Frost, even though knowing the deepest form of depression because of catastrophic losses, could also marvel at the nature surrounding him and transfer the beauty into poetry for others to read.
When Frost's father arrived is San Francisco looking to become a renowned journalist, he also found gambling and drinking, bad habits that left his family broke after he died in 1885, after suffering from tuberculosis (Merriman). Frost and his schoolteacher mother later traveled cross country to settle with their relatives in Massachusetts (Greenberg and Hepburn, xv). Because both his mother and paternal grandfather were teachers, Frost was introduced to a world of reading and studying works of famous poets and writers, such as William Shakespeare and Robert Burns. As a result, Frost grew a long, lasting love for nature and the outdoors which inclined him to elaborate about them in his poetry.
Frost studied at Lawrence High School where he published the poem “La Noche Triste” in the school's paper at the age of sixteen. Frost enjoyed many subjects including history, botany, Latin, and Greek. He graduated an honor student. At the age of eighteen, Frost enrolled at Dartmouth where he dropped out of college seven weeks later because of the distasteful atmosphere of campus (Merriman). Frost obtained various jobs over the next ten years that included working in a textile mill and teaching Latin at his mother's school located in Methuen, Massachusetts. Though he was working, Frost still had time to write poetry. In 1894, Frost had his poem, “My Butterfly,” published in the New York Independent. Frost also published a great deal of his works in magazines. A wish that Frost had for a long time came true in 1895, when he married Elinor White, his “sweetheart” from high school. They had six children (“Robert Frost”).
In 1897, Frost enrolled at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, but had to leave without a degree due to his poor health (Merriman). In 1899, Frost's grandfather, disappointed with his accomplishments, gave Frost a farm on the condition that he worked on the farm for ten years (Greenburg and Hepburn, xv). One year later, Frost's first born son, Elliott, died from cholera. Also, in the same year, the loss of his mother to cancer conduced greatly to Frost's grief. Seven years later in 1907, Frost's youngest daughter, Elinor Bettina, died on the day after her birth. During these hard years, Frost took comfort from the rural, secluded area of his farm and from his daily chores (Merriman).
After Frost's ten years of farming were complete, he sold his farm in 1912 and set sail for England where he was able to get his first book of poetry, A Boy's Will, published by a small London printer, David Nutt. Nutt also published Frost's second anthology, North Boston, one year later. Frost then retuned to America in 1915, where he found out that American copies of his books, North of Boston and A Boy's Will, had been published and produced a good impression on the people.
From 1915 until Frost's death, his status as an American poet was assured. Though he moved to New Hampshire then later in settled Vermont, Frost traveled many places giving lectures and public readings of his own poetry (Greenburg and Hepburn, xvi). In 1934, disaster struck again at Frost when his daughter died after giving birth to her first child. Four years later, his wife died from a heart attack. Then not long after in 1940, Carol, his son, committed suicide. After the death of his wife, Frost felt strongly attached to his employed secretary and adviser, Kay Morrison, to whom he presented one of his finest love poems “A Witness Tree” (“Robert Frost”).
After winning numerous prizes, awards, and honors such as four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry (1924, 1931, 1937, 1943), honorary degrees, including one from Cambridge, the Mark Twain Medal (1937), and the Emerson-Thoreau Medal (1958)(Greenburg and Hepburn, xvi), Robert Frost died on January 29, 1963 in Boston, Massachusetts.
Works Cited
Greenburg, Robert A. and James G. Hepburn. “Biographical Note.” Selected Poems of
Robert Frost. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1962.
Merriman, C.D. “Robert Frost.” The Literature Network. 2006. Online Literature.
(accessed 9 March 2008).
“Robert Frost.” Read Print.
(accessed 9 March 2008).
