Page 8 - DENG203_ELECTIVE_ENGLISH_IV

Unit 1: The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost

Frost, Sr., who was a supervisor at a New England mill. In 1892, Frost graduated from Lawrence Notes
High School. Frost’s mother joined the Swedenborgian Church and had Frost baptized in it, but
he later left it as an adult.
In spite of his later association with rural life, Robert grew up in the city. His first poem was
published in his high school’s magazine. Frost also went to Dartmouth College to be accepted
into the Theta Delta Chi fraternity. Frost went back to his hometown to teach and to do several
jobs like delivering factory labour and newspapers. He did not enjoy any of these jobs and felt
that he wanted to be a poet.

1.1.2 Adult Years

Robert sold his first poem, “My Butterfly: An Elegy” in 1894. This poem was published for
fifteen dollars in the November 8, 1894 edition of the New York Independent. Proud of this
achievement, he proposed Elinor Miriam White, for marriage but she showed reluctance because
she wanted to finish college before they both got married. Frost after returning from his excursion
to the Great Dismal Swamp in Virginia, asked Elinor again for marriage. She agreed as she had
graduated by then. They then married at Harvard University, where Robert did liberal arts
studies for two years.
He performed well at Harvard, but left from there to support his family. Robert’s grandfather
shortly before his death purchased a farm in Derry, New Hampshire for Robert and his wife.
Robert worked in that farm for a span of nine years. During this period, he would wake up and
write early in the morning. He produced several poems that later became famous. Frost did not
succeed in his farming career and returned to field of education. He taught as an English teacher
at Pinkerton Academy from 1906 to 1911, then at the New Hampshire Normal School which is
now called Plymouth State University in Plymouth, New Hampshire.

Robert sailed with his family to Great Britain in 1912, residing first in Glasgow before finally
settling in Beaconsfield outside London. A Boy’s Will, which was Robert’s first book of poetry,
was published next year. In England he made several significant connections with T.E. Hulme,
Edward Thomas (a member of the Dymock Poets group) and Ezra Pound. Pound would be the
first American to write a favourable review of Robert’s work. Surrounded by his friends, Robert
penned some of his best work during his stay in England.

As World War I began, Robert went back to America in 1915. He purchased a farm in Franconia,
New Hampshire, where he indulged in teaching, writing and lecturing. This family farmhouse
served as the family’s summer home till 1938. It is preserved today as ‘The Frost Place’, a poetry
conference site and museum at Franconia. During the years 1916–20, 1923–24, and 1927–1938,
Robert taught English at Amherst College, Massachusetts, particularly inspiring his students to
explain the sounds of human voice in their writings.

From 1921 to 1963, Robert spent nearly every summer and fall teaching at the Bread Loaf School
of English of Middlebury College, at the mountain campus at Ripton, Vermont. He is recognised
as a major influence upon the development of the school. Its writing programs; the Bread Loaf
Writers’ Conference gained immense popularity during Frost’s term there. The college now
owns and keeps his former Ripton farmstead near the Bread Loaf campus as a national historic
site. Robert accepted a fellowship teaching post at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in
1921, where he lived till 1927. Frost was given a lifetime appointment at the University as a
Fellow in Letters. The Robert Frost Ann Arbor home is now located at The Henry Ford Museum
in Dearborn in Michigan. Robert returned to Amherst in 1927. He purchased a 5-acre (2.0 ha) plot
in South Miami, Florida in 1940 and named it Pencil Pines. He spent his winters there.

LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY 3