Robert Frost was an American poet who depicted realistic New England life through language and situations familiar to the common man. He won four Pulitzer Prizes for his work and spoke at John F. Kennedy's 1961 inauguration.
BIOGRAPHY: Robert Frost (1874-1963)
Robert Frost was an American poet and winner of four Pulitzer Prizes. Famous works include “Fire and Ice,” “Mending Wall,” “Birches,” “Out Out,” “Nothing Gold Can Stay” and “Home Burial.” His 1916 poem, "The Road Not Taken," is often read at graduation ceremonies across the United States. As a special guest at President John F. Kennedy’s inauguration, Frost became a poetic force and the unofficial "poet laureate" of the United States.
Frost spent his first 40 years as an unknown. He exploded on the scene after returning from England at the beginning of World War I. He died of complications from prostate surgery on January 29, 1963.
Early Years
Frost was born on March 26, 1874, in San Francisco, California. He spent the first 11 years of his life there, until his journalist father, William Prescott Frost Jr., died of tuberculosis.
Following his father's passing, Frost moved with his mother and sister, Jeanie, to the town of Lawrence, Massachusetts. They moved in with his grandparents, and Frost attended Lawrence High School.
Click on the image above to access the video "Robert Frost."
Robert Frost was America’s leading pastoral poet. He demonstrated in his verse that nature is man’s most revealing mirror–and the clearest window into human personality. That conviction led him to explore the darkest forces of both nature and humanity. Some readers, comparing him to modernists like T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound, consider Frost a traditional poet. Others regard his work as complex and multilayered, wholly new in its own way. Frost himself evaded the question with characteristic understatement: “I am [not] un-designing,” he said. [Transcript available.]
SOURCE: Voices and Visions series (1988), Produced by the New York Center for Visual History. [Duration: 56:45 mins], video available from Annenberg Learner, URL: https://www.learner.org/series/voices-visions/robert-frost/
Robert Frost was an American poet and winner of four Pulitzer Prizes. Famous works include “Fire and Ice,” “Mending Wall,” “Birches,” “Out Out,” “Nothing Gold Can Stay” and “Home Burial.” His 1916 poem, "The Road Not Taken," is often read at graduation ceremonies across the United States. As a special guest at President John F. Kennedy’s inauguration, Frost became a poetic force and the unofficial "poet laureate" of the United States.
