Robert Frost 顾仕芳 汤芳

Robert Frost( ) Life experiences Main works writing features Comments Famous quotations

Born in San Francisco in To New England at his eleven, with which his poetry has always been associated. In 1892, Frost entered Dartmouth College but soon left to work at odd jobs and to write poetry. In 1895, he got married,mainly by teaching and farming while continuing to write his poems, In 1897, withdrew from Harvard, dislike for academic convention. Life experiences

The Frost farm, where the family lived from Nature and rural surroundings became a source for insights into deeper design of life. He once said: "Literature begins with geography."

1924— Frost received Pulitzer Prize for New Hampshire 《新罕布什尔》. 1931— The Pulitzer Prize was awarded to Collected Poems 《诗歌全集》. 1937— The Pulitzer Prize was awarded to A Further Range >. 1943— Frost was awarded his fourth Pulitzer Prize for A Witness Tree. 1950— United States Senate adopted resolution honoring Frost on the occasion of his 76th birthday.

 1961— John F. Kennedy invited Frost to read at the inauguration. He recited “The Gift Outright” by heart.

1963— Robert Lee Frost died on January 29 in Boston. Frost was considered as a kind of unofficial poet laureate of the US.( 美国 桂冠诗人 ) “I had a lover’s quarrel with the world.”—Frost’s epitaph

Main Works A Boy’s Will (1913 ) > North of Boston ( 1914 ) > Mountain Interval (1916 ) > New Hampshire (1923 ) > Collected Poems (1930 ) > A Further Range (1936) > A Witness Tree (1942 ) > Steeple Bush (1947) > In the Clearing (1962) >

Some famous poems The Road Not Taken 《未选择的路》 Fire and Ice 《火与冰》 Mending Wall 《补墙》 Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening 《雪夜林边驻脚》 Nothing Gold Can Stay 《美景易逝》 West-Running Brook 《西去的溪流》 A Further Range 《又一片牧场》 After Apple-Picking 《摘苹果之后》 The Birches 《白桦树》

His understanding of poem Poetry is what gets lost in translation. Poetry is a way of taking life by the throat. A complete poem is one where an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found the words. A good poem “begins in delight and ends in wisdom”.

Frost’s writing features  Profound meanings are hidden underneath the plain language and simple form. (1) His poems mostly wrote about nature (influence from Wordsworth and Emerson) and New England landscape. (2) Deceptively simple style (reason for popular) (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.)

About Frost, President John F. Kennedy said, "He has bequeathed his nation a body of imperishable verse from which Americans will forever gain joy and understanding.“ Robert Frost was much honored during his life time, it was because a good many preferred to ignore his darker truth. comments

余光中对 Frost 的评价  往往，他宁可说 “ 否 ” 而不愿附和。他反对教条与专 业化，他不喜欢工业社会，但他知道反对现代文明 之徒然。在一个混乱而虚无的时代，当大众的赞美 或非难太过分时，他宁愿选择一颗星的独立与寂静。 他总是站在旁边，不，他总是站得高些，如梭罗。 有人甚至说他是 “ 新英格兰的苏格拉底 ” 。  在现代诗中，弗罗斯特是独立的巨人。他没有创造 任何诗派然而在他的限度中，他创造了一种新节奏。 在放逐意义崇尚晦涩的现代诗的气候里，他拥抱坚 实和明朗。把叙事诗和抒情诗写的同样出色, 发挥了 “ 戏剧性独白 ” 的高度功能。  不像现在许多现代诗一样，与自然或社会脱节就是 弗罗斯特的诗避免追逐都市生活的纷坛细节，避免 自语而趋向对话，他几乎成了美国诗坛上唯一能借 写诗生活的作者。

Famous quotations The best way out is always through. I never dared to be radical when young for fear it would make me conservative when old. A mother takes twenty years to make a man of her boy, and another woman makes a fool of him in twenty minutes. A bank is a place where they lend you an umbrella in fair weather and ask for it back when it begins to rain..

The reason why worry kills more people than work is that more people worry than work. Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired. Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self- confidence. Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in. In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on.

Thank you!! “I took the one the less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.” “I took the one the less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.”