The Cambridge Companion to Robert Frost

by Edited by Robert Faggen

• ISBN13: 9780521634946
• ISBN10: 0521634946
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-06-18
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

This collection of specially-commissioned essays by experts in the field explores key dimensions of Robert Frost's poetry and life. Frost remains one of the most memorable and beguiling of modern poets. Writing in the tradition of Virgil, Milton, and Wordsworth, he transformed pastoral and georgic poetry both in subject matter and form. Mastering the rhythms of ordinary speech, Frost made country life the point from which to view the world and the complexities of human psychology. The essays in this volume enable readers to explore Frost's art and thought, from the controversies of his biography to his subtle reinvention of poetic and metric traditions and the conflicts in his thought about politics, gender, science and religion. This volume will bring fresh perspectives to the lyric, narrative and dramatic poetry of an American master, and its chronology and guide to further reading will prove valuable to scholars and students alike.

Table of Contents

List of contributors	ix
Acknowledgments	x
Chronology	xi
Note on the texts	xvii
List of the poems cited	xviii
Introduction	1	(6)
Robert Faggen
``Stay Unassuming'': the Lives of Robert Frost	7	(28)
Donald G. Sheehy
Frost Biography and A Witness Tree	35	(14)
William Pritchard
Frost and the Questions of Pastoral	49	(26)
Robert Faggen
Frost and the Ancient Muses	75	(26)
Helen Bacon
Frost as a New England Poet	101	(22)
Lawrence Buell
``Across Spaces of the Footed Line'': the Meter and Versification of Robert Frost	123	(32)
Timothy Steele
Frost's Poetry of Metaphor	155	(24)
Judith Oster
Frost and the Meditative Lyric	179	(18)
Blanford Parker
Frost's Poetics of Control	197	(24)
Mark Richardson
Frost's Politics and the Cold War	221	(20)
George Monteiro
``Synonymous with Kept'': Frost and Economics	241	(20)
Guy Rotella
Human Presence in Frost's Universe	261	(12)
John Cunningham
Select bibliography	273	(3)
Index	276