Robert Frost

(1874–1963)

A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom... it runs a course of lucky events, and ends in a clarifi cation of life—not necessarily a great clarifi cation, such as sects and cults are founded on, but in a momentary stay against confusion.

(“The Figure a Poem Makes”)

During his lifetime, Robert Frost became not only one of the most respected but certainly also one of the most popular of serious American poets. He received more Pulitzer Prizes (four) than any other writer of verse has ever won, and he was also the beneficiary of numerous awards, scores of honorary degrees, many academic appointments, a variety of presidential recognitions, and healthy sales of his books. During a time when poetry had seemed to become increasingly remote and distant from the audience of “common readers, ” Frost was one of the few poets to win both the respect of critics and the affection of a large and admiring public. Although his success occurred late (he was nearly 40 when his first book was published), once it arrived it never left, and the fact that Frost lived into his eighties meant that by the end of his life he had become a national icon—one of the most famous and best-loved writers of his time. In the years since his death his reputation has only grown, even though darker sides of both his personality and his verse have received increasing emphasis.

Most of the details of the poet’s life and career are outlined in the exceptionally helpful “Chronology” prepared by Richard Poirier and Mark Richardson. Although Frost would eventually become most famous for poems often set in New England, he was actually born on the other side of the continent—in San Francisco, California. His father, William Prescott Frost, Jr., had been born in New England and had graduated from Harvard, while the poet’s mother (Isabelle Moodie) had been born in Scotland but had been raised by an uncle in Columbus, Ohio. After the couple met while serving together as teachers in Pennsylvania, they married in March 1873 and soon moved to San Francisco, where William worked as a journalist and where Robert, their first child, was born on March 26, 1874. Although William had some success as a writer and editor, his taste for alcohol and gambling led to tensions in the marriage; the couple’s daughter, Jennie, was born in 1876 when Isabelle was temporarily back in Massachusetts, but eventually she returned to San Francisco, accompanied by a number of female relatives and friends. Not long after their arrival, William Frost was diagnosed with tuberculosis, but his condition did not prevent him from participating, during the next few years, in local politics. As a parent, however, William Frost was often harsh, and partly as a result young Robert became nervous and sickly and often had to drop out of school because of stomach pains. Nevertheless, as he grew older he also developed a streetwise tougher side, even while, under the influence of his highly religious and literate mother, he was cultivating an interest in reading literature and in hearing poetry read aloud.

When William Frost finally died of tuberculosis in 1885, his wife and children were left almost destitute. His widow had little choice but to take her son and daughter back to Massachusetts to live for a time in the town of Lawrence with her husband’s parents. By 1886, however, the small family had taken up residence in New Hampshire, where Isabelle Frost taught children in grades 5 through 8, including her own son, who had now developed a lively interest in reading. In the coming years Robert would increasingly distinguish himself as a student, especially after he transferred to Lawrence High School. His own first poems were published in that school’s Bulletin in 1890, and indeed by 1891 he had been elected its editor. By this time, too, he had met and fallen in love with Elinor Miriam White, another accomplished student at the school, and by 1892 they had in fact become privately engaged. Although Frost had been accepted by Harvard, his grandparents—who were paying for his education—determined that he would instead attend the less-expensive Dartmouth College, but Frost’s time there lasted merely a semester. Regimented education bored him, but he continued to study on his own even as he worked a number of low-paying jobs as a mill worker and teacher. In 1894 he was able to publish some poems in a New York newspaper, but he was unable, at first, to persuade Elinor finally to marry him. Depressed, he traveled (perhaps with suicidal intent) to the aptly named Dismal Swamp in North Carolina, but before long he was back in Lawrence, working as a journalist, teacher, and tutor. Eventually, on December 19, 1895, he and Elinor were married, and on September 25, 1896, their first child—a son named Elliott—was born. Meanwhile, Frost continued to teach, write poems, and pursue an amateur interest in botany, and he also made plans to resume his formal education by entering Harvard.

Frost’s studies at Harvard began in 1897 and continued, despite ill health, until March 1899, when he withdrew despite having had some real success. His daughter Lesley was born on April 28, and Frost—partly to earn a living and partly to rebuild his health through manual labor—decided to begin raising chickens. Nevertheless, after the death of young Elliott in July 1900, Elinor became depressed and Frost’s own physical and mental health continued to deteriorate, but he continued to write poems even after his grandfather bought him a 30-acre farm in Derry, New Hampshire. Most of the work there was actually done by a friend, and when Frost’s grandfather died in 1901, the poet was left with a yearly income of $500—an arrangement that left him time for his writing despite his commitment to the farm. By 1903, in fact, he had managed to unite the two pursuits by publishing prose pieces in various poultry magazines, although poetry remained his primary literary love. He often wrote at the end of the day, after his duties on the farm were done. Meanwhile, as children continued to arrive (son Carol in 1902, daughter Irma in 1903, and daughter Marjorie in 1905), Frost felt an increasing need to supplement his income, and so in 1906 he began teaching again, this time at the local Pinkerton Academy. He was an active, effective, and innovative teacher, and his success at Pinkerton eventually led, in 1911, to a position as a college instructor. By this time, however, he had begun to feel an increasing yearning to write full-time in a new environment, and so in the late summer of 1912 he and his wife and children abandoned their life in New England and set sail for England itself. London at this time was the center of a lively literary scene, and it was not long before Frost was making the acquaintance of many notable writers, including Ezra Pound, the dynamic American expatriate. Conceited but at the same time generous, Pound was always ready to help promote other writers of talent, and when Frost’s first book— A Boy’s Will —was published by a small London firm in April 1913, Pound was one of a number of reviewers who hailed it as an important work. In the meantime, the reception of Frost’s next book— North of Boston, published in May 1914—was even more enthusiastic. Indeed, many critics still consider this work Frost’s best. Not long after World War I began in August 1914, Frost had moved his family back to the United States (they arrived in February 1915), and by the time of their return it had become clear to practically everyone who cared about poetry that a major new voice had arrived on the scene.

North of Boston and A Boy’s Will were soon published in American editions, and both books quickly met with many highly positive reviews and with gratifying sales. Frost had now begun to attract the kind of attention and respect in his own country that he had never enjoyed before; in 1916, for instance, he was elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters, and in that same year he was invited to teach at Amherst College (with which he would now enjoy an on-again, off-again relationship for many years). Invitations to speak and to read his poems began to arrive on a regular basis, and in November of that year his newest book— Mountain Interval —was published by the same major New York firm that had reprinted his first two volumes. In 1917 one of Frost’s poems won a major prize; in 1918 he himself received an honorary degree; in 1919 he was elected president of the New England Poetry Club. Thus, as the 1920s dawned, Frost’s career was definitely on the rise, although he continued to favor a rural life when he might easily have moved to a large city. In 1920 he began to plan to raise apples on a farm in Vermont, although in 1921 he also began a long-standing relationship with the University of Michigan, and in 1922 he undertook an extensive lecture tour in the South and Midwest. In 1923 his Selected Poems were published, followed later by a book titled New Hampshire, and during that same year he was invited back to Amherst. Success thus followed success: In 1924 New Hampshire won a Pulitzer Prize; in 1925 friends celebrated his birthday with a major dinner; and during this same period Frost was being wooed both by Amherst and by Michigan. In 1926 Amherst made him an offer he could not refuse, and in 1928 he signed a highly lucrative contract with his New York publisher. During these years, however, all was not entirely well: Frost’s own health and the health of some of his children were often poor; tensions with his wife were increasing; his adult children were beginning to encounter problems of their own; and Elinor was more and more depressed. His relations with his fellow poets (whom he often viewed as competitors) were frequently strained, and Frost, despite his prominence, was often worried that his status would not endure, despite the publication of a new book (West-Running Brook) late in 1928 and the simultaneous reissue of an expanded version of his Selected Poems. Nevertheless, despite his worries, his Collected Poems (which soon won him another Pulitzer) was published in 1930, the same year he was elected to membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Meanwhile, another major award (from the National Institute of Arts and Letters) followed in 1931.

Despite the painful illness and death of his beloved daughter Marjorie in 1934 and the declining physical health and growing depression of his wife, Frost in the early 1930s (when he was now approaching his sixties) was still an active figure on the American literary scene. He continued to travel both frequently and widely to read his poems (an activity that helped build his national audience), and in 1936 he not only gave a series of prestigious and popular lectures at Harvard but also published a new book (A Further Range), which sold well and soon won him yet another Pulitzer Prize. That book, however, attracted some of the first seriously negative criticism Frost had ever received as a writer; some commentators considered him old-fashioned and out of touch with the economic and social conditions of modern life. Since late 1929 the country had been suffering through the most severe economic depression in its history, and Frost, with his focus on rural landscapes and country people, seemed (at least to some readers) naively nostalgic or even worse. Indeed, his fairly right-wing political opinions put him at odds with many intellectuals (and also with much of the voting public) at that time, while his respect for custom and convention in the writing of poetry (including a preference for clear meter, regular rhyme schemes, plain language, and traditional themes) made him seem conservative not only in his politics but also in his writing. Frost never, though, really lost his popularity with the broad reading public, and any objections to his work from professional literary critics actually helped stimulate fruitful defenses and debate. He thus remained an important fixture on the American literary landscape.

The death of Elinor on March 20, 1938, was a major blow, for despite the frequent tensions in their relationship, she had been a major part of his life since his late teens. Now, without her, he became severely depressed and, almost on the rebound, proposed marriage to a young woman named Kathleen Morrison (who at the time was married to a friend of Frost’s and who was also the mother of several children). She refused his proposal, but they did begin a secret long-term affair while she officially served as his secretary for many years. Frost was proud of his continued sexual vigor, and he often boasted about the affair to male friends. In the meantime, literary accomplishments continued and literary recognitions piled up, including a gold medal from the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1939 and an appointment at Harvard that same year. Frost had even, by this time, chosen Lawrance Thompson as his official biographer (with the proviso that any book not appear until after his death). It was, however, the death by suicide of his own son, Carol, that was most on Frost’s mind in 1940—an incident that was just the latest in a long line of sad events that often made his family life so different from his professional career. In the 1940s that career continued to prosper: another appointment from Harvard in 1941, a new book of poems (The Witness Tree) in 1942, yet another Pulitzer Prize in 1943, an appointment from Dartmouth that same year, another book (A Masque of Reason) in 1945, an updated edition of his Collected Poems in 1946, the publication of two new books (Steeple Bush and A Masque of Mercy) in 1947, a new appointment at Amherst in 1948, and publication of the Complete Poems of Robert Frost 1949 (to positive reviews and good sales) at the end of the decade. Likewise, the 1950s saw many further distinctions and achievements. In 1950 itself, the U.S. Senate honored Frost with a resolution of praise; in 1953 he won a major fellowship from the Academy of American Poets; 1954 included an invitation to the White House and a major dinner in his honor, not to mention the publication of a new collection of poems (Aforesaid); in 1955 the state of Vermont named a mountain after him; while in 1957 he was awarded honorary degrees by both Oxford and Cambridge universities in England. While visiting in Britain to receive these awards, Frost was widely praised, and the following year—1958—included another invitation to the White House and several new official distinctions, followed by a major celebration of his 85th birthday in 1959. Congress awarded him a gold medal in 1960, but perhaps the highlight of Frost’s national recognition was his selection, by the newly elected president John F. Kennedy, to read his poetry at the inaugural ceremony in January 1961. A major trip to Russia (where he met the Soviet leader) followed in 1962, but by this time Frost’s health was in serious decline, and by the end of the year he was in the hospital, where doctors diagnosed cancer. Even in his waning days, however, he was awarded one last major honor (the Bollingen Prize for Poetry), and on January 29, 1963, he died. His public career as a poet had begun late but had lasted long and had been extraordinarily successful, and, unlike many writers who are prominent in their own days but whose reputations subsequently decline, Frost has continued, even after his death, to live a vigorous and well-respected life in the many vital poems he composed—poems that remain both widely read and widely admired.