fresh perspective on the natural world. However, Frost is not into nature for its own sake. Unlike Wordsworth, he does not perceive nature as a source of strength, happiness, or moral well-being. Nature provides the same inspiration for both writers but in very different forms. Frost keeps his distance as an artist while Wordsworth is invested in the themes of his poems. Frost appears uncomplicated but is quite complicated compared to Wordsworth. Frost is a realist, an observer of the world, and an opponent of romance. On the other hand, Wordsworth is a transcendentalist, romantic, and mystic. Compared to Wordsworth, whose poetry is equally delightful at its beginning and end, Frost's poetry is more joyful at the beginning and more wisdom at the end.