Frost, Robert (Vol. 4) | Frost, Robert 1875–1963
Frost, Robert 1875–1963
Frost, an American, was one of our most honest and masterful poets. His personal and deceptively simple lyrics, usually in a pastoral mode, chronicle his unceasing pursuit of the nature and meaning of life.
We have seen the growth or revival in this country of a narrow nationalism that has spread from politics into literature (although its literary adherents are usually not political isolationists). They demand, however, that American writing should be affirmative, optimistic, not too critical, and "truly of this nation." They have been looking round for a poet to exalt; and Frost, through no effort of his own—but more through the weakness than the strength of his work—has been adopted as their symbol. Some of the honors heaped upon him are less poetic than political. He is being praised too often and with too great vehemence by people who don't like poetry, especially modern poetry. He is being presented as a sort of...
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