Metaphor, Image and Symbol in the Poetry of Robert Frost
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Robert Frost╎s Theory and Practice of Poetry
/~/ ROBERT FROST’S THEORY AND PRACTICE OF POETRY A THESIS SUN~ITTED TO THE FACULTY OF ~TLANTh UNIVERSITY IN PARTIAL FULFILII4ENT OF ThE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS BY EMMA L • YORK DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH ATLANTA, GEORGIA MAY 1967 ~ ~ ~53 /J~:.5 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page PREFACE iii INTRODUCTION . vi Chapter I. Frost’s Theory of Poetry . I. II. Major Themes in Frost’s Poetry 16 III. Frost’s Language and Style 30 CONCLUSION . 49 B IBLIOGR.APHY . 5 1 11 PREFACE Although Robert Frost occupies a unique position in modern poetry, he has not received the careful critical evaluation his work deserves. Anyone who has studied the numerous articles and books about him is quick to note that much has been done in the way of biographical sketches, regional vignettes, and appreciation, but little effort has been made to examine the poetry itself. There are many reasons for this lack of serious consideration. The main cause, however, is to be found in the very nature of his art. The poetry he has written is of a type distinctly different from that of his major contemporaries. At first glance, his work has an unusual simplicity which sets it apart. Frost’s poetry does not conform to any of the conventional devices characteristic of modern poetry. Modern poetry often exhibits obscurities of style and fra~nentary sentences, whereas, Frost’s sentences are clear. In modern poetry the verse forms are irregular with abrupt shifts from subject to subject. Frost’s language is conventional - close to everyday speech. Because he demands less erudition in the reader, his poetry may appear to lack the depth of thought that is found in the best modern verse. -
“Mending Wall” by Robert Frost
FROST POETRY ANALYSIS DIRECTIONS: Complete the TP-CASTT analysis chart for your group poem. You only need one paper per group, but you are all responsible for presenting your poem to the class. You each must speak and contribute to the presentation. TP-CASTT –an acronym for title, paraphrase, connotation, attitude, shift, title (again), and theme—is designed to help you remember the concepts you can consider when examining a poem. This is not a lockstep sequential approach, but rather it is a fluid process in which you will move back and forth, among the various concepts. For example, in examining connotations of a line, you may also notice a shift, which in turn may give you an insight into theme. Title (before reading) Although titles are often keys to possible meanings of a poem, students frequently do not contemplate them either before or after reading poetry. As a first step in the analysis of a new poem, look at the title and predict what the poem may be about. Paraphrase Another aspect of a poem often neglected by students is the literal meaning—the “plot.” Frequently, real understanding of a poem must evolve from comprehension of “what’s going on in the poem.” Try to restate a poem in your own words, focusing on one syntactical unit at a time—not necessarily on one line at a time. Another possibility is to write a sentence or two for each stanza of the poem. Connotation Although this term usually refers solely to the emotional overtones of word choice, here it indicates that you should examine any and all poetic devices, focusing on how such devices contribute to the meaning, the effect, or both of a poem. -
Birches & Mending Wall King’S Word Academy BIRCHES When I See Birches Bend to Left and Right Across the Lines of Straighter Darker Trees
Literature Birches & Mending Wall King’s Word Academy BIRCHES When I see birches bend to left and right Across the lines of straighter darker trees. I like to think some boy’s been swinging them. But swinging doesn’t bend them down to stay 5 As ice storms do. Often you must have seen them Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning After a rain. They click upon themselves As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel. 10 Soon the sun’s warmth makes them shed crystal shells Shattering and avalanching on the snow crust- Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away You’d think the inner dome of heaven had fallen. They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load. 15 And they seem not to break: though once they are bowed So low for long, they never right themselves: You may see their trunks arching in the woods Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair 20 Before them over their heads to dry in the sun. But I was going to say when Truth broke in With all her matter of fact about the ice storm, I should prefer to have some boy bend them As he went out and in to fetch the cows- 25 Some boy too far from town to learn baseball. Whose only play was what he found himself. Summer or winter, and could play alone. One by one he subdued his father’s trees By riding them down over and over again 30 Until he took the stiffness out of them And not one but hung limp, not one was left For him to conquer. -
A Bibliography and Analysis of Robert Frost Monographs in the Rare Book Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
April S. Brewer. The First Editions of Robert Frost: A Bibliography and Analysis of Robert Frost Monographs in the Rare Book Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A Master’s Paper for the M.S. in L.S degree. April, 2007. 41 pages. Advisor: Charles B. McNamara This paper is a detailed analysis of the first edition monographs by four-time Pulitzer Prize winning poet Robert Frost in the Rare Book Collection (RBC) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It includes a biographical sketch and information about the collection, including the donation of a large amount of materials by Clifford P. Lyons, a former UNC professor. This paper also compares the RBC's collection to other notable Frost collections. The bulk of this paper is a detailed bibliography with a condition analysis of the first editions held by the RBC. There is also a detailed desiderata list and recommendations for the future development for the RBC's Frost collection. Headings: Frost, Robert, 1874-1963 – Bibliography Special collections – Collection development University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Rare Book Collection. THE FIRST EDITIONS OF ROBERT FROST: A BIBLIOGRAPHY AND ANALYSIS OF ROBERT FROST MONOGRAPHS IN THE RARE BOOK COLLECTION AT THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL by April S. Brewer A Master’s paper submitted to the faculty of the School of Information and Library Science of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Library Science. Chapel Hill, North Carolina April 2007 Approved by _______________________________________ Charles B. -
1 Robert Frost Poems Robert Frost (1874-1963) Was an American Poet
1 Robert Frost Poems Robert Frost (1874-1963) was an American poet most associated with the characters and cadences of New England. He won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry four times and became the most well-known poet of the twentieth century in America. He read his poem “The Gift Outright” at the inauguration of John F. Kennedy in 1961. His collections include A Boy’s Will (1913), North of Boston (1914), and Collected Poems (1931). Birches (1916) When I see birches bend to left and right Across the lines of straighter darker trees, I like to think some boy's been swinging them. But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay. Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning After a rain. They click upon themselves As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel. Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells 10 Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust-- Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen. They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load, And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed So low for long, they never right themselves: You may see their trunks arching in the woods Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair Before them over their heads to dry in the sun. 20 But I was going to say when Truth broke in With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm (Now am I free to be poetical?) I should prefer to have some boy bend them As he went out and in to fetch the cows-- Some boy too far from town to learn baseball, Whose only play was what he found himself, Summer or winter, and could play alone. -
Chapter - IV CHAPTER-IV
Chapter - IV CHAPTER-IV THE FROST UNIVERSE: A STUDY IN MAJOR IMAGES AND SYMBOLS "Pipes in hands": Early Phase (1913 - 1916) His (Frost's) primary artistic achievement, which is an enviable one, in spite of shortcomings, rests on his blending thought and emotion and symbolic imagery within the confines of the lyric. It would seem to be an essential part of both his theory and practice to start with a single image, or to start with an image of action, and then to endow either or both with a figurativeness of meaning, which is not fully understood by the reader until the extensions of meaning are found to transcend the physical. Thompson, Lawrance. Robert Frost. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1959. 38. ... [I]n Frost the symbol, presented (mite casually as an image, opens outward upon a vista of meaning. The vista does not have any definite terminus and in the farthest distance ifades into vague areas of suggestion. Lynen, John F. The Pastoral Art of Robert Frost. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1960. 27. Frost's firstAolume, A Boy's Will (1913), "the Record of a Phase of Post- adolescence"', begins with a sonnet "Into My Own". It opens up the nexus of Frostian imagery wedded to the dark woods. Since Frost's poetic being has been shaped and reshaped by the woods, and the woods and the poetic being are almost 71 inseparable in Frost poetry, the study of this chapter hence begins with our observations on woods imagery: One of my wishes is that those dark trees, So old and firm they scarcely show the breeze, Were not, as't were, the merest mask of gloom, But stretched away unto the edge of doom. -
Joseph Varghse Robert Frost
ROBERT FROST (1874-1963) "I never go down the shoreline [city in King County, Washington] to New York without watching the birches to see if they live up to what I say about them in the poem.” Robert Frost Elizabeth Shepley Sergeant [American journalist and writer] Describes – the way in which Robert Frost came to write "Birches” "As for the poet, 'who never saw New England as clearly as when he was in Old England,' he could not tie down his creative moments. It was about this time, early in 1914, while tramping the muddy yard at the Bungalow [West Midlands], that he suddenly; he says, wrote a new poem, not to be included in North of Boston. This was the now so famous and beloved 'Birches,' with its cold and crystal memories of another kind of wintry world.” in "Birches," even though Frost saw New England most clearly when he was in Old England, he re-viewed his wintry New England scene through Thoreauvian eyes” ○ Robert Frost and the New England Renaissance George Monteiro 100 Henry David Thoreau’s description anticipates Frost's handling of imagery- ○ “I love Nature partly because she is not man, but a retreat from him. None of his institutions control or pervade her. There a different kind of right prevails. In her midst I can be glad with an entire gladness… ○ If this world were all man, I could not stretch myself, I should lose all hope. He is constraint, she is freedom to me. He makes me wish for another world. She makes me content with this. -
Major Life Events of Robert Frost
Major Life Events of Robert Frost: 1874 – Robert Frost is born in San Francisco on March 26 to William Prescott Frost Jr., a journalist from New Hampshire, and Isabelle Moodie, a schoolteacher from Scotland. “I know San Francisco like my own face…It’s where I came from, the first place I really knew…[It is] the first place in my memory, a place I still go back to in my dreams.”1 Named after General Robert E. Lee, whom his father admired. 1876 – Robert’s sister Jeanie is born. 1881 – Enters public school in the second grade, “excelling in geography and writing2. Later left elementary school after the third grade. “A pattern was put in place early in his life that would play out in distinct ways later on. Organized education, as he later said, was ‘never [his] taste.’”3 1885 – William Frost dies of tuberculosis. The Frost family is called back to the East Coast by William’s family for his funeral. “Frost absorbed from his father a great deal, including a feral drive to make something of himself, to exercise influence, to feel the world bending to his will…Frost’s lifelong…passion to excel and win in whatever he did [was] also a legacy from his father.”4 1885 – Frost family moves to New England. They first live with William Frost’s family in Lawrence, Massachusetts. Frost recalled, “At first I disliked the Yankees. They were cold. They seemed narrow to me. I could not get used to them.”5 1886 – Isabelle begins teaching at a school in Salem, a school which her two children also attend. -
Investigation of the Musical Devices Used by Randall Thompson to Compose Works on the Text of Robert Frost
M~ INVESTIGATION OF THE MUSICAL DEVICES USED BY RANDALL THOMPSON TO COMPOSE WORKS ON THE TEXT OF ROBERT FROST A Thesis Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts by Jerome C. Maxwell, B.S. The Ohio State University 1966 Approved by Departme Music ACKNOWLEDGEME1~ The writer wishes to thank Dr. Wayne Ramsey and Prof. Dale Gilliland for their guidance in the preporatio~ of t~is study. The writer also wishes to thank his wife, Emmy, for her invaluable aid and encouragement. ii CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION _P_u_r~p;..o_s_e__o_f .~ study The purpose of this study was to analyze the musical set tings by Randall Thompson of seven poems of Robert Frost. The poems were studied from the standpoint of providing the conductor comprehensive understanding essential to a performance of these choral works. Too frequently the conductor performs choral compositions with little understanding of the significance of many musical and poetic factors involved in a choral setting. Posing such questions as the following would appear to be basic for gaining a comprehensive understanding of the music. 1. What is the meaning of the poem? What poetic devices have been used in develo~inG' this mcn!.1inc? 2. Does the musical setting seem to be appropriate to this meaning'? 3. What kinds of compositional devices has the composer used to enhance the text? 4. What problems regarding interpretation are evident from study of the score? 5. What technical problems are involved in the performance of the compositions? Answers to the above questions are pertinent to gaining 1 3 students if they are to gain some comprehension of music they are performing. -
Abbreviations
Abbreviations ABW: A Boy’s Will, Robert Frost (London: David Nutt, 1913). ACL: Amherst College Library, Amherst, Mas sa chu setts. AFR: A Further Range, Robert Frost (New York: Henry Holt, 1936). Agnes Scott: Special Collections and Archives, McCain Library, Agnes Scott College, Decatur, Georgia. Alger: Private collection of Pat Alger, Nashville, Tennessee. AL: Autograph letter, unsigned. ALS: Autograph letter, signed. ALS- photostat: Autograph letter, signed, photostat. AAP: Acad emy of American Poets, New York, New York. AWT: A Witness Tree, Robert Frost (New York: Henry Holt, 1942). Bauman: Bauman Rare Books, New York. Berkeley: Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. Bodleian: Special Collections, Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford. Bowdoin: Bowdoin College, George. J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections and Archives. BPL: Boston Public Library, Boston, Mas sa chu setts. BU: Boston University, Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center. Chicago: University of Chicago, Special Collections Research Center, Chicago, Illinois. Columbia: Columbia University Library, New York. Cornell: Cornell University, Rare and Manuscript Collection, Cornell University Library, Ithaca, New York. xvi Abbreviations CP 1930: Collected Poems of Robert Frost (New York: Henry Holt, 1930). CP 1939: Collected Poems of Robert Frost (New York: Henry Holt, 1939). CP 1949: Complete Poems of Robert Frost (New York: Henry Holt, 1949). CPPP: Robert Frost: Collected Poems, Prose and Plays, ed. Richard Poirier and Mark Richardson (New York: Library of Amer i ca, 1995). CPRF: The Collected Prose of Robert Frost, ed. Mark Richardson (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007). Crane: Robert Frost: A Descriptive Cata logue of Books and Manuscripts in the Clifton Waller Barrett Library, Joan St. -
Translating Mimesis of Orality
Translating mimesis of orality: Robert Frost’s poetry in Catalan and Italian Marcello Giugliano TESI DOCTORAL UPF / ANY 2012 DIRECTORS DE LA TESI Dra. Victòria Alsina Dr. Dídac Pujol DEPARTAMENT DE TRADUCCIÓ I CIÈNCIES DEL LLENGUATGE Ai miei genitori Acknowledgements My first thank you goes to my supervisors, Dr. Victòria Alsina and Dr. Dídac Pujol. Their critical guidance, their insightful comments, their constant support and human understanding have provided me with the tools necessary to take on the numerous challenges of my research with enthusiasm. I would also like to thank Dr. Jenny Brumme for helping me to solve my many doubts on some theoretical issues during our long conversations, in which a smile and a humorous comment never failed. My special thanks are also for Dr. Luis Pegenaute, Dr. José Francisco Ruiz Casanova, and Dr. Patrick Zabalbeascoa for never hiding when they met me in the corridors of the faculty or never diverting their eyes in despair. Thank you for always being ready to give me recommendations and for patiently listening to my only subject of conversation during the last four years. During the project, I have had the privilege to make two research stays abroad. The first, in 2009, in Leuven, Belgium, at the Center for Translation Studies (CETRA), and the second in 2010 at the Translation Center of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, USA. I would like to give a heartfelt thank you to my tutors there, Dr. Reine Meylaerts and Dr. Maria Tymoczko respectively, for their tutoring and for offering me the chance to attend classes and seminars during my stay there, converting that period into a fruitful and exciting experience. -
Strange Ordinariness in Robert Frost: a Review
International Journal of Science and Research (IJSR) ISSN: 2319-7064 ResearchGate Impact Factor (2018): 0.28 | SJIF (2019): 7.583 Strange Ordinariness in Robert Frost: A Review Nabaneeta Bhatta Lecturer, Department of English, North Bengal International University, Rajshahi, Bangladesh Abstract: Robert Lee Frost is very famous and an oft-quoted poet. He is highly appreciated and admired for his realistic portrayal of rural life and his great expertise on American colloquial speech. Most of his astonishing works circle around the rural life settings in New England during early twentieth century. He used his own work to analyze complicated social and philosophical themes. While experimentalist twentieth century poets were falling over themselves to find new modes of expression , Frost reawakened readers to the power of the pastoral , the classic symbols of nature and countryside. This paper is a journey through this strange ordinariness in the pages of the celebrated poet-Robert Frost. Keywords: Ordinariness; Colloquial speech; New England; Everyday events 1. Introduction New England country sides are his primary subjects, the many different things to be heard and seen and experienced The deceptive simplicity of Frost‟s verse boosted his in his rich, rustic landscape. He depicted the fields and popularity among serious and casual readers alike. His farms of his surroundings, observing the details of rural life, poetry is very natural in its wording ;using words that which hide universal meaning. His images- woods, stars, most people can understand: that make his poetry seem houses, brooks are usually taken from everyday life. He practical and ordinary ;speaking in a natural, easily wrote poetry from common speech, direct expression, comprehensible manner.