Robert Frost is one of the most outstanding poets in the 20th century American literature. His poems seem to be straight, plain and acceptable. However, something much more meaningful can always be found in the plain words after careful reading. With an analysis of Frost’s poetry, this thesis is an attempt to analyze Frost’s paradoxical view of the World that lies beneath his poems, especially in his poem: “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”.
Frost has the skill of reconciling the conflict among human beings, nature and society. With an analysis of Frost’s poetry, we find that the poet feels both love and anger towards the world. He writes about the daily life of ordinary people—farmers, shepherds, small rural events, fence mending, apple picking, good and evil, all the matters of life and death, some were not frequent poetical subjects for his time, but he insisted on them, not as ways to escape from modern society, but as ways to understand life better.
Key words: Robert Frost; poetry; conflict
Contents
I. Introduction……………...………………….………………..……………………..1
II. The Expression Forms of the Paradoxical View of the World in His poems............1
A. The Use of Symbolism ………………………………………………………….1
1. Analysis of “The Road Not Taken”…………………………………………..1
2. Analysis of “Mending Wall”…………………………………………………2
B. The Language Style ……...…………………………………....………………...4
1. The Style of Monologue .……………………………………….……………5
2. The Style of Dialogue…………………………….………………….………5
III. The Paradoxical Thoughts in “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”………..6
A. Contradiction Between People and Himself…..…………………………………6
B. Contradiction Between People and Nature………………………………………6
C. Contradiction Between People and Society……………………………………...8
IV. The Reasons Behind the Paradoxical View of the World………………………….9
A. The Historical Background………..……………………………………………..9
1. Influenced by Transcendentalism………………...…………………………10
2. Influenced by Darwin’s Theory………………………………….…………10
B. The Personal Life of Frost……………………………………………………...11
V. Conclusion……………………………………………………………...…………12
Notes…………………………………………………………………………….……13Bibliography…………………………………………………………………….……14
I.Introduction
In the 20th century, Robert Lee Frost was the most beloved poet in America and the most successful American poet widely accepted all over the world. He was the Pulitzer Prize winner on four occasions; He received honorary degrees from about 40 colleges and universities; and the American government presented him a gold medal in 1960 for his contribution to American culture. He wrote many poems that investigate the basic themes of human life.
From my point of view, Frost is a skilled poet who can reconcile the conflicts and tries to search for further communication and understanding of the world. With an analysis of Frost’s poetry, we find that the poet feels both love and anger towards the world. The description of man and nature’s relationship in Frost’s poem is a miniature of the whole world in his mind. Thus he often appears as speaker in his poetry. He leads reader to taste his sourness and sweetness in life.
II.The Form of Expressions of the Paradoxical View of the World in His poems
Frost wrote mostly bucolic poetry. The New England life and farming were always his favorite subject matter. Symbolic nature imagery was used in most of his poems. He uses nature as a background, as a symbol. He usually begins a poem with an observation of something in nature and then move toward a connection to some human situation or concern.
A. The Use of Symbolism
Most of Frost’s works use concrete New England particulars for a background. Frost observes something in nature and says this is like that. Read on a literal level, Frost’s poems always make perfect sense. But he is not trying to tell nature stories nor animal stories. He is always using these imply an analogy to some human concern. Frost’s use of a carefully selected and reconstructed New England as a symbolic microcosm of the natural world, in which every man must, sooner or later, learn to do with a diminished thing, is remarkably effective.
1. Analysis of “The Road Not Taken”
“The Road Not Taken” is a poem by Robert Frost, published in 1916 in the collection Mountain Interval, written in February, in 1915, when Frost’s family went back to America from London. As we know that Frost and his family moved to England in 1912, after their farm in New Hampshire failed, and it was during this time abroad that frost met and was influenced by such contemporary British poet, Edward Thomas. In the fall of 1914, Edward Thomas often visited the Frosts, and went out for walks with Frost. Whenever they came to a crossroad, Thomas would habitually ask Frost which road to follow. Frost once said to him, “no matter which road to take, you will always sigh, and wish you had taken another.” And in 1915, Edward Thomas was got involve in the World War I, and Frost did not know whether he lived or died, so at that time, Frost felt the importance of choosing the road, then he recalled his once unforgettable experience in wood that four years ago in the New Hampshire, so he wrote this poem. This is the story behind this poem.
In the stanza 1 of “The Road Not Taken”
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth
The poem begins as if when the poet was walking in a wood in late autumn at a fork in the road. He was choosing which road he should follow. Actually, it is concerned with the important decisions which one must make in life: one must give up one desirable thing in order to possess the other.
In the stanza 2 of “The Road Not Taken”
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worm them really about the same
After the judgment and hesitation, the traveler makes up his mind to take the road which looks grassy and wants wear. This is the symbol of Frost’s choice of a solitary life.
In the stanza 3 of “The Road Not Taken”
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
The two roads are equally pretty, so as soon as he made the choice of the one, the poet felt pitiful for abandoning the other. He is quite aware that his intention of “next choice” will be nothing than an empty promise.
In the stanza 4 of “The Road Not Taken”
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere 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.
