My Radio Talk On Robert Frost Poetry.

The Concept Of Knowledge Through Nature

 In Robert Frost’s Poetry

Script for Talk on All India Radio

                                          

                                            B.Sharmila, Lecturer in English

                                                   TJPS College (PG Courses), Guntur

                

 Robert  Frost ,the only writer to receive the Pulitzer prize four times in American English Literature, is much acclaimed as a poet of Nature, since he drew inspiration from nature to his output of poetry with an extensive use of symbols, that connect the secrets of nature to the life of man. According to Robert Frost, nature is all inclusive and comprehensive. Termed as 'The Voice of American ', he made a blend of skepticism and faith and eternal conflict between them. 

Robert Frost's poems have inspired the greatest thinkers, statesmen, philosophers and men of literature. One such great man was no other than the first prime minister of our country Jawaharlal Nehru who was greatly inspired by Robert Frost's poems. He felt that the poems provided him with ultimate comfort such that he chose to see on his office table the last four lines of the poem entitled "Stopping by Woods On a Snowy Evening". The lines are:

The woods are lovely dark and deep

But I have promises to keep

And I have many miles to before I sleep

And I have many miles to before I sleep

The lines now quoted depict the philosophy of life and the objective and destination of human endeavour.The lines also delineate the conflict between the concept of beauty and the concept of duty finally instructing the human individual that duty is more important than beauty. Since every man is born with a purpose, he has to make his life a life of fulfillment in the sacred perspective.

What predominantly surfaces in Frost's poetry is nature. The world of Frost's poetry directs us through a journey into a metaphysical world, which is possible with a comprehensive blend of self-knowledge and understanding of human cccondition. Frost himself was engaged with nature at the beginning of his poetic career and confessed that it was the study of Nature that contributed to his intellectual growth and knowledge.

 Frost was a poet from rural New England, but his poems could bear relevance to any part of the world. Frost is the quintessence of the use of romantic themes and their relevance to human life. Trees are symbolic of borders in Frost’s poetry. They not only mark boundaries on earth, but also boundaries between earth and heaven. In some poems, such as “After Apple-Picking” and “Birches,” trees are the link between earth or humanity, and the sky, or the divine. Humans can observe and think critically about humanity and the divine under the shade of these trees or standing nearby, inside the trees’ boundary space.

Similarly in Frost’s poetry, birds represent nature, and their songs represent nature’s attitudes toward humanity. They provide a voice for the natural world to communicate with humans. But their songs communicate only nature’s indifference toward the human world, as in “The Need of Being Versed in Country Things” and “Never Again Would Birds’ Song Be the Same”. Their beautiful melodies belie an absence of feeling for humanity and our situations. Nevertheless, as a part of nature, birds have a right to their song, even if it annoys or distresses human listeners. Frost also uses birds and birdsong to symbolize poetry, and birds become a medium through which one can comment on the efficacy of poetry as a tool of emotional expression, as in “The Oven Bird”.

As in romanticism, a literary movement active in England from roughly 1750 to 1830, Frost’s poetry demonstrates great respect for the social outcast, or wanderer, who exists on the margins of a community. Solitary travellers appear frequently in Frost’s poems, and their attitudes toward their journeys and their surroundings highlight poetic and historical themes, including the figure of the wanderer and the changing social landscape of New England in the twentieth century. Frost was also separated from the community like the romanticized notion of the solitary traveller which allowed him to view social interactions as well as the natural world, with a sense of wonder, fear, and admiration.

As it is found in “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening” and “The Road Not Taken” among other poems, the solitary traveller demonstrates the historical and regional context of Frost’s poetry. In the early twentieth century, the development of transportation and industry created the social type of the wandering “tramp,” who lived a transient lifestyle, looking for work in a rapidly developing industrial society. 

In the poem ‘Mending Wall’, Frost writes about a stone-wall that separates the speaker’s property from his neighbour’s. In spring, the two meet to walk the wall and jointly make repairs. The speaker sees no reason for the wall to be kept though there are no cows to be contained and only just apple and pine trees. He does not believe in walls for the sake of walls. The neighbour resorts to an old adage: “Good fences make good neighbours.” The speaker remains unconvinced and mischievously presses the neighbour to look beyond the old-fashioned folly of such reasoning. His neighbour will not be swayed. The speaker envisions his neighbour as a holdover from a justifiably outmoded era, a living example of a dark-age mentality. But the neighbour simply repeats the adage. Wall-building is social, both in the sense of “societal” and “sociable.” What seems an act of anti-social self-confinement can, thus, ironically, be interpreted as a great social gesture.Perhaps the speaker does believe that good fences make good neighbours—for again, it is he who initiates the wall-mending.

According to Britannica Concise Encyclopaedia, ( I quote) "Frost closely observed rural life and in his poetry endowed it with universal, even metaphysical, meaning, using colloquial language, familiar rhythms, and common symbols to express both its pastoral ideals and its dark complexities"  (unquote).

Robert P. Ellis states (I quote) "On more than one occasion the poet claimed that this poem was about his friend Edward Thomas, a man inclined to indecisiveness out of a strong-and, as Frost thought, amusing-habit of dwelling on the irrevocability of decisions" (unquote).  After cautiously looking at both routes, the traveller comes to the conclusion that both paths present a more interesting venture ahead. The traveller tells the reader that the woods are yellow which mean it could possibly be autumn. There is a contradiction that one path is less worn than the other. This poem points out that there are times when you can't decide which decision is better.

In many of Robert Frost's poems he tends to reflect on nature, and he recognizes the beauty and disaster of it. His ideas and the way he uses nature are perfect and are valued by many. Frost uses nature to put across his views as well as to make his poetry more interesting than it already is. His poems make it easy to imagine the setting in our minds. 

Frost’s poems primarily deal with man in relation with the universe. Man’s environment as seen by frost is quite indifferent to man, neither hostile nor benevolent. Man is alone and frail as compared to the vastness of the universe. Such a view of “man on earth confronting the total universe” is inevitably linked with certain themes in frost’s poetry.

In “Home Burial”, the lady suffers from a terrible sense of self-alienation, as well as alienation from her surroundings. And, more than the physical loneliness, man suffers from the loneliness within.

I have it in me so much nearer home

To scare myself with my own desert places.

A concern with barrier is the predominant theme in Frost’s poetry. Man is always erecting and trying to bring down barriers-- between man and environment, between man and man. To Frost, these barriers seem favourable to mutual understanding and respect. He insists on recognizing these barriers instead of trying to tear them down as in the modern trend.Frost's use of nature is the single most misunderstood element of his poetry. But Frost said over and over, (I quote) "I am not a nature poet. There is almost always a person in my poems." (unquote).

Most of Frost's poems use nature’s imagery. His grasp and understanding of natural fact is well recognized. Rural scenes and landscapes, homely farmers, and the natural world are used to illustrate a psychological struggle with everyday experience met with courage, will and purpose in the context of Frost's life and personal psychology. He usually begins a poem with an observation of something in nature and then moves toward a connection to some human situation or concern. Frost is neither a transcendentalist nor a pantheist.

According to Keats, nature is separate and independent from man. Man "keeps the universe alone," even though he may call out for "counter love," he will not find it. Even though he loved natural beauty, Frost recognized the harsh facts of the natural world. He viewed these opposites as simply different aspects of reality that could be embraced in poetry. He accepts these facts with honesty and is remorseless in his realization of them. He probes the quality of truth and accepts that there may be no answer.

Frost uses nature as a metaphor. He observes something in nature and says this is like that. He leads us to make a connection, but never forces it on the reader. Read on a literal level, Frost's poems always make perfect sense. His facts are correct, especially in botanical and biological terms. But he is not trying to tell nature stories nor animal stories. He is always using these objects of nature metaphorically implying an analogy to some human condition. The reader may or may not be reminded of the same thing that the poet was thinking of when he wrote the poem, but he hopes the reader is close. Frost always takes time to describe it with sensitivity and care while using good poetic technique especially figurative language. Many of his poems are text book examples of the use of imagery and poetic devices of all kinds.

Frost struggled all his life with a traditional faith-based view of the world and the rise of science. It is still being argued whether or not he believed in God. Basically he believed in a ever changing open-ended universe, which could not be explained with systematic thought, whether it be science, religion or philosophy. He declared that evolution was simply a metaphor for a changing world.

He believed the universe was unknowable and his poems reflect the withheld judgment based on his scepticism. He declared he was not an agnostic. He said,(I quote) "I have no doubts about my beliefs." The contradictions Frost found in the world did not bother him. He saw no reason to resolve them but believed that man acting in freedom could balance the contradictions in a sort of play. He never believed one age was worse than another. He embraced the ‘Christian doctrine of Acceptance’ thinking it unworthy to "play the good without the ill."

Thus Frost derived inspiration from nature which provided him with utmost poetic freedom and loftiness that made him a major poet in English literature.

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