Robert Frost.ppt 6e6m52

Robert Frost (1874-1963)

Early years  

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He was born in San Francisco on March 1874. His mother Isabelle Moodie was a schoolteacher and his father William Prescott Frost , Jr. , a journalist and local politician. He moved to New England at the age of eleven and became interested in reading and writing poetry during his high school years in Lawrence, Massachusetts. He was enrolled at Dartmouth College in 1892, and later at Harvard, though he never earned a formal degree.

Adult years He worked as a teacher, cobbler and editor of the Lawrence Sentinel.  His first professional poem, "My Butterfly”(1894).  In 1895, Frost married Elinor Miriam White, who became a major inspiration in his poetry until her death in 1938.  The couple moved to England in 1912 and it was abroad that Frost met and was influenced by contemporary British poets. 

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He returned to the United States in 1915 and published two full-length collections, A Boy's Will and North of Boston.

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His collections include New Hampshire (1923, Pulitzer Prize), Collected Poems (1930, Pulitzer Prize), A Further Range (1936, Pulitzer Prize), and A Witness Tree (1942, Pulitzer Prize).

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His work is principally associated with the life and landscape of New England.

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He used colloquial language, familiar rhythms, and common symbols to express both its pastoral ideals and its dark complexities.

Robert Frost lived and taught for many years in Massachusetts and Vermont, and died in Boston on January 29, 1963

The Road Not Taken Rhyme Scheme

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;

a b a a b

Then took the other, as just as fair, a And having perhaps the better claim b Because it was grassy and wanted wear,a Though as for that the ing there a Had worn them really about the same, b

And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I marked the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way I doubted if I should ever come back.

a b a a b

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.

a b a a b

Content     

The speaker is trying to make a decision about which road to take. He takes the less travelled, but then he realizes that both paths were “ really about the same” Meditation about the possible differences between the two roads. At the end he cannot know how his choice will affect his future, until after he has lived it There is no right path.

Sound Devices

Alliteration

Consonance

/ t/ Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, /d/ /w/ And sorry I could not travel both /s/ And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could /k/ To where it bent in the undergrowth; /b/ /l/

/d/ /t/ /θ/ /r/

Then took the other, as just as fair, /ð/ And having perhaps the better claim /p/ Because it was grassy and wanted wear, /b/ Though as for that the ing there /w/ Had worn them really about the same,

/n/ /r/ /t/ /ŋ/

Alliteration

Consonance

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.

/b/ /l/ /h/ /d/ /w/

/t/ /ŋ/ /z/

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.

/t/ /ð/ /s/ /d/

/s/ /z/ /d/

Assonance 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;

/oʊ/ /e/ /ʊ/ /ɒ/ /æ/

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 ing there Had worn them really about the same,

/e/ /æ/

And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I marked the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way I doubted if I should ever come back.

/i:/ /æ/ /a:/ /ʌ/

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.

/æ/ /e/ /i/ /ʊ/

Robert Frost recited his poem "The Gift Outright" at President Kennedy's inauguration. (1961)

The Gift Outright The land was ours before we were the land's. She was our land more than a hundred years Before we were her people. She was ours In Massachusetts, in Virginia, But we were England's, still colonials, Possessing what we still were unpossessed by, Possessed by what we now no more possessed.repetition Something we were withholding made us weak Until we found out that it was ourselves We were withholding from our land of living, And forthwith found salvation in surrender. Such as we were we gave ourselves outright (The deed of gift was many deeds of war) To the land vaguely realizing westward, But still unstoried, artless, unenhanced, catalogue  Such as she was, such as she would become.  repetition

Content    

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The American story of colonialism, freedom, westward expansion. Americans could not draw a national identity because they were still tied to England. The clash between the Old World and The New World “The deed of gift was many deeds of war”= A discussion of the Revolutionary War and remorse that the battle over the land caused so many deaths. The quest to develop an American culture.