American Literature

American Literature 美国文学史及选读

Lecture Ten: Robert Frost • Life and Major Works • Major Themes and Techniques • Selected Reading • Comment

I Biography of Robert Frost(1874-1963) • San Francisco—father died young—Massachusetts—a farm as gift—1912 England—Ezra Pound—A Boy’s Will(1913)—an unofficial poet Laureate—presidential inauguration

. Life and Major Works • Robert Frost, a regional poet, was born in San Francisco. • He was named after the defeated general, Robert E. Lee. • He developed a particular love for the Latin classics in the high school. High education? • A Boy’s Will(1913), published in England, brought him to the attention of the influential critics.

He became extremely popular after he published North of Boston(1914). • Frostwas awardedthe Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1924, 1931, 1937, and 1943. • In 1961 he was invited to read a poem at John F. Kennedy’s inaugural ceremonies. • Frost was the heir of the 19th-century romantic individualism.

Major Works • A Boy’s Will (1913) • North of Boston (1914) • Mountain Interval (1916) • (including The Road Not Taken) • New Hampshire (1923) • (including Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening) • West Running Brook (1928) • Completed Poems (1949) • In the Clearing (1962)

II. Major Themes and Technique • familiar subjects, such as building fences, picking apples, mending the wall • the complexity of human life • the ambiguity of nature • the relationship between men and the natural world

1. Nature and Man’s Relations to Nature • The major English-language poets from Pope and Wordsworth to Tennyson and Whitman have found in Nature’s beauty and apparent harmony proof of cosmic design and benevolent purpose • Frost’s idea is more in accordance with the 20th century spirit. He relishes nature, but ascribes to nature no overall, conscious scheme.

In “Design”, he describes a fascinating observation: a white spider perched on a white flower to devour a white moth. But instead of viewing it as nature’s perfect design, he reckons it just as a co-incidence. • The poem “The wood-pile” observes a pile of carefully chopped and sized logs, originally planned for some fine-place or wood stove, but now disintegrating into the swamp. Thus all the efforts of man are slowly obliterated by unconscious nature. Man may have a plan and purpose, but nature reveals neither.

2. Man’s Relations to each other • 3. A Regional Poet / a Poet with Regional Color • Though born in San Francisco, Frost regard New England as his true native land. Most of his works use it for a background.

Technique and Style • 1. Blank Verse, Traditional • 2. Conversational or Colloquial Style • 3. Toward a Sober, Penetrating Revelation with unforeseen depth and meaning to ordinary experience. • synthesizing traditional formal devices with vernacular speech patterns and language • the surface simplicity, and a profound understanding of life (Good fences make good neighbors.) • Writing in Wordsworthian style—simple language

In Frost work, we find traces of the Romantic love of nature coupled with a modern sense of irony. In his poems, we also find some of Thoreau’s love of isolation, Hawthorne’s dark vision, Longfellow’s traditional craftsmanship, and Dickinson’s dry humor.And we can see in his poems the influence from Emerson and Wordsworth.

Some Terms Concerning Poetry • 1. Foot (音步) • Foot is a rhythmic unit, a specific combination of stressed and unstressed syllables. • There are five kinds of regular feet in English poetry: iamb (抑扬格), trochee (扬抑格), anapest (抑抑格), dactyl (扬抑抑格) and spondee (扬扬格). • 2. Meter • Meter is a regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables. • There are monometer (单音步), dimeter (双音步), trimeter (三步), tetrameter (四步), pentameter (五步), etc.

3. Rhyme (韵脚) • Rhyme is the repetition of sounds in two or more words or phrases that usually appear close to each other in a poem. • There are end rime (尾韵), internal rime (行内韵), alliteration (头韵), full/perfect rime (全韵), and imperfect rime (半韵). • 4.Stanza (诗节) • Stanza is a structural division of a poem, consisting of a series of verse lines which usually comprise a recurring pattern of meter and rhyme. • The two-line stanza is called the couplet, the best-known being the heroic couplet written in iambic pentameter with an end rhyme. • The four-line stanza is called quatrain, which is the most popular of all stanzaic forms.

III. Selected Reading on Robert Frost • Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening • Whose woods these are I think I know. • His house is in the village, though; • He will not see me stopping here • To watch the woods fill up with snow. • My little horse must think it queer • To stop without a farmhouse near • Between the woods and frozen lake • The darkest evening of the year.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening(2) • He gives his harness bells a shake • To ask if there is some mistake. • The only other sound’s the sweep • Of easy wind and downy flake. • The woods are lovely, dark and deep, • But I have promises to keep, • And miles to go before I sleep, • And miles to go before I sleep.

雪夜林边停 • 树林属谁我自明，他家住在那村中； • 安能料到我来此，赏观大雪漫林丛。 • 小小马儿显疑情，为何偏在这儿停？ • 冰湖林间无农舍，又逢雪夜黑蒙蒙。

雪夜林边停（二） • 马儿甩动缰绳铃。欲告主人迷路经。 • 只闻轻风蔌蔌语，鹅毛雪片淅淅生。 • 夜林深沉尤可爱，信守诺言难久停。 • 找店尚早需赶路，投宿之前再远行。 ---秦秀白译

Questions • What’s the possible theme of the poem? • What are the rhythm and the rhyme scheme? • What’s the tone of the poem and how is it established? • What’s the function of the repetition in the last two lines?

The rhythm of the poem The rhythm of the poem is rigidly regular (iambic terameter四步抑扬格), and its rhyme scheme is a complex pattern of interlocking stanzas (aaba/ bbcb/ ccdc/ dddd). Each stanza is a complete sentence. 　黄源深, 周立人编著:《外国文学欣赏与批评》，上海外语教育出版社，２００３年

Sound devices • Many readers delight at discovering the h and s sounds in the poem, perhaps replicating the hiss of a sled moving through snow. • Iambic is one of the names for meter. It refers to the pattern in which an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable.

Thinking Critically—A Religious Study • The owner of the woods is God. • Whose house is in the village, that is, who has a church in the village. • The poet is mistaken when he says that God will not see him, because God can see everything. • God sent his message to through the horse.

The picture of a snowy night suggests the scene of the birth of Jesus. • In stanza four, it tells of the man’s love of God’s creation, and the awareness of our responsibilities to other human beings.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening as a short story • It can be read as a poem about a man with a death wish. • It also makes sense to read the poem as a kind of very short story. • Conflict: the appeal of the snowy woods versus the call to return to the human world. • The world at the beginning of the poem is a world of property , but the world at the end of the poem is a world of mysterious responsibilities. • Sylvan Barnet (Edited), An Introduction to Literature, Harper Collins College Publishers, 1993

Comment With very few words, Frost here creates a sense of brooding mystery as the speaker stops his horse in a landscape between woods and frozen lake. The attraction of the woods is their darkness. The speaker gazes into them with a kind of wishfulness, while his horse shakes his bells, reminder to get on with the business of living.

The repetition in the last two lines denotes a literal recognition that the speaker must move on and there is much to be done before life ends. The winter bleakness of the setting establishes a lonely tone and the symbolic weight of this brief moment when the speaker is drawn to what the woods represent---death, perhaps a temporary release from life’s duties and obligations.

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; • 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 worn them really about the same,

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. • 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.

Questions 1.What was the speaker sorry in the first stanza? 2.According to line 7, why did the second road have the better claim? 3. For what did the speaker “keep” the first road? 4. What might the roads represent? What does his choice indicate about the speaker?

Comments The poem is dealing with the division of the human mind. As a traveler on the road of life, Robert Frost wants to join two different roads, but he can only choose one of them. He chooses the one less traveled, and that makes all the difference. By this he is telling us that we should try out for new roads and new paths in life. The poem is loaded with rhythm, metaphors and greatness.

《未选之路》 • 黄色的丛林里分出两条路， • 可惜我不能同时涉足， • 我站在那路口久久伫立， • 向着一条路极目望去， • 直到它隐没在丛林深处。 • 然而我选择了另一条路， • 它荒草萋萋，十分幽静， • 显得更诱人，更美丽； • 虽然那天在这两条小路上 • 都很少留下旅人的足迹

那天清晨落叶满地 • 两条路都未经旅人踩印 • 啊，留下一条路等改日再见！ • 明知路途绵延无尽 • 我却怀疑是否应该回到原地 • 也许多年后在某个地方， • 我将轻声叹息将往事回顾； • 一片树林里分出两条路—— • 而我选择了人迹更少的一条， • 从此决定了我一生的道路。

The implication of this poem The implication of this poem is that the author realized what life was from the nature. The roads in the forest symbolize life. It is a very proper metaphor. Making a choice in front of the branch roads is in fact the choice of life. In our life, there are a lot of branches and crossings. What we choose will usually determine our future. And sometimes the road full of thorns is a challenge to us. Such a road may cause difficulty or inconvenience, but after the struggle, it always leads to success.

The phonological feature It is an end rhyme poem. The rhyme scheme is a-b-a-a-b, c-d-c-c-d, d-e-d-d-e, f-g-f-f-g. In the first segment, the rhymes are [u:] and [Eu]; in the second segment, the rhymes are [ZE] and [ei]; in the third segment, they are [ei] and [A]; and in the last segment, they are [ai] and [e]. Inverted sentences “…long I stood”, “And both that morning equally lay” also try to devote to the end rhyme of this poem.

Metaphor Metaphor is widely used in this poem. The wood symbolizes one’s life. Two roads symbolize the choices in life. “It was grassy and wanted wear” refers to the way which is less taken and needs to be explored. Here, the author encourages people to accept challenge in life even sometimes life seems hard. In fact, every person living in the world is just like a traveler in the forest.

Home work： • 1、What does Frost poetry reflect? • 2、What is Frost attitude toward modernism? • 3、Recite the two poems.

American Literature