Robert Frost                

Background Information

        Robert Lee Frost was born in San Francisco, California, the son of William Prescott Frost, Jr., of New Hampshire and Isabelle Moodie of Scotland.  He was named after Robert E. Lee, the commander of the Confederate armies during the American Civil War (1861-1865).

        Robert frost moved to Massachusetts after his father died of tuberculosis.  This is where Frost’s poetry writing began.  He shortly attended collage but dropped out and married, Eleanor White.  They had six children!  He then took up collage at Harvard but again dropped out before receiving a degree.

      Now living in poverty in New Hampshire, Frost continued to write his poetry but was unsuccessful at publishing it.  So Frost decided to move to England, which was a smart idea.  In 1913 he got his first book of poems published, The Boy’s Will.

      His first book established Frost as an author and was representative of his lifelong poetic style: sparse and technically precise, yet evocative in the use of simple and earthy imagery.

      Frost met many poets but he decided to move his family back to the United States, where his work was becoming very well known.    In 1961, at the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy, Frost became the first poet to read a poem—"The Gift Outright"—at a presidential inauguration.

      Frost's poetry mainly reflects life in rural New England, and the language he used was the uncomplicated speech of that region.  Frost’s work has lots of emotion, with dramatic shifts from humorous to tragic.

      Frost put out many books.  Such as New Hampshire, which includes some of his best known poems.  He ended his poems with, “And miles to go before I sleep” to indicate Frost's philosophy of continual and productive work—whether it be work on his New England farm, or the written work required to create his poetry.

      Robert Frost lived and taught for many years in Massachusetts and Vermont, and died on January 29, 1963, in Boston.

Well-known Works

Poem

“Out, Out-“

The Buzz saw snarled and rattled in the yard

And made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood,

Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it.

And form there those that lifted eyes could count

Five mountain ranges one behind the other

Under the sunset far into Vermont.

And the saw snarled and rattled, snarled and rattled,

As it ran light, or had to bear a load.

And nothing happened: day was all but done.

Call it a day, I wish they might have said

To please the boy by giving him the half hour

That a boy counts so much when saved from work.

His sister stood beside them in her apron

To tell them ‘supper.’ At the word, the saw,

As if to prove saws knew what supper meant,

Leaped out at the boy’s hand, or seemed to leap-

He must have given the hand.  However it was,

Neither refused the meeting.  But the hand!

The boys first outcry was a rueful laugh,

As he swung toward them holding up the hand

Half in appeal, but half as if to keep

The life form spilling.  Then the boy saw all-

Since he was old enough to know, big boy

Doing a man’s work, though a child at heart-

He saw all spoiled.  ‘Don’t Let him cut my hand off-

The doctor, when he comes.  Don’t let him, sister!’

So.  But the hand was gone already.

The doctor put him in the dark of ether.

He lay and puffed his lips out with his breath.

And then- the watcher at his pulse took fright.

No one believed.  They listened at his heart.

Little-Less-Nothing!- and that ended it.

No more to build on there and they, since they

Were not one dead, turn to their affairs.

Literary Terms

Poetic Devices

Caesura- Little-Less-Nothing!- and that ended it.

Hyperbole- As if to prove saws knew what supper meant,

                          Leaped out at the boy’s hand, or seemed to leap-

Simile- As if to prove saws knew what supper meant,

                Leaped out at the boy’s hand, or seemed to leap-

Verse- Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it.

  Onomatopoeia- The Buzz saw snarled and rattled in the yard

Blocking

“Out, Out-“

The saw buzzed and rattled in the yard, dropping wood sticks, stove-length giving off a sweet –scented smell when the breeze drew across it.

In the yard you can see five mountain ranges one behind the other in the light of a Vermont Sunset.

As it cut the wood the saw snarled and rattled.

The work was endless and at the end of the day it seemed as no worked was alone.

The boy wished someone would tell me to call it a day and give me that ½ hour to relax.

Her sister stood calling him for supper in her apron.

When the boy heard the word “supper” it was as if the saw knew and stopped its work, leaping from his hand out of control and cut it.

Even if the saw didn’t know what “supper” meant neither the boy nor the saw would work any longer.

First in shock the boy laughed then cried holding up his hand trying to.

He saw all and he is old enough to do a big boy’s job  even though he is still a child at heart.

He saw all gone.

He does not want the saw  to cut anymore of his hand.

He did not want the doctor to cut the rest of his hand off.

He was asking his sister not to let him cut off his hand.

He realized that his hand was already gone.

The doctor was trying to make him feel better but the boy was still in pain.

The boy was holding his breath as the doctor was working with him.

The doctor was frightened by what the boy’s pulse did or didn’t do.

No one could believed their eyes.

They listened for a heart beat.

They did not hear anything.

Then Nothing happened.

There was nothing more to say because nothing was going on.

In the end they decided that they were not the ones that had suffered so therefore they continued on with their lives and went on in life.

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