Robert Frost

1
Robert Frost

• 1874-1963

2
Frosts Childhood

• Frost was born in San Francisco on March 26, 1874

3

• After his fathers death in 1885, Frosts mother
  moved the family to Massachusetts
• Frost attended high school in Lawrence,
  Massachusetts

4
Frosts Adulthood

• Frost entered Dartmouth College, but remained
  less than one semester.
• Returning to Massachusetts, he taught school,
  worked in a mill, wrote for a newspaper, and
  worked on a farm.

5

• During his spare time, he wrote poetry and
  dreamed of someday being able to support himself
  by writing alone.
• His first professional poem, "The Butterfly," was
  published on November 8, 1894, in the New York
  newspaper The Independent.

6

• A year later he married Elinor White, with whom
  he had shared valedictorian honors at Lawrence
  (Mass.) High School.
• From 1897 to 1899 he attended Harvard College as
  a special student but left without a degree.

7

• Over the next ten years he wrote (but rarely
  published) poems, operated a farm in Derry, New
  Hampshire (purchased for him by his paternal
  grandfather), and supplemented his income by
  teaching at Derry's Pinkerton Academy.

Frost Farm, 1911
8
England

• In 1912, at the age of 38, he sold the farm and
  used the proceeds to take his family to England,
  where he could devote himself entirely to
  writing.
• His efforts to establish himself and his work
  were immediately successful.

9
Triumphant Return

• The Frosts sailed for the United States in
  February 1915 and landed in New York City two
  days after the U.S. publication of North of
  Boston (the first of his books to be published in
  America).

10

• Sales of that book and of A Boy's Will enabled
  Frost to buy a farm in Franconia, N.H. to place
  new poems in literary periodicals and publish a
  third book, Mountain Interval (1916) and to
  embark on a long career of writing, teaching, and
  lecturing.

Frost and son Carol 1916
11

• In 1924 he received a Pulitzer Prize in poetry
  for New Hampshire (1923). He was lauded again for
  Collected Poems (1930), A Further Range (1936),
  and A Witness Tree (1942).
• Over the years he received an unprecedented
  number and range of literary, academic, and
  public honors.

12
Poetic Style

• An essentially pastoral poet often associated
  with rural New England, Frost wrote poems whose
  philosophical dimensions transcend any region.

13

• Although his verse forms are traditional, he was
  a pioneer in the interplay of rhythm and meter
  and in the poetic use of the vocabulary and
  inflections of everyday speech.
• His poetry is thus both traditional and
  experimental, regional and universal.

14
More Accolades

• Frost became the countrys most beloved poet.
• He received formal congratulations from the U.S.
  Senate when he turned 75, and again a decade
  later.

15

• In January 1961 Frost read his poem The Gift
  Outright at the inauguration of President John F.
  Kennedy
• When he died 3 years later, people around the
  world mourned.

16
The Pasture

• Im going out to clean the pasture spring
• Ill only stop to rake leaves away
• (And wait to watch the water clear, I may)
• I shant be gone long. - You come too.
• Im going out to fetch the little calf
• Thats standing by the mother. Its so young
• It totters when she licks it with her tongue.
• I shant be gone long. - You come too.

17
The Pasture

• Robert Frost used this poem to introduce his
  poetry.
• On the surface Frost invites the reader to come
  out to the pasture with him, but Frost also asks
  the reader to come into his world.

18
Fire and Ice

• Some say the world will end in fire,
• Some say in ice.
• From what Ive tasted of desire
• I hold with those who favor fire.
• But if it had to perish twice,
• I think I know enough of hate
• To say that for destruction ice
• Is also great
• And would suffice.

19
Nothing Gold Can Stay

• Natures first green is gold,
• Her hardest hue to hold.
• Her early leafs a flower
• But only so an hour.
• Then leaf subsides to leaf.
• So Eden sank to grief,
• So dawn goes down to day.
• Nothing gold can stay.