Design

Robert Frost "Design" Final

ENGL 1302-SA01, Winter 2005

Ellen Walroth

January 21, 2006

Research Paper Outline of Robert Frost

"Design"

I. Abstract.

II. Introduction.

III. Biographical data about Frost during the time "Design" was published.

IV. My comments of a critical essay about "Design" written by Everett Carter.

V. My comments of a critical essay about "Design" written by Laurence Perrine.

VI. My comments of a critical essay about "Design" written by Jerek K. Huzzard.

VII. Reference Page

Abstract

This researcher claimed that Frost was one of the most read and constantly anthologized poets of his time. First, he argued this poem has dark overtones. He also argued that there is indeed a "design" at work, but it is not a "design of darkness"; it is simply the order of nature.

Robert Frost (Design)

Robert Lee Frost was an American poet born in San Francisco on March 26, 1874, and was regarded as one of the finest of rural New England's 20th century pastoral poets. He became one of the most read and constantly anthologized poets of his time. Frost was awarded the Pulitzer Prize four times and is best known for his insights into deeper design of life through nature and rural surroundings. He once said, "Literature begins with geography." In 1892 Frost graduated from a high school and attended Darthmouth College for a few months. In 1894 the New York Independent published Frost's poem 'My Butterfly' and he had five poems privately printed. Frost worked as a teacher and continued to write and publish his poems in magazines.

In 1895 he married Elinor White a former schoolmate and they had six children. From 1897 to 1899 Frost studied at Harvard, but left without receiving a degree. He moved to Derry, New Hampshire and ironically when he sent his poems to The Atlantic Monthly they were returned with a note that said, "We regret that The Atlantic has no place for your vigorous verse."

In 1912 Frost sold his farm and took his wife and four young children to England. There he published his first collection of poems, A BOY'S WILL, at the age of 39. It was followed by NORTH BOSTON (1914), which gained international reputation. The collection contains some of Frost's best-known poems including; 'Mending Wall,' 'The Death of the Hired Man,' 'Home Burial,' 'A Servant to Servants,' 'After Apple-Picking,' and 'The Wood-Pile.' The poems, written with blank verse or looser free verse of dialogue, were drawn from his own life, recurrent losses, everyday tasks, and his loneliness. In 1920 Frost purchased a farm in South Shaftsbury, Vermont, near Middlebury College where he co-founded the Bread Loaf School and Conference of English.

In 1938 his wife died and shortly after lost four of his children. Two of his daughters suffered mental breakdowns, and his son Carol, a frustrated poet and farmer, committed suicide. Frost also suffered from depression and the continual self-doubt led him to cling to the desire to be awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. After the death of his wife, Frost became strongly attracted to his secretary and adviser, Kay Morrison. He composed one of his finest love poems for her, 'A Witness Tree.'

In 1930 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters and Amherst College appointed him Saimpson Lecturer for Life. In 1958 he was made poetry consultant for the Library of Congress. Frost received many honors, rewards and tributes from the U.S. Senate, the American Academy of Poets, New York University and the Huntington Hartford Foundation. In 1962 he received the Congressional Gold Medal and the Edward MacDowell Medal.

Frost was known as the, "Presidential Poet" after he participated in the inauguration of John F. Kennedy by reciting two of his poems. When the sun and the wind prevented him from reading his new poem, 'The Preface', Frost recited his old poem, 'The Gift Outright', from memory. In 1962 Frost traveled to the Soviet Union as a member of a goodwill group and was able to meet Nikita Khrushchev.

While preferring to stay at home, he traveled more than any poet of his generation to give lectures and readings, even though he remained terrified of public speaking to the end. On January 29, 1963 Frost died of a heart attack, he was 88 years old. At the time of his death, Frost was considered a kind of unofficial poet laureate of the US. "I would have written of me on my stone: I had a lover's quarrel with the world," Frost once said. In his poems Frost depicted the fields and farms of his surroundings, observing the details of rural life.

Everett Carters criticizes Frost for his eye and love of nature to be oppressive and vengeful deity. "A God who would reduce a human being to isolation and vulnerability." I agree with Carters argument that this poem has the existence of God from the viewpoint those sentimentalists who read human emotions into the world of lower organisms. I also agree with Carters perspective that Frosts intentions when he wrote this poem was from a farmer's perspective. Frost, who considered himself a farmer and a fruit grower tried to depict through poetry, nature's role for a moth. The Moth corrupts the apple and are often the bearers of fruit-destroying