All About Robert Frost

Robert Frost

Frost, Robert (1874-1963), became the most popular American poet of his time. He won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1924, 1931, 1937, and 1943. In 1960, Congress voted Frost a gold medal "in recognition of his poetry, which has enriched the culture of the United States and the philosophy of the world." Frost's public career reached a climax in January 1961, when he recited his poem "The Gift Outright" at the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy.

His life. Robert Lee Frost was born in San Francisco on March 26, 1874. After the death of his father in 1885, his family moved back to New England, the original family home. Frost briefly attended Dartmouth and Harvard colleges but did not earn a degree. In the early 1890's, he worked in New England as a farmer, an editor, and a schoolteacher, absorbing the materials that were to form the themes of many of his most famous poems. In 1912, he moved briefly to England where his poetry was well-received and where he met poets William Butl

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Reprinted by permission of Henry Holt and Co. In "Home Burial," this same setting is the background of tragedy centering around a child's death. His first volume of poetry, A Boy's Will, appeared in 1913. Probing for nature's secrets is futile and foolish. Copyright 1923; Copyright 1951 by Robert Frost; Copyright 1964 by Lesley Frost Ballantine; Copyright 1969 by Henry Holt and Co. This theme appears in such famous lyrics as "Birches," "After Apple-Picking," and "Two Tramps in Mud Time. He was deeply influenced by classical poets, especially Horace. Humanity's best chance for serenity does not come from understanding the natural environment. Frost found inspiration for many of his finest poems in the region's landscapes, folkways, and speech mannerisms.

Frost is sometimes praised for being a direct and straightforward writer.

By placing people and nature side by side, Frost often appears to write the kind of Romantic poetry associated with England and the United States in the 1800's. While he is never obscure, he cannot always be read easily.

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