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.