Bowman PatriciaFrost emerged as a poet at the turn of the 20th century, alongside contemporaries like Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot, with a shared desire to reshape poetic language away from the ornate styles of the Victorian era. He believed in the potential of everyday speech to carry traditional poetic forms, such as iambic meter and rhyming patterns, without sacrificing depth or complexity.
Contrary to some views, Frost’s style did not directly influence Eliot, whose work emanated from a darker, more troubled realm of human experience. Frost positioned himself as a literate farmer, embodying a rugged Yankee persona rooted in the soil of New England.
In his approach to poetry, Frost prioritized capturing authentic tones of voice, blending vernacular and colloquial speech with literary expression. He aimed to convey the raw, visceral sounds of human communication within his lines, doubling the meaning of his sentences with these nuanced vocal inflections.
In a letter to Robert Bridges, Frost challenged the notion of fixed syllable quantities in poetry, emphasizing the living quality of language entwined with syntax and meaning. He believed that the true essence of poetry resided in the intonations familiar to those immersed in a particular cultural context.
Allen Tate, in his lecture “Inner Weather: Robert Frost as Metaphysical Poet,” described Frost’s uniformity of style and his endeavor to simplify diction while maintaining the rhythmic structure of iambic pentameter. Frost’s characters often speak with a consistent voice, reflecting his deliberate efforts to reform poetic language.
Frost’s language is often plain, direct, and conversational, yet imbued with layers of obscurity and depth that transcend mere prose. His poetry, like “The Death of the Hired Man,” epitomizes this blend of simplicity and complexity, offering insights into human nature and relationships.
Reflecting on the creative process, Frost highlighted the role of impulse, style, and subject matter in the making of a poem. He emphasized the importance of leaving something unsaid, suggesting that poetry’s true power lies in its ability to evoke what is beyond the explicit words on the page.
In an interview with The New York Times Book Review, Frost emphasized the necessity of poetry engaging both the mind and the emotions. He cautioned against the exclusion of intellectual depth from poetry, arguing that true understanding encompasses the entirety of human experience.
