美國文學14Robert Forst.

1、The Poetry of Robert FrostRobert Frost (1874-1963) Robert Frost was the most popular American poet of the twentieth century. Most Americans recognize his name, the titles of and lines from his best-known poems, and even his face and the sound of his voice. Given his immense popularity, it is a remar

2、kable testimony to the range and depth of his achievement that he is also considered, by those qualified to judge, to be one of the greatest, if not the very greatest, of modern American poets. Frost was awarded the Pulitzer Prize four times I. Life ExperienceI. Life Experience1.11.1Early Life Rober

3、t Frost was born in San Francisco, California on March 26, 1874. Grandfather: a prudent, hard-working, successful Massachusetts farmer Father: rebelled so violently against the New England mores that he embraced the Confederate cause during the Civil War Mother: a school teacher His father, a journa

4、list and local politician, died when Frost was eleven years old. His Scottish mother resumed her career as a schoolteacher to support her family. The family lived in Lawrence, Massachusetts, with Frosts paternal grandfather. 1.2 Marriage and education education A good student in high school A partic

5、ular love for the Latin classics 1 semester at Dartmouth. Dropped out to be teacher and journalist but he was throughout determined to make a career of poetry. Attended Harvard, but no degree In 1895 , married his high school sweetheart Elinor 1.3 Dark Years Elliott, their first child, was born on S

6、eptember 29, 1896. Elliotts death, from cholera, in July of 1900, was the first of many family tragedies that Frost would endure. Between 1899 and 1907, Elinor and Robert had five more children-another son, Carol, and four daughters, the last of whom lived for only three days. Frosts mother also die

7、d in 1900, of cancer. The following year saw the death of his grandfather, William Prescott Frost, Sr., who left his grandson a yearly annuity of $500.00 (a substantial amount at the time) and the use of his farm in Derry, New Hampshire, for a period of ten years, after which Robert would become its

8、 owner. 1.4 A Risky Move Despite his popular image as a farmer-poet, those ten years were the only period of Frosts life in which he worked seriously at farming, and in the last five of them he also found it financially necessary to teach school. He sold the farm in 1911 when it became his, and with

9、 the proceeds he moved his family to England in August 1912, hoping to find there the literary success that had eluded him in his own country. Fortunately he very soon succeeded in meeting Ezra Pound1.5 Success Abroad There he published his first collection of poems, A Boys Will(1913) followed by No

10、rth of Boston (1914), which gained international reputation. The collection contains some of Frosts best-known poems: Mending Wall, The Death of the Hired Man, Home Burial, After Apple-Picking, and The Wood-Pile. 1.6 The New American Genius After returning to the US in 1915 with his family, Frost bo

11、ught a farm near Franconia, New Hampshire. He taught later at Amherst College (1916-38) and Michigan universities. In 1916 Frost was made a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters. In the same year appeared his third collection of verse, Mountain Interval, which contained such poems as

12、The Road Not Taken, Birches, and The Hill Wife.“ 1.7 Tragedy and Depression Behind the largely unruffled public facade was a personal life of great stress and sorrow. His daughters Lesley and Irma underwent unhappy marriages and painful divorces; Irma was at one point committed to a mental hospital,

13、 as Frosts sister had been some years earlier. His daughter Marjorie, in many ways the favorite of both her parents, died shortly after the birth of her first child in 1934, a loss from which neither Frost nor his wife ever fully recovered. In March 1938, after a long and often difficult marriage, E

14、linor herself died of heart disease. In October 1940, Frosts son Carol, feeling himself a failure despite Frosts strenuous efforts to convince him otherwise, committed suicide. 1.8 A Venerated Poet None of these traumatic experiences found their way directly into Frosts poetry. At a far remove from

15、the confessional tendencies of many later American poets, he did not see his art as a form of therapy. The capstone of his public career was his appearance at John F. Kennedys Presidential inauguration in January 1961. Over the years he received a remarkable number of literary and academic honors. K

16、ennedy also sent him to the Soviet Union as a sort of cultural envoy in 1962, not long before Frosts death in a Boston hospital on January 29, 1963, eight weeks short of his eighty-ninth birthday. At the time of his death, Frost was regarded as a kind of unofficial poet laureate of the United States

17、 II. Complete PoemsComplete Poems 詩全集詩全集 A Boys Will 少年的心愿 North of Boston 波士頓以北 Mountain Interval 山間低地 New Hampshire 新罕布仕爾 West-Running Brook 小河西流 A Further Range 山外有山 A witness Tree 見證樹 Steeple Bush 絨毛繡線菊 A Masque of Reason 理性假面具 A Masque of Mercy 仁慈假面具 曹明倫 關于Frost 若干書名、篇名和一句名言的翻譯中國翻譯 02年第四期III. F

18、eatures 3.1Subject: the landscape and people in New England. deeply interested in nature and mens relations to the natural world as well as in their relations to each other. a poet of New England, he correctly objected to being considered essentially a regional poet. Mr. Frost is an honest writer, w

19、riting from himself, from his own knowledge and emotion; not simply picking up the manner which magazines are accepting at the moment, and applying it to topics in vogue. He is quite consciously and effortlessly putting New England rural life into verse. He is not using themes that anybody could hav

20、e cribbed copy out of Ovid 43BC-17AD, an ancient Roman poet.Ezra Pound, 19143.2 Traditional forms the ear does it. The ear is the only true writer and the only true reader Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down.Robert Frost But A Modern Poet uses ordinary speech within formal pa

21、tterns of line and stanza uses traditional forms and structures while exploring modern themes of alienation and isolation believed that the poets response to modern life was to revert back to traditional forms which provided a sense of order 3.3 Deceptive simplicity a. simplicity The images and meta

22、phors in his poems are drawn from the simple country life and the pastoral landscape that can be easily understood-mowing, scything, winds rustling in the grass, birds singing, as well as ponds, roads, the cycle of the seasons, and the alteration of night and day. Most of Frost s poems are short and

23、 direct on the information level, and they have simple diction. At the same time, the book is extraordinarily free from a young mans extravagances; there is no insistent obtrusion of self-strain after super-things. Neither does it belong to any modern school, nor go in harness to any new and twisted

24、 theory of art. It is so simple, lucid, and experimental that, reading a poem, one can see clearly with the poets own swift eye, and follow the trail of his glancing thought. One feels that this man has seen and felt; seen with a revelatory, a creative vision; felt personally and intensely; and he s

25、imply writes down, without confusion or affectation, the results thereof. Rarely today is it our fortune to fall in with a new poet expressing himself in so pure a vein.The Academy, 1913The language ranges from a never vulgar colloquialism to brief moments of heightened and intense simplicity. There

26、 are moments when the plain language and lack of violence make the unaffected verses look like prose, except that the sentences, if spoken aloud, are most felicitously true in rhythm to the emotion.Edward Thomas, 1914 b. deceptive: Nature and Frosts rural surroundings were for him a source for insig

27、hts from delight to wisdom, or as he also said: Literature begins with geography. profound ideas are delivered under the disguise of the plain language and the simple form. So far from being obvious, optimistic, orthodox, many of these poems are extraordinarily subtle and strange. Randall Jarrell, 1

28、953 “It would be nothing less than foolish to read Frost as a simple purveyor provider of homely truths and Yankee wisdom. It would also be a mistake to imagine that Frost is easy to understand because he is easy to read. Even Poems that focus on casual country scenes,can be maddeningly difficult.”-

29、Emory Elliot poems set in nature using common, everyday speech deep meanings exist beneath a simple exterior using contraries and contradictions This juxtaposition of the calm, often rural, peaceful surface with an underlying darkness is not uncommon in Frosts poetryIV. Mending Wall4.1 Primary under

30、standinga. What causes the gaps in the wall? b. How do the speaker and his neighbor go about repairing the wall? What are their attitudes and reasons? c. Why might a wall be necessary in the type of environment described in the poem? How does the speakers relationship with his neighbor disprove the

31、neighbors favorite saying? 4.2 Critical thinking a. What is the significance of the fact that nature breaks apart the wall each winter?b. What is the significance of the fact that the saying that the neighbor learned from his father is a clich, or an overused expression? The speaker states that his

32、neighbor repeats a saying that was passed down to him from his father, even though the saying defies logic. What other kinds of things are passed down from one generation to another which defy logic that people hold firmly as a part of their beliefs? c. What do you think the wall symbolizes?d. Which

33、 attitude towards the wall do you support? e. In a sentence for each, describe how each of the following can be seen as types of “walls”:a) racism/prejudiceb) homophobiac) sexismd) feare) povertyf) ignorance 4.3 appreciationParallelism 16 To each the boulders that have fallen to each Looks well-bala

34、nced, sounds rhythmic, brought to a conspicuous position 17 And some are loaves and some so nearly balls The parallel of two clauses Frosts metaphor of the stones in the wall being loaves or balls alludes to how people can put anything, even simple inanimate objects such as these or a wall, between

35、one another. The separation therefore embodied by the wall occurs everywhere and at all times, and pervades every aspect of our lives and interactions with others. 24 He is all pine and I am apple orchard Foregrounded because of the violation of collocation rules Pine trees are coniferous trees that

36、 tend to be more isolated from nonconiferous trees. When pine trees are around other plants they often harm the soil that the plants are in. This tells the audience something about the type of man this neighbor is and why he chooses to maintain a wall between the houses. He wants to cut himself off

37、from human interaction. Apple trees are almost the exact opposite of pine trees. Apple trees are found near other trees and their roots nourish the soil, thus creating a better living environment for the trees around it. The speakers representation of the apple tree demonstrates his liking for human

38、 interaction and personal relationships, thus explaining why he wants the wall down. probably “pine” and “apple” conceals a pun- “pineapple”, which is a conventional symbol of hospitality.If “pine” and “apple” are connected, there is warm neighbourliness and friendship. But now, with a wall blocking

39、 communication and understanding,warmness is impossible. SimileHe said it for himself. I see him there 38Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top 39In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed. 40 The speaker uses a simile in these lines to compare the neighbor to a caveman. This is an effective c

40、omparison since a caveman is not very intelligent and is unable to make good decisions. The simile tells the audience that the speaker feels that the neighbor is being bound by traditional views of division, and is not open or able to comprehend the ideas of friendship and unity. The neighbor does n

41、ot even consider what he is saying, he just repeats it as if is he dull-witted. Additionally this passage also expresses the fact that the speakers philosophy is outdated, or of a cavemans time.Repetition “I” “he” “wall” 14 7 9 “Something there is that doesnt love a wall.” “Good fences make good nei

42、ghbours.” The final repetition of the neighbors feelings towards walls emphasizes the neighbors stubbornness and close-mindedness. No matter what the speaker says or does, the neighbor will not change his mind. He is so bound by his traditional views that he has become unable to explain his feelings

43、. Instead all he can do is repeat his statement. This poem teaches us to build bridges, not fences or to unite rather than divide. Creating positive relationships with our neighbors and other people in our lives is one of the most vital tasks to our existence so we cannot allow ourselves to be close

44、-minded or prejudiced. Form Blank verse is the baseline meter of this poem, but few of the lines march along in blank verses characteristic lock-step iambs, five abreast. Frost maintains five stressed syllables per line, but he varies the feet extensively to sustain the natural speech-like quality o

45、f the verse. There are no stanza breaks, obvious end-rhymes, or rhyming patterns, but many of the end-words share an assonance (e.g., wall, hill, balls, wall, and well sun, thing, stone, mean, line, and again or game, them, and him twice). Internal rhymes, too, are subtle, slanted, and conceivably c

46、oincidental. The vocabulary is all of a piece-no fancy words, all short (only one word, another, is of three syllables), all conversational-and this is perhaps why the words resonate so consummately with each other in sound and feel. Some say the world will end in fire,Some say in ice.From what Ive

47、tasted of desireI hold with those who favor fire.But if it had to perish twice,I think I know enough of hateTo say that for destruction iceIs also greatAnd would suffice. - Robert Frost, 1923V. Fire and IceQuestionsa. How do you understand “fire” and “ice” in the poem? b. Why do you think the poet prefers fire to ice? Form an invented form, irregularly interweaving three rhymes and two line lengths into a poem of nine lines. Each line ends either with an -