Course:
M.A. English (Sem-3)
Paper:
10, the American Literature
Topic:
Boundaries and Barriers in Robert Frost’s poetry
Roll
no.: 23
Year:
2015 – 2017
Submitted
to: S.B. Gardi, Department of English
M.K. Bhavnagar
University
About Robert Frost:
Robert Lee Frost is one of
the greatest of American poets. He was born in 26th March, 1874 and
died in 29th January, 1963. He was known as nature poet, modern poet
and lyric poet and also known as regional poet. He was a deeply philosophical
poet and finds deeper meaning in the world around him.
He is highly regarded for his
realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American Colloquial
speech. His work frequently employed settings from rural life in New England in
the early 20th century, using them to examine complex social and
philosophical themes. He was awarded the congressional Gold Medal in 1960 for
his poetic works. Frost was named poet laureate of Vermont. He was a four time
Pulitzer Prize Winner in poetry. He was a popular and often quoted poet.
As a poet, Robert Frost was
greatly influenced by the emotions and events of everyday life. He is most
famous for being a pastoral poet in terms of the subject of everyday life. His
most famous poems are such as –“Mending Wall” and “Stopping by Woods on a
Snowy” are inspired by the natural world. Frost continued to write, but he was
unsuccessful at publishing his work. In England, Frost achieved his first
literary success. The work established Frost as an author and was
representative of his lifelong poetic style.
Frost’s poetry reflects how
people interact with their environment and through he saw the beauty of nature,
he also saw its potential dangers. Frost’s poetry is also significant because
of the amount of autobiographical material that it contains. The raw emotion
and sense is particularly clear because of his straight forward verse style.
Frost’s poetry is simple and
clear. In other words, Frost’s ability to express is such a depth of feeling in
each of his poems. Clarity in his poems, Frost is able to explore topics of
emotion, struggle and conflict that would be incomprehensible in any other
form.
Boundaries and Barriers in Frost’s Poetry:
Frost is a great poet of
boundaries and barriers which divide men from and come in the way of
communication and so result in lack of understanding and friction. This concern
with barriers, barriers which result in alienation and loneliness, is a predominant
theme in Frost’s poetry.
Robert Frost has written on
almost every subject but alienation and isolation, both emotional and physical
are the major themes of his poetry. Man is not only isolated from other man,
but Frost pictures him as also alone and solitary is an impersonal and
unfeeling environment.
There are four kinds of
boundaries and barriers.
1) Natural Barrier
2) Man and Natural World
3) Otherness of Nature
4) Isolation from God
First, there is great naturel
barrier, the void, the space, which separate man from the stars. Man foolishly
tries to bridge this gap, but all his efforts in this respect are of no avail.
In another poem, we find how clever human plans to establish relationship with
nature are thwarted
Secondly, there are the barriers,
between man and the immediate natural world – the barren and desert places
which man must reclaim and cultivate. .He
must constantly wages a war against such wilderness, if he is to survive in an
environment which seems hostile to him, which at least, is not meant for him
and in which he is an alien. The long poem “Snow”, insists on going into the
heart of the blizzard when he could remain overnight with his neighbors with no
in convenience to them or himself. But he must go and conquer the blizzard,
wherever there is failure, where ever the natural world has won out there are
always the young who follow the restore where their fathers failed. There are those who accept challenge and go
down in defeat. The woman in A SERVANT to servants has in caring for the house
while the men are away and the emptiness of the world has overcome her. There
is other on the border line of tragic failure. The hill wife, though not out of
her mind, still has a fear of her to return to it .When she comes back, she has
to reconquering it.
Thirdly, man’s physical existence
itself is a barrier which divides man from the soul or spirit of nature. There
is no harmony between man and nature but the nature is not on good terms with
the human beings. While Wordsworth denied the very existence of barriers
between man and nature, for Frost a wide gulf separates man and nature, spirit
and matter. In a number of poems, he stresses the otherness and indifference of
nature and shows that it is futile to expect any sympathy from the spirit of
soul which moves to governs world. Individual man and the forces of nature are
two different boundaries which separate them must be respected. The magnificent
buck which swims toward him from across the lake is the most of it – all the
nature can give. That is shows the completeness of man’s isolation. A minor
bird also stresses the active barriers between man and nature.
Fourthly, there are barriers which
separate man from man. Such barriers come in the way of social communication
and lack of communication leads to social alienation and emotional isolation
and loneliness. “Mending Wall” is an ironic comment on those who raise walls
between themselves and their neighbors because they think, good fences make
good neighbors. In the “Home Burial” there is a grievous lack of communication
between the husband and the wife and the mother’s insanity. The shadow of their
dead child is the barrier which divides them and alienates them from each
other.
Here is one more important barrier
which is “Isolation from God”. In this, man’s reason and intellect is the
barrier that alienates him from god, his maker. There is a lack belief and that
is there is the reason is enemy of belief.
So, at the end, we can say that
- Frost believes in “vasudhaiv kutumbkum”-freedom
of will but not without giving due respect to others freedom so he said “fences
makes good neighbors”. Thus in Frost’s view man is a solitary, a stranger in
this world and so he remains up to the end.
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