Download LAST NAME 1 Your NAME DATE English III Honors Author

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English III Honors
Author Research Paper
ROBERT FROST
The Modern period in American history was a time of
cynicism and nationwide depression. The Modern period was a time
of war and new morals (Legget & Brinnin).
During this period,
the Great War and both World Wars began and ended.
The Great
Depression left American citizens in shock, and the American
dream was defined.
It was the “best of times and the worst of
times” (Legget & Brinnin, 528).
Jazz age began.
The Harlem Renaissance and the
The unsinkable ship, the R.M.S. Titanic, sank
and modernism swept across the country.
It was a time of great
authors such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot,
Ernest Hemingway, Langston Hughes, and Robert Frost.
time of self-discovery and great patriotism.
It was a
The Modern period:
a time when Americans fought to keep their dreams alive.
During the Modern period, authors, like everyone else,
struggled to make ends meet.
America was faced with hardships
that seemed like they would never cease.
The struggles and
pains of the authors of this time showed through into their
works.
The feelings of despair and disgust were left upon the
readers as they seemingly witnessed the hard times themselves.
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The literature in this time, like America itself, was steadily
changing.
Authors in this time had to struggle to get their
works published, because of the topics, dialect, and overall
mood of the work.
Authors of this time took out their
aggression and hatred against America in their literature
(Legget & Brinnin).
dream was defined.
During the modern period, the American
America was described as a “promise land”
(Legget & Brinnin, 529).
Hopes were built up and then let down;
people fought hard to keep their dreams alive.
Hitler rose to
power in Germany, and again, America suffered.
Many authors
lost loved ones in the wars and in the sinking of the R.M.S
Titanic—more desperation and sadness to be turned into
beautiful, powerful, and emotionally moving literature.
The
beliefs and traditions of many Americans, including authors were
steadily changing, just like America.
For many, it seemed as if
the world was changing, in every aspect plausible.
The American dream played a strong role in every American’s
daily life.
Everyone was either fighting to keep their dreams
alive, or creating dreams to fight for.
The key elements were
optimism, self sufficiency, and admiration of America (Legget &
Brinnin).
Citizens of America during this time believed that
the independent person would reign victoriously in the end of
the hardships.
The depression weakened and being at war wasn’t
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such a huge shock anymore.
After the war ceased, “Marxism and
Psychoanalysis combined to increase the pressure on [getting rid
of] traditional beliefs and values” (Legget & Brinnin, 530).
This method “abandoned chronology and attempted to imitate the
moment-by-moment flow of a character’s perceptions and memories”
(Legget & Brinnin, 530).
One of the great American authors of the Modern period was
Robert Lee Frost.
Frost was born on March 26, 1874 in San
Francisco, California.
Frost was the son of William Prescott
Frost and Isabel Moodie Frost (American Decades).
Frost’s
father was a journalist with a heavy drinking problem.
His
alcoholism led to an early death from Tuberculosis at age 34.
Frost’s mother was a teacher at a local school.
When Frost’s
father died, Isabel moved the family to Massachusetts. Robert
attended Lawrence High School, and was one of two valedictorians
in 1892.
There he met his future wife, Elinor, the other
valedictorian at Lawrence High that year (St. James Encyclopedia
of Popular Culture).
Frost later enrolled into Dartmouth
College, and Elinor enrolled into St. Lawrence.
out of college soon after.
officially married.
Robert dropped
In 1895, Frost and White were
Elinor began a teaching job at the same
school Robert’s mother once taught at, while Robert worked as a
teacher and reporter.
The Frost family soon began to expand.
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By 1907, they had six children (St. James Encyclopedia of
Popular Culture).
The Frost’s soon lost their first son, Eliot
(Contemporary Authors Online).
In 1912, Frost and his family moved to England after facing
many struggles in finding income, and making ends meet.
There,
he discovered “an entirely new and exciting world of letters”
(St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture).
Frost published
his first book of poetry, A Boy’s Will, one year after living in
England.
In 1914, Frost published his second book, North of
Boston, and in 1916, his third book, Mountain Interval.
Frost
later returned to the United States as a well-known and
successful author (St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture).
Frost won four Pulitzer Prizes for his poetry in his lifetime.
He received all of the prizes he wished to receive except for
one.
The prize he longed for the most was the Nobel Prize for
Literature (St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture).
Frost
published his last book which included the poem, “for John F.
Kennedy His Inauguration.”
in poetry.
He was awarded the Bollingen Prize
On January 29, 1963, he died in Boston,
Massachusetts (Dictionary of American Biography).
Frost’s literary works showed how he felt about living his
life on a farm, and living his life in a city.
upon his feelings in his work.
Frost reflected
He often wrote in the same
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vernacular as the people spoke in the town he resided in.
of his poems were about rural life.
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Most
Frost lived on a farm most
of his life, and it was often said that Frost was seen milking
his cows late at night so he would not have to wake up early in
the mornings (American Decades).
Robert soon stopped farming in
the United States when his farm was bequeathed (St. James
Encyclopedia of Popular Culture).
and moved to England.
Frost packed up his family
There he tried farming again.
little more success this time around.
with his farm life.
He balanced his poetry
He soon began to grow bitter.
freedom in his writing.
He had a
He was very free-spirited.
He used his
He didn’t
easily allow the public to intimidate him, and rule him.
In his
poem, The Road Not Taken, Frost explains how his life was a
little harder than most people’s.
road less traveled.
He explains how he took the
His life was harder because he went against
the conformists, and created himself.
Robert Frost, in my
opinion Robert Frost made himself the great author that he was.
Simply because he took the road less traveled by
(http://www.bartleby.com/119/1.html).
“Tell me what America is, and I will tell you what poetry
is.”—Robert Frost.