T.S. Elliot &Robert Frost

T.S. Elliot and Robert Frost

I. T. S. Elliot (1888 – 1965)

1. Life (1) born in St. Louis in Missouri (2) cultured parents and wealthy family;

good education (3) graduated from Harvard; M. A. degree

T.S. Elliot and Robert Frost

(4) came to Europe for research; stayed in England because of WWI

(5) first worked as a bank clerk and then an editor

(6) in 1927, became an English citizen; won Nobel Prize in 1948

T.S. Elliot and Robert Frost 2. Works

(1) Poems “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” “Ash Wednesday” “Four Quartets” “The Waste Land”

T.S. Elliot and Robert Frost

(2)Verse dramas (3)Literary Criticism ·Reconsidering lots of overlooked poets ·Leading New Criticism ·“Tradition and the Individual Talent”

T.S. Elliot and Robert Frost

3.Conclusion He once said he was a royalist in politics,

classicist in literature and an Anglo-Catholic in religion.”Actually, he chose religion to save the Western civilization and turned to be rather conservative in his late years. To many young writers, such as Hemingway, he was somewhat a lost leader.

T.S. Elliot and Robert Frost

II. Robert Frost (1874 – 1963) 1. Life (1) born in California; raised in New England (2) His father died early and the family life

was not easy. (3) He was an honor student when he

graduated from the high school. He entered Dartmouth College and later Harvard, but he never finished his university education.

T.S. Elliot and Robert Frost

(4) He began to write poems when he was in the middle school, but he was recognized as a poet when he was nearly 40.

(5) He won the Pulitzer Prize for 4 times. He was considered as the “unofficial poet laureate of the nation”. In 1961, he was invited to read his poems in the inauguration ceremony of President Kennedy. He was the only poet who once had such an honor.

T.S. Elliot and Robert Frost

2. Famous Poems “The Road Not Taken” “Mending Wall” “Fire and Ice” “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”

T.S. Elliot and Robert Frost

3. Features

(1) His poems mostly wrote about nature (influence from Wordsworth and Emerson) and New England landscape.

(2) Deceptively simple style (reason for popular)

T.S. Elliot and Robert Frost

(3) Symbolism (show his poems’ deep meaning)

(4) He was likely to choose traditional forms for his poem, but the themes of his poems are mostly modern. (In his poems, traditional elements and modern elements mingle together.)