Frost achieved incredible popularity and found his audience all over the world, not only in the USA. California is the Motherland of Robert Frost. He did not live in San Francisco too long as his father died of tuberculosis and the family was forced to move to the small town in Massachusetts. A future poet was studying in the local High school and during the time of studying he had become interested in creating poems and reading. The first of his poems was published in the local school magazine. That was an introduction to his creations.
After graduating, the young boy moved to Dartmouth and successfully passed the exams for Harvard. However, for some reasons, he decided to attend Dartmouth College. Frost attended it for one term and then left, moving back to Massachusetts. He tried himself in various jobs like teaching, delivering newspapers, and being factory labor. Actually, Frost hated these jobs and finally found himself in the poetry. His first poem with the title “My Butterfly: An Elegy” was released in the Independent. From this, he received a status of professional poet.
The beginning of his career
Being satisfied with his success, Frost printed privately five more of his poems. After that, he proposed to his girlfriend Elinor Miriam White but she wanted to finish her studying first. Frost decided to attend Harvard, but he was not able to complete his course because of creating his family and the need to support it. He had a small farm from his grandfather, and the young family moved there. Frost created his poems in the mornings and then worked hard on the farm. This period includes most of his famous writings, lots of which discover the nature theme.
However, the things on the farm were not going so good, and Frost started working as a teacher of English and continued writing his poems. He still was rejected by The Atlantic Monthly and eventually, he was forced to sell the farm and move his family to England. At the new place, he found more success, making acquaintance with famous poets, entering the literary circles. In 1923 he published his first collection of poetry titled A Boy’s Will, and the next year the second one was published North of Boston. In fact, North of Boston was the book that made Frost a famous poet, especially a few of its poems.
In 1915, Frost and his family returned to the USA. With two poems published there, he was recognized as a real poet. He was teaching, writing, and lecturing. He became a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters, and in 1916 his third book of poetry was published, titled Mountain Interval. The same year he also took the position of a lecturer and a teacher of English at Amherst College. In 1921 he received a teaching fellowship at the University of Michigan and later received a Fellow of Letters.
Academic success was followed by the tragedies in Frost’s family life. His daughter died being a baby child, and a few years later his wife ended her life of heart failure. After that, one of his sons committed suicide. However, Frost found the strength to focus on his writing and published A Witness Tree, Come In, and Other Poems. At the end of his life, he was one of the most significant American poets. He received lots of honors and rewards including the tributes from the New York University, the American Academy of Poets, four Pulitzer Prizes, Congressional Gold Medal, and the Edward MacDowell Medal. He was also invited at the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy in 1961. In spite of such success, the conclusion of Frost’s life was marked with the depression because of the hard situation in his family.
Most researches and every single analysis of Frost’s poems proved his belonging to the symbolism movement. The poet explained to his readers the meaning of any single things by the use of symbols. They are brightly presented in such famous poems as Mending Wall, Stopping by Woods by Snowy Evening, The Road Not Taken, Birches and many others. The main topic that helped the author to create a symbolic scene was nature. Nature is presented in most of his poems, but the meaning of nature’s elements is usually deeper. With the help of these elements, the poet was struggling to explain more significant things in life. For instance, the farm is symbolizing a world in his poems, cleaning the pasture means to purify one’s heart from the sin. Such examples are extremely popular in Frost’s poetry, making it special and enjoyable for the readers. With the help of such information we can learn more about the prominent people and follow their example.
