Frost, Robert (Vol. 15) - Mark Van Doren
MARK VAN DOREN
Certain pages of ["West-Running Brook"] remain for me, after several attempts to find more in them than meets the eye, trivial; and certain others are merely good enough. But at least five poems here have all of their author's unique excellence, which is to say that they are not to be compared with the poems of any other living man, and to say that they give an absolute, almost undiscussable pleasure.
These few do not include, though they come near doing so, any of the several epigrams in which Mr. Frost may be seen taking a swing through universals. I suspect that he cannot afford extreme brevity, any more than he can afford great length; and universals (directly stated) are not for him. Neither do they include the one dialogue of the volume, which incidentally is the title-poem. And certainly they do not include any of the half-dozen pieces which are but conceits, even if these conceits have the pure mark of Mr. Frost's mind upon them. But...
[The entire page is 468 words long]
Join eNotes
Over 3,500 study guides, question and answer forums, literature criticism, reference content, and much more!
Navigate
