Robert Frost

(1874-1963)

Course: American Literature

Professor: Yony Cárdenas Cornelio.Student: Gabriela

Paredes Baquerizo.

UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL MAYOR DE SAN MARCOSFACULTAD DE EDUCACIÓN

• Robert Frost was born in San Francisco, California on March 26.1874

• His father, a journalist and local politician, died when Frost was eleven years old. 1875

• His Scottish mother resumed her career as a schoolteacher to support her family.

• The family lived in Lawrence, Massachusetts, with Frost's paternal grandfather.

1875-1892

• Frost graduated from a high school and attended Dartmouth College for a few months.

1892

EARLY LIFE

• The New York Independent published Frost's poem "My Butterfly" and he had five poems privately printed.

1894

• Frost worked as a teacher and continued to write and publish his poems in magazines.

1894 - 1897

• Frost studied at Harvard, but left without receiving a degree.

1897 - 1899

ADULT LIFE

• He married a former schoolmate, Elinor White; they had six children1895

• Their first child named Elliot, was born on September 29, 1896. Elliott's death, from cholera, in July of 1900, was the first of many family tragedies that Frost would endure.

1896 -

1900

MARRIAGE AND FAMILY

• Frost's mother died of cancer. 1900

• The following year saw the death of his grandfather, William Prescott Frost

1901• Elinor and Robert had five

more children--another son, Carol, and four daughters, the last of whom lived for only three days.

1899- 1907

DARK YEARS

• His grandfather let him the use of his farm in Derry, New Hampshire, for a period of ten years, after which Robert would become its owner.

1901

• The only period of Frost's life in which he worked seriously at farming, and in the last five of them he also found it financially necessary to teach school.

1901-1911

RISKY MOVES

• He sold the farm when it became his.

1911

• He moved his family to England in August, hoping to find there the literary success that had eluded him in his own country.

1912

RISKY MOVES

The Frost farm, where the family lived from 1900-1911

Success Abroad In England he published his

first collection of poems, A Boy's Will(1913) followed by North of Boston (1914), which gained international reputation.

Frost met numerous literary figures, including Ezra Pound, Hilda Doolittle, and William Butler Yeats (who tells Pound that A Boy's Will is "the best poetry written in America for a long time").

Frost's manuscript of a poem from A Boy's Will (1915)

Frost in Franconia, N.H., 1915

The collection contains some of Frost's best-known poems: "The Death of the Hired Man," “Fire and Ice”“Stopping by Woods on an

Snowy Evening““Desert Places”“Nothing Gold Can Stay”

A BOY’S WILL

The New American Genius

After returning to the US in 1915 with his family, Frost bought a farm near Franconia, New Hampshire.

1916: Frost began teaching at Amhert College.

The New American Genius

1924 - Awarded Pulitzer Prize for New Hampshire in May.

Receives Honorary Litt.D. degrees from Middlebury College and Yale University.

Gives notice to Amherst of his acceptance of lifetime appointment at University of Michigan as Fellow in Letters.

1931 – Awarded his second Pulitzer Prize for Collected Poems.

1937 – Awarded his third Pulitzer Prize for Further Range.

1943 – Awarded his fourth Pulitzer Prize for A Witness Tree.

Tragedy and Depression

In 1934 his beloved daughter Marjorie died after the birth of her first child.

In March 1938, after a long and often difficult marriage, Elinor herself died of heart attack.

In October 1940, Frost's son Carol, feeling himself a failure despite Frost's strenuous efforts to convince him otherwise, committed suicide.

He participated in the inauguration of President John Kennedy in 1961 by reciting two of his poems, 'Dedication' and 'The Gift Outright.‘

HIS LATER YEARS

Frost suffered from depression and continual self-doubt.

At the time of his death on January 29, 1963, Frost was regarded as a kind of unofficial poet laureate of the United States.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

                                               

                              

Frost’s Writing Style

Writing free verse is like

playing tennis with the net

down.

Frost’s Style He wrote in a plain style He used traditional forms and

structures while exploring modern themes of alienation and isolation

He wrote many pastoral poems Celebrates the ideals of rural life

He combined traditional form and colloquialisms with modern sense of isolation and loss

Aspects of Frost's poetry:

It uses contraries and contradictions

It uses common, everyday speech

Poems are set in nature

Deep meanings exist beneath a simple exterior

Motifs in Frost's Poetry:

The cycle of the seasons

The alternation of night and day

Natural phenomenon

Rural images

The End of The World!!!

(according to Mr. Robert Frost)

Some say the world will end in fire,Some say in ice.From what I've tasted of desireI hold with those who favour fire.But if it had to perish twice,I think I know enough of hateTo say that for destruction iceIs also greatAnd would suffice.

“Fire and Ice”

To perish : to die, especially in a sudden violent way

To suffice: to be enough for sb/sth.

“THE ROAD NOT TAKEN”Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,And sorry I could not travel bothAnd be one traveler, long I stoodAnd looked down one as far as I couldTo where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,And having perhaps the better claimBecause it was grassy and wanted wear,Though as for that the passing thereHad worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally layIn leaves no step had trodden black.Oh, I marked the first for another day!Yet knowing how way leads on to wayI doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sighSomewhere ages and ages hence:Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,I took the one less traveled by,And that has made all the difference.

To diverge : to separate and go in different directions

Grassy: covered with grassTrodden: to put your foot down

while you are stepping or walking.

Sigh: to take and then let out a long deep breath that can be heard.

Hence: for this reason.

-How difficult it is to make a choice.-The possibility of regrets.-The future expeculation.

Thank you!