Robert Frost Essays (1670 words) - Robert Frost, British Poetry

Robert Frost: His Life and His Poems Have you ever read a poem that deals with a broad aspect of life? Robert Frost wrote about this in his poem. "The Road Not Taken." Frost uses descriptions of nature in a New England setting to open the readers' eyes to the endless possibilities of what would have happened if they did something different. Through analysis of the poem and its critiques, one can understand what kind of poet and person Frost is. Robert Frost was born on March 26, 1874. His parents were Isabel Moodie and William Prescott Frost, Jr. His father drank and gambled a lot, which upset the whole family. In 1875, he became the city editor of the San Francisco Daily Evening Post. On June 25, 1876, Robert's sister Jeannie was born. In 1879, Frost entered kindergarten but came home after one day because of nervous stomach pain and did not return afterward. The next year, he tried to go to the first grade, but dropped out again. The same happened the next year after that. He was home schooled. In 1883, Frost heard some voices while he was alone. His mom tells him that he shares her gift of "second hearing" and "second sight," which is the idea that some people hear spirits or ghosts, when no one else can. In 1885 his father died. He died of tuberculosis on May 5, leaving his family with only $8.00 after all his expenses were paid. After his death, the family moved to Lawrence, Massachusetts to live with their grandparents. Robert and his sister Jeannie did not like them because they were so strict. While his younger sister was entering fourth grade, he got tested and entered third grade. The next year, the family moved to Salem Depot, New Hampshire, where his mom started teaching fifth through eighth grade. In 1888, he passed the entrance exam so that he could enter Lawrence High School. The next year, he finished at the top of his class. After that year, he started really getting into poetry. His first published poem was "La Noche Triste," in the Lawrence High School Bulletin. Then the next month, "The Song of the Wave" was published. In 1891, Frost passed the entrance exams to get into Harvard. When he was there, he met and fell in love with Elinor Miriam White. The next year he became engaged to her. Since he had to depend on his grandparents for money, he entered Dartmouth College because it was cheaper, and because his grandparents blamed Harvard for all of his father's drinking and gambling problems. That December, he left college because he was bored with it and wanted something to do. In 1893, he taught a rowdy eighth grade glass for a couple of weeks. Then he tried to convince Elinor to marry him before he went to St. Lawrence University in New Yord, but she said no. Through the rest of the 1890's, Frost worked as a teacher, farmer, and an editor. During this time is when he collected lots of material that would make the themes of his most famous poems. In 1912, Frost moved to England for a while. He was very well received there. Everyone liked his poetry and that was where he started to get famous. He met some other famous poets there, like William Butler Yeats and Ezra Pound. When Frost returned to the United States from England, he started to receive many awards. When he came back, he came out with some volumes of poetry and received critical acclaim for them. He continued to write and received lots of literary awards and honors from the United States government and American universities. One of his proudest achievements was when he got to recite his work at John F. Kennedy's inauguration in 1961. He also represented the United States on some official missions. At the end of his career, he was very popular publicly, but the poetry collections he was coming out with were not receiving such huge reviews as they used to. Through 1962 and 1963, Frost's health started to go downhill. He got pneumonia and was hospitalized, and then doctors found cancer in his prostate and bladder. On December 23, he had