從羅伯特弗洛斯特的幾首詩(shī)歌分析他的矛盾世界觀

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　　國(guó)內(nèi)外對(duì)本課題的研究現(xiàn)狀：

從羅伯特弗洛斯特的幾首詩(shī)歌分析他的矛盾世界觀

　　國(guó)內(nèi)外十分重視對(duì)美國(guó)詩(shī)人羅伯特•弗洛斯特和他的詩(shī)歌的研究，問(wèn)題涉及面非常廣泛，比如對(duì)他本人的性格特點(diǎn)研究，對(duì)他在詩(shī)歌方面的創(chuàng)作方法以及詩(shī)歌中展現(xiàn)的意象的對(duì)立與統(tǒng)一等等。在楊春梅的“談羅伯特•弗洛斯特矛盾的世界觀”一文中，對(duì)羅伯特•弗洛斯特的人生態(tài)度以及他詩(shī)歌的特色進(jìn)行了細(xì)致的分析;在嚴(yán)黎和劉洪泉的“淺析弗洛斯特的兩首著名詩(shī)歌”中，在探析了詩(shī)人別具一格的語(yǔ)言風(fēng)格的基礎(chǔ)上,挖掘并表彰了詩(shī)中潛在的人與自我、人與自然以及人與社會(huì)的矛盾性的深邃主題。本人認(rèn)為《劍橋文學(xué)指南：羅伯特•弗洛斯特》是近年來(lái)出版的較全面研究羅伯特•弗洛斯特的力作。它匯集了近年來(lái)國(guó)外學(xué)者對(duì)羅伯特•弗洛斯特及其作品的評(píng)論。該書共收錄了12篇上關(guān)權(quán)咸文章。第一篇文章用大量的資料對(duì)弗洛斯特在生平進(jìn)行了整理、綜合，并給予中肯定評(píng)價(jià)，使讀者看到了詩(shī)人以外的弗洛斯特;第二篇到第九篇文章從不同方面對(duì)弗洛斯特的詩(shī)歌風(fēng)格、寫作技巧以及運(yùn)用的修辭手法進(jìn)行了細(xì)致的分析;最后三篇?jiǎng)t從政治、經(jīng)濟(jì)、人文的角度分析了弗洛斯特本人及其體現(xiàn)在詩(shī)歌中的相關(guān)觀點(diǎn)。為12篇文章立意新穎，角度各異，對(duì)于深層次地解讀弗洛斯特的詩(shī)歌并全方位地了解這位杰出詩(shī)人，無(wú)疑具有重大意義。本書對(duì)讀者能更好地理解美國(guó)詩(shī)人弗洛斯特和他的詩(shī)歌有很大幫助。總之，全書資料豐富，內(nèi)容詳實(shí)，索引完備，是一本理想的指導(dǎo)性讀物，對(duì)本人的論文寫作也將大有助益。

　　一、課題研究?jī)?nèi)容與方法

　　研究方法：對(duì)比分析

　　Outline

　�、�.Introduction

　�、�. The Form of Expressions of the Paradoxical View of the World in His Poems

　　A. The Use of Symbolism

　　B. The Language Style

　�、�. The Paradoxical Thoughts in “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”

　　A. Contradiction Between People and Himself

　　B. Contradiction Between People and Nature

　　C. Contradiction Between People and Society

　�、�. The Reasons Behind the Paradoxical View of the World of Robert Frost

　　A. The Historical Background of Frost

　　B. The Personal Life of Frost

　　Ⅴ. Conclusion

　　二、課題研究進(jìn)度安排

　　2009年11月30日制定相關(guān)工作制度，畢業(yè)論文(譯文、教學(xué)調(diào)查報(bào)告)的實(shí)施方案

　　2009年12月03日組織學(xué)生學(xué)習(xí)2010屆畢業(yè)論文(設(shè)計(jì))相關(guān)文件

　　2009年12月10日選題編制、審定與確立

　　2009年12月15日指導(dǎo)教師下達(dá)任務(wù)書

　　2009年12月26日開(kāi)題報(bào)告

　　2010年03月26 日初稿(打印件或電子文檔)

　　2010年04月 9日中期檢查

　　2010年04 月16日二稿(打印件或電子文檔)

　　2010年04月30日終稿(打印件和電子文檔)

　　2010年05 月7日論文評(píng)閱

　　2010年05 月15日論文答辯

　　2010年05 月21日成績(jī)?cè)u(píng)定;信息表和質(zhì)量分析報(bào)告

　　2010年06 月11日校級(jí)、系級(jí)優(yōu)秀論文評(píng)選

　　2010年06 月20日畢業(yè)論文(設(shè)計(jì))工作總結(jié)，材料歸檔

　　三、主要參考文獻(xiàn)目錄

　　1、Faggen. Robert Frost. 上海外語(yǔ)教育出版.2004.

　　2、楊春梅. 與世界如戀人般爭(zhēng)吵的詩(shī)人——談羅伯特•弗洛斯特矛盾的世界觀. 廣西師范學(xué)院學(xué)報(bào)(哲學(xué)社會(huì)科學(xué)版). 2005.

　　3、嚴(yán)黎,劉洪泉. 淺析弗洛斯特的兩首著名詩(shī)歌. 科技咨詢導(dǎo)報(bào). 2007.

　　4、何苗. 弗洛斯特“雪夜林邊駐馬”文體賞析. 安徽文學(xué)(文教研究). 2006.

　　5、李春風(fēng). 寓矛盾與統(tǒng)一，融深刻于平淡——談弗氏詩(shī)歌的意象. 安徽理工大學(xué)學(xué)報(bào)(社會(huì)科學(xué)版). 2009.

　　6、青楓. 談羅伯特•弗洛斯特的哲理詩(shī). 杭州師范學(xué)院學(xué)報(bào) (社會(huì)科學(xué)版). 1990.

　　7、黃艷. 羅伯特•弗洛斯特的詩(shī)歌問(wèn)題分析——雪夜林邊小立. 文教資料 . 2005.

　　8、王微萍,彭茜. 羅伯特•弗洛斯特的詩(shī)歌語(yǔ)言. 重慶工業(yè)管理學(xué)院學(xué)報(bào). 1998.

　　9、張潔. 羅伯特•弗洛斯特的自然主義和象征主義. 社科縱橫. 2009.

　　10、胡開(kāi)杰. 言簡(jiǎn)意賅，富于哲理——羅伯特•弗洛斯特詩(shī)歌的藝術(shù)特點(diǎn). 河南大學(xué)學(xué)報(bào)(社會(huì)科學(xué)版). 1995.

　　11、陳懷志. 人生岔路上的抉擇——羅伯特•弗洛斯特及其《未來(lái)之路》解析. 時(shí)代文學(xué)(下半月). 2008.

　　12、姜玲. 試析弗洛斯特通俗詩(shī)歌背后的沉重主題. 安徽廣播電視大學(xué)學(xué)報(bào). 2008.

　　摘要

　　羅伯特·弗羅斯特是美國(guó)20世紀(jì)最杰出的詩(shī)人之一。他的詩(shī)貌似簡(jiǎn)單、平凡和通俗，細(xì)細(xì)品味，卻發(fā)現(xiàn)詩(shī)中蘊(yùn)含著豐富的內(nèi)涵和深邃的哲理。本文力圖通過(guò)分析弗羅斯特的詩(shī)歌，探尋其中蘊(yùn)含的弗羅斯特的矛盾世界觀，特別是在他的“雪夜林邊停駐”這首詩(shī)中。

　　弗羅斯特賦有獨(dú)特的融合人、自然和社會(huì)之間矛盾的技巧。隨著對(duì)弗羅斯特的詩(shī)歌的分析，我們發(fā)現(xiàn)，詩(shī)人對(duì)世界既感到愛(ài)又感到憤怒。他描寫普通人民的日常生活—農(nóng)民，牧民，農(nóng)村小事件，圍欄修補(bǔ)，摘蘋果，善與惡，所有事項(xiàng)的生死，在他的時(shí)代，有些不是常見(jiàn)的詩(shī)歌主題，但他堅(jiān)持它們，不是做為逃避現(xiàn)代社會(huì)的方式，而是為了能更好地理解生活。

　　關(guān)鍵詞：羅伯特·弗羅斯特;詩(shī)歌;矛盾

　　Abstract

　　Robert Frost is one of the most outstanding poets in the 20th century American literature. His poems seem to be straight, plain and acceptable. However, something much more meaningful can always be found in the plain words after careful reading. With an analysis of Frost’s poetry, this thesis is an attempt to analyze Frost’s paradoxical view of the World that lies beneath his poems, especially in his poem: “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”.

　　Frost has the skill of reconciling the conflict among human beings, nature and society. With an analysis of Frost’s poetry, we find that the poet feels both love and anger towards the world. He writes about the daily life of ordinary people—farmers, shepherds, small rural events, fence mending, apple picking, good and evil, all the matters of life and death, some were not frequent poetical subjects for his time, but he insisted on them, not as ways to escape from modern society, but as ways to understand life better.

　　Key words: Robert Frost; poetry; conflict

　　Contents

　　I. Introduction……………...………………….………………..……………………..1

　　II. The Expression Forms of the Paradoxical View of the World in His poems............1

　　A. The Use of Symbolism ………………………………………………………….1

　　1. Analysis of “The Road Not Taken”…………………………………………..1

　　2. Analysis of “Mending Wall”…………………………………………………2

　　B. The Language Style ……...…………………………………....………………...4

　　1. The Style of Monologue .……………………………………….……………5

　　2. The Style of Dialogue…………………………….………………….………5

　　III. The Paradoxical Thoughts in “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”………..6

　　A. Contradiction Between People and Himself…..…………………………………6

　　B. Contradiction Between People and Nature………………………………………6

　　C. Contradiction Between People and Society……………………………………...8

　　IV. The Reasons Behind the Paradoxical View of the World………………………….9

　　A. The Historical Background………..……………………………………………..9

　　1. Influenced by Transcendentalism………………...…………………………10

　　2. Influenced by Darwin’s Theory………………………………….…………10

　　B. The Personal Life of Frost……………………………………………………...11

　　V. Conclusion……………………………………………………………...…………12

　　Notes…………………………………………………………………………….……13Bibliography…………………………………………………………………….……14

　　I.Introduction

　　In the 20th century, Robert Lee Frost was the most beloved poet in America and the most successful American poet widely accepted all over the world. He was the Pulitzer Prize winner on four occasions; He received honorary degrees from about 40 colleges and universities; and the American government presented him a gold medal in 1960 for his contribution to American culture. He wrote many poems that investigate the basic themes of human life.

　　From my point of view, Frost is a skilled poet who can reconcile the conflicts and tries to search for further communication and understanding of the world. With an analysis of Frost’s poetry, we find that the poet feels both love and anger towards the world. The description of man and nature’s relationship in Frost’s poem is a miniature of the whole world in his mind. Thus he often appears as speaker in his poetry. He leads reader to taste his sourness and sweetness in life.

　　II.The Form of Expressions of the Paradoxical View of the World in His poems

　　Frost wrote mostly bucolic poetry. The New England life and farming were always his favorite subject matter. Symbolic nature imagery was used in most of his poems. He uses nature as a background, as a symbol. He usually begins a poem with an observation of something in nature and then move toward a connection to some human situation or concern.

　　A. The Use of Symbolism

　　Most of Frost’s works use concrete New England particulars for a background. Frost observes something in nature and says this is like that. Read on a literal level, Frost’s poems always make perfect sense. But he is not trying to tell nature stories nor animal stories. He is always using these imply an analogy to some human concern. Frost’s use of a carefully selected and reconstructed New England as a symbolic microcosm of the natural world, in which every man must, sooner or later, learn to do with a diminished thing, is remarkably effective.

　　1. Analysis of “The Road Not Taken”

　　“The Road Not Taken” is a poem by Robert Frost, published in 1916 in the collection Mountain Interval, written in February, in 1915, when Frost’s family went back to America from London. As we know that Frost and his family moved to England in 1912, after their farm in New Hampshire failed, and it was during this time abroad that frost met and was influenced by such contemporary British poet, Edward Thomas. In the fall of 1914, Edward Thomas often visited the Frosts, and went out for walks with Frost. Whenever they came to a crossroad, Thomas would habitually ask Frost which road to follow. Frost once said to him, “no matter which road to take, you will always sigh, and wish you had taken another.” And in 1915, Edward Thomas was got involve in the World War I, and Frost did not know whether he lived or died, so at that time, Frost felt the importance of choosing the road, then he recalled his once unforgettable experience in wood that four years ago in the New Hampshire, so he wrote this poem. This is the story behind this poem.

　　In the stanza 1 of “The Road Not Taken”

　　Two roads diverged in a yellow wood

　　And sorry I could not travel both

　　And be one traveler, long I stood

　　And looked down one as far as I could

　　To where it bent in the undergrowth

　　The poem begins as if when the poet was walking in a wood in late autumn at a fork in the road. He was choosing which road he should follow. Actually, it is concerned with the important decisions which one must make in life: one must give up one desirable thing in order to possess the other.

　　In the stanza 2 of “The Road Not Taken”

　　Then took the other, as just as fair,

　　And having perhaps the better claim,

　　Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

　　Though as for that the passing there

　　Had worm them really about the same

　　After the judgment and hesitation, the traveler makes up his mind to take the road which looks grassy and wants wear. This is the symbol of Frost’s choice of a solitary life.

　　In the stanza 3 of “The Road Not Taken”

　　And both that morning equally lay

　　In leaves no step had trodden black.

　　Oh, I kept the first for another day!

　　Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

　　I doubted if I should ever come back.

　　The two roads are equally pretty, so as soon as he made the choice of the one, the poet felt pitiful for abandoning the other. He is quite aware that his intention of “next choice” will be nothing than an empty promise.

　　In the stanza 4 of “The Road Not Taken”

　　I shall be telling this with a sigh

　　Somewhere ages and ages hence:

　　Two roads diverged in a wood, And I-

　　I took the one less traveled by,

　　And that has made all the difference.

　　The poet was imaging many years later when he is recalling the choice he made today, he would respond with nothing but a sigh, for it would be too hard for anyone, after many more experiences in life, to make any comment on the choice made early in life.

　　As above mentioned, this is a symbolic poem1. The “yellow wood” symbolizes sophisticated society, in which most people are likely to follow a profitable but easier way; each “road” actually symbolizes a possibility in life; the “traveler” is the

　　embodiment of every individual in the human world. The road which is “grassy and wanted wear” refers to a solitary life style; while “way leads to way” implies the complicated circumstances of the human world. Indeed, every one of us will come to certain crossroads in our life, when we are confronted with making a choice, in order to possess something worthwhile, we have to give up something which seems as lovely and valuable as the chosen one. Then, whatever follows, we must accept the consequence of our choice for it is not possible for us to return to the beginning and have another chance to choice differently. So according to this poem, we can see that people have the freedom of choice, which means that people can choose what he want when he is confronted with making a choice , but people can’t have free choice, which means he can’t choose what he wants when he wants it. So in this poem, Frost says “Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back.”

　　2. Analysis of “Mending Wall”

　　“Mending Wall” is a metaphorical poem, published in 1914 in Frost’s second collection of poetry, North of Boston. It is set in the countryside and is about one man questioning why he and his neighbor must rebuild the stone wall dividing their farms each spring. The description about the main idea of this poem is describing the time he and his neighboring farmer spent the day in replacing fallen stones on the wall, which divides their land, the poet declares, ‘Something there is that doesn’t love a wall’ and expresses his philosophy of tolerance, generosity, and brotherhood in the contrast between his neighbor’s dogmatic ‘Good fences make good neighbors’ and his own more considered ‘Before I built a wall, I’d ask to know what I was walling in o walling out’. The strength of this poem rests upon this contradiction.

　　The wall symbolizes the regulations made upon human beings in modern society.2 Living in the modern society, one is bound by many rules and laws, the establishment of which is to enforce the normal social order. A modern society without laws is hardly imaginable. Similarly, a society with too many rules is not desirable either. In this poem, the collapsing of the wall symbolizes the human’s wish to eliminate the estrangement, but the wish often results naturally in a new mending job. Because sometimes people are exposed to the paradoxical fact that it is just due to the existence of these walls that human beings may possibly feel safely defended and, therefore, be calmed down to communicate just over the fence so as to, more or less, understand each other.

　　B. The Language Style

　　The most outstand feature of Frost's poetry is its simplicity. The language Frost uses is no longer the "literary language “but the oral language which people use every day. It is plain, but it is vigorous and vivid. The speech in Frost's poem combines both the artistic and the literal tone. His poems gain the special effects from a combination of the informality of speech, the formality of meter and the mono-syllable words. He often employs words from common people to make his poems vigorous and compact. Working people whose nature is plainness and modesty, commonly use them.

　　1 The Style of Monologue.

　　Monologue is an extended speech uttered by one speaker, either to others or as if alone. 3In Frost’s poems sometimes the speaker is the poet himself, such as in “After Apple-Picking”, “The Road Not Taken” and so on. While listening to the poet intently, the readers may take in his rational and sensible views on man, on society, or on the world as a whole.

　　“After Apple-Picking” is a personal monologue. The protagonist is alone in a natural setting, but his rumination about commitment shows his concern with social life. The poet presents a paradoxical image by “I am overtired/Of the great harvest I myself desired”(Lines 28-29). This is the conflict between ideal and reality: everyone longs for achievements; however, people take achievement for granted if once they swarm in. Yet despite the exhausted toil, the poet deals with every apple attentively, as an immense evidence of his devotion to a poet’s career. In the monologue of an apple picker, a world of half reality and half illusion is presented. Due to the whole day’s toil, the apple-picker is speaking while half sleeping and half waking; the balance of the poem is maintained by the contrast of paralleled scenes: the scene of picking and that of storing, the scene of laboring and that of resting, the scene of waking and that of sleeping, the scene of normal existence and that of the distorted one seen through ice, the scene of reason and that of the dream. Reality and illusion are combined and mixed to express what the poet had felt, heard, and seen. The sentences of this poem are not regular. Some are short, but some may run for over 5 lines, and consequently, a blending of them directs to the ambiguity of the contrasting scenes.

　　2 The Style of Dialogue

　　In some of Frost’s poems there are voices of different characters. The obvious use of overt dialogue provides him with a realistic situation so that his thoughts can be heard and understood much more directly by readers. In his poems, the dialogues between the married couples such as “Home Burial”, “The Death of the Hired Man” and “Snow” help to depict people’s real life vividly.

　　The dialogue between the major characters Mary and Warren in the long poem “The Death of the Hired Man” presents two different attitudes towards Silas, who has returned to their farm, supposedly to work for them again, but actually to die. As the couple’s debate whether to take Silas back or not, they hold different view at first.

　　Mary’s principles are mercy and love. She struggles to persuade her husband that they must accept their obligation to help the old man in his broken and useless situation. However, Warren is rather impatient with and unsympathetic to Silas at that moment. His judgment attitude is severe. “What good is he?” But at last, Mary’s tenderness gradually affects her husband. “I can’t think Si ever hurt anyone.” Silas, who is described as the one who is “worthless,” who had “nothing to look backward to with pride”, though never appears in person in the poem, but the climax of this poem arrives when Silas had obtained understanding and had been forgiven by all, unfortunately, he was already dead.

　　III.The Paradoxical Thoughts in “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”

　　With the exception of “The Road Not Taken,” “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” is probably Frost’s best-known poem. Even Frost called the poem his “best bid for remembrance.” This poem describes a moment: a driver stops his horse buggy to look at the woods, his horse shakes the harness bells which the driver thinks is the horse’s way of saying, “There must be some mistake,” and then the driver decides it is time to move on. This poem is structured around many familiar oppositions, man and nature; business and pleasure; movement and stopping; society and solitude; life and death; activity and sleep and so on. With the speaker’s response to the woods, I find three conflicts in this poem: people and himself, people and nature and people and society.

　　A. Contradiction Between People and Himself

　　For Frost, his characters are almost always of two minds: the contrast between his public obligations and his private will. In this poem, the poet describes the woods are dark, for this is “the darkest evening of the year”-“December twenty-second”. But the darkest evening also imply the time when the poet was in a hard situation. Once when Christmas was drawing near, he packed his wagon with some farm produce and made a long trip into the town, hoping that he could exchange his farm things for a few small Christmas presents for his children. But as times were hard for everybody, there proved to be no sale in the town. As he headed home disappointedly, evening came. It was snowing. His heart grew heaver and heaver. Even the horse was sensing his despair and was going more slowly as they approached home. Just before they came into the view of the house, he realized that his family might be expecting him anxiously. How could he face them? He saw no way to spear his family the despair he felt. The horse slowed down and then stopped at the sweep of a bend. It knew what he had to do. Frost just sat there and cried like a baby. This is the story behind this poem.

　　In this poem, nature becomes fascinating at first with the help of “easy wind and downy lake.” The woods seem to be a place that offers the speaker a momentary escape from the “promise”—his responsibility and obligation in real life. The speaker’s responsibility and obligation in real life are diminished for a moment by the apparently vast domain of the woods. He begins to find solace in nature. However, “sleep” in this poem by its very nature is a common symbol of death. So, in this poem, the speaker was stopping and pondering over the woods. Should I move on or end my life over there? Which means whether to face the real life or escape the real life? One is the social responsibility that is waited to be fulfilled; the other is the death, a permanent home. The reason why the speaker, as the poet himself, was stopping by woods on a snowy evening is that he was paradoxical in his heart. Fortunately, the poet’s former promises reminded him of his responsibility in the world. So the poet feels he should not allow himself to give in to his desire to stay there decided to move on, to stop dreaming and get back to a world of responsibilities and practicality. The repetition of the last two lines indicates the poet’s sense of responsibility.

　　B Contradiction Between People and Nature

　　Frost is a lover of nature, nature is sacred, it is a holy ground, a place of refuge, and tranquillizer. When people get hurt, he can take comfort and rebirth in nature. In this poem, “the woods are lovely, dark and deep,” the world of the woods is a world that offers perfect quiet and solitude. The speaker stops by woods on this "darkest evening of the year" to watch them "fill up with snow," and lingers so long that his "little horse" shakes his harness bells "to ask if there is some mistake." The woods hold a mystical attraction for the speaker, who finds himself alone between the two opposing worlds of nature and man. Even his little horse knows that one dose not usually stop before reaching the village, especially on the “darkest evening of the year”. Nature becomes fascinating at first with the help of “easy wind and downy lake”. The woods seem to be a place which offers the speaker a momentary escape from the “promise”—his responsibility and obligation in real life. The speaker’s responsibility and obligation in real life are diminished for a moment by the vast domain of the woods. He begins to find solace in nature. However, in this comfort lies danger. Woods are also a familiar image for danger, and their darkness and depth give a sense of uncertainty. So the speaker puts in mind of the "promises" he has to keep, of the miles he still must travel. The call of social responsibility proves stronger than the attraction of the woods, which are "lovely" as well as "dark and deep". The woods is regarded as a synecdoche for nature, it seems in this poem that man must learn both to accept and to resist the pull of nature. So at the end, the speaker dismisses the mysteries which the woods offer, in order to keep the unnamed promises awaiting him in the village.

　　C Contradiction Between People and Society

　　“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” is one of his famous poems. This poem expresses Frost’s attitude towards life: the ideal is beautiful, reality is heavy; but one cannot indulge in beautiful ideal and forget the reality, also cannot escape reality because of the heavy reality. At the beginning of 20th century, the human world was involved in World War I. So the life is hard at that time. In this poem, the speaker stops by woods on this “darkest evening of the year” to watch them fill up with snow.

　　The woods symbolize a world that offers perfect quiet and solitude. He contemplates the coldness of the snow and is tempted into giving up all relationships in the society and become a hermit. In the second stanza, he imagines what the horse is thinking. The details of “the woods and frozen lake” may be in the man’s line of vision, but they may also be his way of placing the scene on a mental map, just as “darkest evening” may place the day on a mental calendar. The fourth stanza is even more subjective in its description of the woods as “lovely, dark and deep.” All of this inward and outward movement and the poem’s oppositions make us feel that the man is being pulled in different directions and needs to make a decision. From the last stanza, He apparently decides to return to the real world and cease his dreaming. He is leaving nature and returning to society to accept social duty.

　　In fact, in my opinion, I think that living in such a complex society. We have to experience a lot of things, make many decisions, sometimes we don’t know the choice we ever made is right or wrong, so we need to stop and reflect on our experience, like the speaker in Frost’s poem. One of the messages of “Stopping by Woods” seems to be just that — pausing and reflecting on experience help us re-enter life with a new understanding and sense of direction.

　　IV.The Reasons Behind the Paradoxical View of the World of Robert Frost

　　Plato deemed individual had his or her own role in the world: “Within a society, each individual has his or her own naturally established role or function, serving to maintain the stability and unity of the community as a whole. At the personal level, each desire, so long as it is governed by reason, has a role in the individual’s overall life”. The desire of Frost, as well, played a very important role in both his life and poems. He holds a paradoxical view of the world.

　　A. The Historical Background of Frost

　　The years between 1920 and 1930 were a great time in American literature. In the ten years, there appears a large number of outstanding literary works. To sum up, there are two important factors that make this happen. One is the World War I. The other is mental state at the beginning of 20th century. For the United States, after the World War I, President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed that Americans had gained everything for which they had fought. It appeared economic expansion. The country's economic and cultural way of life began to change, which brought urbanization in national life. But at the end of the decade, there came the stock market crash of 1929 and the Great Depression of the 1930s. In addition to the economic crisis, the decade was also an era of crisis of faith. Since the inception of Darwin's theory of evolution, the crisis of faith had become serious. Without faith, people would not be able to make thoughts and feelings consistent. Without faith, people lose their sense of security, resulting in depression, feelings of hopelessness.

　　In the literature, new and different experiences require new and different forms, such as symbolism, transcendentalism and so on, and Frost is mainly influenced by two theories which help him build his self-contradictory view of the world. One is transcendentalism, and the other is evolutionism of Darwin.

　　1. Influenced by Transcendentalism

　　Transcendentalism flourishes in the 1830s and 1940s in New England area. Transcendentalists firmly believe in self-reliance, constantly telling people to seek for spiritual perfection by living in the remote rural world, because transcendentalists believe nature plays a role of “medium” between the spiritual world and human beings. If humans get on well with nature, they can build harmonies which they long for. Frost partially and indirectly accepted Transcendentalism when he was young under the influence of his mother. From Kearns’s point of view: we can find in Frost’s poems some of Thoreau’s love of isolation, Hawthorne’s dark vision, Longfellow’s traditional craftsmanship, Dickinson’s dry humor, and Robinson’s realistic characterization. Therefore, he depicts nature sometimes in the tone of appreciation and sometimes in the tone of terror.

　　2. Influenced by Darwin’s Theory

　　In 1859, the English naturalist Charles Darwin’s work On the Origin of Species shocked the world. On the Origin of Species is a theory of evolution, holding much creative thinking. According to Darwin, every living thing has to struggle constantly for existence, in such struggles, only the fit species who can adapt to current conditions can survive and have descendants, it is also the natural selection. Frost was deeply influenced by Darwin’s Theory. 4In Robert Faggen’s Robert Frost and the Challenge of Darwin, it tells that Frost had begun to read Darwin as a teenager, and as a special student at Harvard, Frost had read Darwin’s On the Origin of Species. No doubt, Frost has absorbed Darwin’s theory of natural selection and he has applied it to his nature depiction. In his mind, nature is indifferent, alien and hostile.

　　According to the two theories, we can have a conclusion: Frost knows very well that nature is powerful, indifferent and full of threat from Darwin’s theory, but he still prefers to return back to it so that he can achieve the final harmony because he believes human beings are a part of nature.

　　B. The Personal Life of Frost

　　Robert Lee. Frost was born on 26 March 1874 in San Francisco. Although he was a city boy, he lived a relatively peaceful life in his early childhood on the farm. With both parents as teachers, young Frost was early on exposed to the world of books and reading. He also formed a life-long love of nature and rural countryside. When he was 11 years old, he lost his father to illness, and the warm and stable environment changed. Then his mother decided to move her family to Massachusetts to be with her extended family members.

　　After graduating from high school in 1892, he entered Dartmouth College, but seven weeks later, he dropped out. He began to work as teacher and News staff, and write poems. He got his first break as a poet in 1894 when the New York magazine Independent published “My Butterfly”. On 19 December 1895, he got married. In 1897, he tried college again, Harvard. Unfortunately, two years later, he left in the middle because of his tuberculosis. In 1901, Frost’s grandfather died. Frost got the right of using the Derry Farm for ten years. In spite of many years’ work in the field, Frost, though a sincere lover of nature and country life, was always an inept farmer, but a voracious readers, and he kept writing poems all those days, However, Frost’s path to recognition was unfortunately quite a long one: most of his poetic works were refused by publishing houses in the United States, therefore, In 1912, he decided to sell his farm and venture everything on a literary career. He sailed to England, together with his wife, five children and a full case of manuscripts of his poems.

　　Frost’s first collections of poetry A Boy’s Will was published in England in 1913, he soon became in his own country the most read and constantly anthologized poet. His work was well-received and fellow poets Edward Thomas and Ezra Pound became his friends and supporters. His second collections of poetry North of Boston was published in England in 1914. When World War I started, the Frosts were back in New Hampshire, settling at their newly bought farm in 1915. Thereafter, although his fame grew with the appearance of a succession of books and papers, along with his teaching and lecturing at various colleges. Frost considered the farm and its activities remained the focus of his poetry. At the height of his career, his next collection of poems West-Running Brook was published just one year before his sister Jeanie died.

　　After being known, Frost also kept living in the rural world. In Frost’s time, the world underwent industrial development and the scientific progress. So it was not common for a public figure with high reputation to live on the farm till his death.

　　Frost has an independent, elusive, half humorous view of the world, so he endows his poems with precise images, crafty symbols, and employs metaphor and allegories to illustrate his ideas. Frost makes his poems display an exceptional sensitivity to the tones and rhythms. He is a thoughtful poet who employs his words to give the readers suggestiveness and complexity.

　　This paper consists of five chapters, Chapter one is the introduction. Chapter two is an attempt to analyze Frost’s poems form to show his paradoxical view of the world Chapter three is an attempt to analyze “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” to show his paradoxical view of the world. Chapter four interprets the reasons behind his paradoxical view of the world, Chapter five is a conclusion.

　　V. Conclusion

　　Because of transcendentalism, Darwin’s Theory and his personal life experience. Frost holds a paradoxical view of the world. According to analyzing the poems. I find that he wrote about the daily life of ordinary people—farmers, shepherds, small rural events, fence mending, apple picking, good and evil, all the matters of life and death, some were not frequent poetical subjects for his time, but he insisted on them, not as ways to escape from modern society, but as ways to understand life better.

　　On one side it is beautiful and benevolent, but on the other side it is inhuman and strange. This is nature’s dual character. As we have known, his view of nature contains a certain contradictory elements. In his poem, he both reveals the enjoyment of nature’s beauty and depicts nature’s cruelty and hostility. On the other hand, he uses monologue and dialogue, two contradictory voices to show his paradoxical view.

　　In his poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”, he shows his paradoxical view of the world through the words. With the speaker’s response to the woods, I find three conflicts in this poem: the first one is between people and himself: the public obligations and his private will; the second one is between people and nature: nature is sacred, it is a holy ground, a place of refuge, and tranquillizer, when people get hurt, he can take comfort and rebirth in nature, but nature is also indifferent, dangerous and uncertain; the third one is between people and society: the ideal is beautiful, reality is heavy; but one cannot indulge in beautiful ideal and forget the reality, also cannot escape reality because of the heavy reality.

　　Throughout Frost’s life experience, On the one hand, the painful life experience makes him disappointed and .pessimistic. On the other hand, he still sees many beautiful things in life that are worth pursuing. Therefore, according to knowing his paradoxical view. We can get a better understanding of our world and better life skills.

　　Notes

　　1 李正栓陳巖. 美國(guó)詩(shī)歌研究. (北京大學(xué)出版社. 2007). 199

　　2李靜婷. 羅伯特•弗洛斯特詩(shī)歌中的疏遠(yuǎn)與融合 (哈爾濱工程大學(xué)出版社 2007) 35

　　3焦春宏. 羅伯特•弗洛斯特詩(shī)歌中的聲音效果 (河北師范大學(xué)出版社 2007) 21

　　4 Faggen. Robert Frost. (上海外語(yǔ)教育出版.2004) 56.

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