Robert Frost's Poetry of Rural Life

by George Monteiro

Overview

"Wise old Vergil says in one of his Georgics, 'Praise large farms, stick to small ones,'" Robert Frost said. "Twenty acres are just about enough." Frost started out as a school teacher living the rural life of a would-be farmer, and later turned to farming full time when he bought a place of his own. After a sojourn in England where his first two books were published to critical acclaim, he returned to New England, acquired a new farm and became a rustic for much of the rest of his life.

Frost claimed that all of his poetry was farm poetry. His deep admiration for Virgil's Georgics, or poems of rural life, inspired the creation of his own New England "georgics," his answer to the haughty 20th-century modernism that seemed certain to define the future of Western poetry. Like the "West-Running Brook" in his poem of the same name, Frost's poetry can be seen as an embodiment of contrariness.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780786497898
Publisher:	McFarland & Company, Incorporated Publishers
Publication date:	03/11/2015
Pages:	192
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.50(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

George Monteiro is a professor emeritus of English and of Portuguese and Brazilian studies at Brown University and the author or editor of books on Henry James, Henry Adams, Robert Frost, Stephen Crane, Emily Dickinson, Fernando Pessoa, and Luis de Camões, among others.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments vi

Introduction 1

1 The Poetry of Agriculture 5

2 All Legends Are Local 34

3 The Poet's Facts 41

4 His Metaphysical Sonnet 49

5 An Occupation Gone 55

6 Adam's Curse 62

7 The Passing Glimpse 67

8 Solitary Griefs 76

9 An Art of the Possible 83

10 His Best Bid for Fame 99

11 Crowe Ransom 117

12 Axe and Helve 122

13 A Single Peel 127

14 Poem/Play 132

15 Nothing Gold Can Stay 141

Chapter Notes 153

Bibliography 169

Index 178

Editorial Reviews

exceptionally well written, organized and presented...very highly recommended”—Midwest Book Review

From the Publisher