By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
‘The Gift Outright’ is a Robert Frost poem, written in the 1930s but not published until 1942. The poem had a curious afterlife nearly twenty years later, at the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy, and it was all down to sunlight.
But before we get to that, it might be worth summarising the meaning of ‘The Gift Outright’, and offering some words of analysis. You can read the poem here.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
‘Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening’ is, after ‘The Road Not Taken’, Robert Frost’s best-known and best-loved poem. (Frost himself called it ‘my best bid for remembrance’.)
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
‘Fire and Ice’ is one of the best-known and most widely anthologised poems by the American poet Robert Frost (1874-1963). The poem has a symbolic, even allegorical quality to it, which makes more sense when it is analysed in its literary and historical context. Frost wrote ‘Fire and Ice’ in 1920, and it was published in Harper’s Magazine in December of that year.
You can read ‘Fire and Ice’ here before proceeding to our analysis of the poem below.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Any list of the top ten best poems by such a major poet as Robert Frost (1874-1963) is bound to inspire disagreement or, at least, discussion; but we thought we’d throw our literary cap in the ring and offer our own selection of Robert Frost’s greatest poems, along with a little bit about each poem. Do you agree with our recommendations? What should/shouldn’t be on this list, in your view?
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
‘The Road Not Taken’ is one of Robert Frost’s most famous poems. It appeared in his first collection, Mountain Interval, in 1916; indeed, ‘The Road Not Taken’ opens the volume. For this reason, it’s natural and understandable that many readers take the poem to be Frost’s statement of individualism as a poet: he will take ‘the road less travelled’.