WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.060 The deep dive is, well, it's really all about 00:00:02.060 --> 00:00:05.219 finding that essential shimmering truth that's, 00:00:05.219 --> 00:00:07.719 you know, hidden beneath these huge stacks of 00:00:07.719 --> 00:00:09.919 source material. Exactly. Sifting through it 00:00:09.919 --> 00:00:13.939 all. And today we are going way beyond the postcard 00:00:13.939 --> 00:00:17.280 image of, I mean, he's one of America's few true 00:00:17.280 --> 00:00:20.359 literary institutions. He really is. Robert Frost. 00:00:20.620 --> 00:00:22.839 Most people, they know Frost from their school 00:00:22.839 --> 00:00:24.859 anthologies. Oh, absolutely. He's that friendly 00:00:24.859 --> 00:00:27.339 farmer thinking about a snowy evening or, you 00:00:27.339 --> 00:00:29.019 know, the guy who tells us to take the road less 00:00:29.019 --> 00:00:32.469 track. Right. But that very familiar, that folksy 00:00:32.469 --> 00:00:36.909 image, the homespun rustic, it really obscures 00:00:36.909 --> 00:00:40.009 a writer of, I mean, profound complexity, deep 00:00:40.009 --> 00:00:42.689 innovation, and to be frank, just relentless 00:00:42.689 --> 00:00:45.210 personal tragedy. And that is precisely our mission 00:00:45.210 --> 00:00:47.530 today. We've been handed this immense body of 00:00:47.530 --> 00:00:49.770 work, biographical details, critical histories, 00:00:49.929 --> 00:00:52.630 all the analyses of his style, and a full accounting 00:00:52.630 --> 00:00:54.869 of his public and private life. It's a lot to 00:00:54.869 --> 00:00:57.820 get through. It is. So our goal is to synthesize 00:00:57.820 --> 00:01:01.579 these, well, these contrasting viewpoints. We're 00:01:01.579 --> 00:01:04.379 here to reconcile the public icon of American 00:01:04.379 --> 00:01:08.180 literature, the man who gave presidential inaugurations 00:01:08.180 --> 00:01:11.420 the sort of poetic gravitas with the darker, 00:01:11.500 --> 00:01:14.719 deeply tragic, almost existential modernist figure 00:01:14.719 --> 00:01:17.099 that critics and, you know, people like Randall 00:01:17.099 --> 00:01:19.780 Jarrell in particular eventually recognized. 00:01:19.780 --> 00:01:23.900 And that reconciliation. It really matters. It 00:01:23.900 --> 00:01:26.599 matters because Frost's legacy is so unique. 00:01:26.819 --> 00:01:30.019 Our sources all emphasize this point, that he 00:01:30.019 --> 00:01:33.299 achieved a status very few literary figures ever 00:01:33.299 --> 00:01:35.680 reach. Which is what? Exactly. He became a public 00:01:35.680 --> 00:01:37.599 literary figure, almost an artistic institution. 00:01:37.859 --> 00:01:41.280 And the measure of that. That institutional status 00:01:41.280 --> 00:01:43.319 is hard to overstate. So we're talking about 00:01:43.319 --> 00:01:45.500 more than just being famous. Oh, way more. He 00:01:45.500 --> 00:01:48.540 is the only poet in history to receive four Pulitzer 00:01:48.540 --> 00:01:51.920 Prizes for poetry. Four? Four. That kind of enduring 00:01:51.920 --> 00:01:54.379 high -level acceptance from the literary establishment, 00:01:54.579 --> 00:01:57.200 it suggests a consensus about his genius that 00:01:57.200 --> 00:01:59.560 often smooths out all the complexity. It takes 00:01:59.560 --> 00:02:01.219 it out of the picture. So our job is to put that 00:02:01.219 --> 00:02:03.799 complexity back in. We have to. Right. So let's 00:02:03.799 --> 00:02:06.780 unpack this. A public titan, but one who is hiding 00:02:06.780 --> 00:02:11.659 this. private and artistic darkness. To really 00:02:11.659 --> 00:02:13.900 understand that dichotomy, we have to start at 00:02:13.900 --> 00:02:16.259 the beginning. And the beginning is probably 00:02:16.259 --> 00:02:19.479 not where most people think it is. Almost certainly 00:02:19.479 --> 00:02:22.740 not. So if you, the listener, are picturing Robert 00:02:22.740 --> 00:02:25.960 Frost as a lifelong resident of some rural Vermont 00:02:25.960 --> 00:02:27.979 town you are, well, you're only about half right. 00:02:28.120 --> 00:02:30.439 Right. His origins were surprisingly distant 00:02:30.439 --> 00:02:32.639 from the snow -covered stone walls he would later 00:02:32.639 --> 00:02:35.699 immortalize. Robert Lee Frost was born in San 00:02:35.699 --> 00:02:40.939 Francisco, California on March 26, 1874. It's 00:02:40.939 --> 00:02:43.400 a point that always, always catches people off 00:02:43.400 --> 00:02:46.360 guard. He was, you know, initially a West Coast 00:02:46.360 --> 00:02:48.280 boy. And his family background sort of explains 00:02:48.280 --> 00:02:50.740 the move, right? The volatility. Absolutely. 00:02:50.780 --> 00:02:52.740 The nature of his parentage explains why the 00:02:52.740 --> 00:02:54.759 family dynamic was so volatile and why he eventually 00:02:54.759 --> 00:02:58.379 ended up moving east. His father, William Prescott 00:02:58.379 --> 00:03:00.979 Frost Jr., he was involved in both media and 00:03:00.979 --> 00:03:04.030 politics. A journalist. A journalist and editor 00:03:04.030 --> 00:03:06.689 of the San Francisco Evening Bulletin. And on 00:03:06.689 --> 00:03:09.550 top of that, he had political ambitions. He ran 00:03:09.550 --> 00:03:12.770 unsuccessfully for city tax collector. Okay. 00:03:12.849 --> 00:03:15.810 His mother, Isabel Moody, was a Scottish immigrant. 00:03:16.169 --> 00:03:19.330 So you get this immediate mix of... you know 00:03:19.330 --> 00:03:21.810 scottish intellectualism on one hand and this 00:03:21.810 --> 00:03:24.110 kind of hard -nosed american media and political 00:03:24.110 --> 00:03:26.050 ambition on the other it sounds like a pretty 00:03:26.050 --> 00:03:28.629 restless ambitious environment to grow up in 00:03:28.629 --> 00:03:31.389 i'd say so but that whole world was i mean just 00:03:31.389 --> 00:03:34.090 violently disrupted by a tragedy and then financial 00:03:34.090 --> 00:03:36.870 collapse so the move east wasn't some kind of 00:03:36.870 --> 00:03:39.310 pilgrimage back to the family roots no not at 00:03:39.310 --> 00:03:41.689 all it was a desperate flight a completely desperate 00:03:41.689 --> 00:03:44.629 flight when frost was just 11 his father died 00:03:44.629 --> 00:03:49.259 of tuberculosis this was may fee 1885. And this 00:03:49.259 --> 00:03:51.840 left the family, his mother, him, and his younger 00:03:51.840 --> 00:03:54.639 sister, completely destitute. And the sources 00:03:54.639 --> 00:03:56.639 paint a really stark picture of that. They do. 00:03:56.800 --> 00:03:59.719 They were left with only $8. $8. Just try to 00:03:59.719 --> 00:04:03.080 imagine that. And it forced them to move across 00:04:03.080 --> 00:04:05.680 the entire country to Lawrence, Massachusetts, 00:04:05.740 --> 00:04:09.039 where they had to rely on the financial patronage 00:04:09.039 --> 00:04:11.819 of his paternal grandfather, William Frost Sr. 00:04:12.120 --> 00:04:15.000 And he worked in a mill. Yeah, he was an overseer 00:04:15.000 --> 00:04:17.579 at a New England mill. And it was the grandfather 00:04:17.579 --> 00:04:21.000 who provided the means for Frost to return to 00:04:21.000 --> 00:04:23.259 the landscape that he would later come to define. 00:04:23.610 --> 00:04:25.610 That shift in environment must have been jarring. 00:04:25.750 --> 00:04:28.110 I mean, going from the world of West Coast journalism 00:04:28.110 --> 00:04:30.569 to the strict oversight of a New England mill 00:04:30.569 --> 00:04:33.990 family, that had to have shaped his entire perspective. 00:04:34.269 --> 00:04:36.490 Oh, for sure. And this early instability, it 00:04:36.490 --> 00:04:38.750 seems like it was mirrored in his academic career, 00:04:39.009 --> 00:04:41.269 which is just remarkable when you consider how 00:04:41.269 --> 00:04:43.930 many honorary degrees he collected later in life. 00:04:44.050 --> 00:04:46.329 It really speaks to the man's intellectual independence. 00:04:46.829 --> 00:04:49.050 He was always interested in learning, but he, 00:04:49.069 --> 00:04:51.089 you know, he often rejected the structure of 00:04:51.089 --> 00:04:53.730 formal institutions. He had some early success 00:04:53.730 --> 00:04:56.310 in school. He did. He graduated from Lawrence 00:04:56.310 --> 00:05:00.170 High School in 1892. He was the class poet and 00:05:00.170 --> 00:05:02.550 co -valedictorian, actually, alongside his future 00:05:02.550 --> 00:05:06.269 wife, Eleanor White. And that same year, he published 00:05:06.269 --> 00:05:08.790 his first poem in the school magazine. So the 00:05:08.790 --> 00:05:10.990 talent was definitely there, and it was recognized 00:05:10.990 --> 00:05:14.629 early on. But the institutional commitment, not 00:05:14.629 --> 00:05:16.750 so much. He enrolls at Dartmouth College, but 00:05:16.750 --> 00:05:19.069 our sources say he stays for just two months. 00:05:19.089 --> 00:05:22.029 Two months. Then he goes home. And then later... 00:05:22.170 --> 00:05:24.189 He tries again. Yeah. He goes to Harvard University 00:05:24.189 --> 00:05:27.610 from 1897 to 1899. But he leaves there too. He 00:05:27.610 --> 00:05:30.790 left Harvard voluntarily, citing illness. And 00:05:30.790 --> 00:05:33.209 the key detail here is that he earned no degree 00:05:33.209 --> 00:05:35.850 from either institution. That's incredible. And 00:05:35.850 --> 00:05:37.790 it's a recurring pattern, you know, in the lives 00:05:37.790 --> 00:05:40.870 of so many great artists who just, they chafe 00:05:40.870 --> 00:05:43.079 against formalized learning. And even though 00:05:43.079 --> 00:05:44.620 he would later teach at the most prestigious 00:05:44.620 --> 00:05:47.779 universities, Amherst, Michigan, Harvard, he 00:05:47.779 --> 00:05:50.040 always kept this deep skepticism of academic 00:05:50.040 --> 00:05:53.300 rigidity. And that, I think, informed his rejection 00:05:53.300 --> 00:05:56.240 of certain modernist trends later on. I think 00:05:56.240 --> 00:05:58.399 we have to just pause on those years right after 00:05:58.399 --> 00:06:00.800 college, that time when he was so desperately 00:06:00.800 --> 00:06:02.920 trying to find his footing, trying to balance 00:06:02.920 --> 00:06:05.899 his poetic ambition with. I mean, the brutal 00:06:05.899 --> 00:06:08.139 realities of just making a living. Those were 00:06:08.139 --> 00:06:10.860 incredibly hard years. They were filled with 00:06:10.860 --> 00:06:14.019 jobs he found completely unsatisfying. Like what? 00:06:14.160 --> 00:06:16.899 He worked as a teacher for, as the source puts 00:06:16.899 --> 00:06:20.379 it, unruly boys, which sounds like a thankless 00:06:20.379 --> 00:06:22.800 task. To say the least. He delivered newspapers. 00:06:23.259 --> 00:06:25.620 He even maintained the carbon arc lamps in a 00:06:25.620 --> 00:06:27.730 factory. I mean, just think about that. This 00:06:27.730 --> 00:06:31.490 mundane mechanical task so far removed from the 00:06:31.490 --> 00:06:34.069 artistic work he felt compelled to do. But that 00:06:34.069 --> 00:06:38.149 experience with physical, often grim labor, that 00:06:38.149 --> 00:06:40.209 must have provided the authentic bedrock for 00:06:40.209 --> 00:06:42.610 the rural realism that, you know, just permeates 00:06:42.610 --> 00:06:45.050 his poetry. Absolutely. He knew what manual labor 00:06:45.050 --> 00:06:46.870 felt like, even if he wasn't particularly good 00:06:46.870 --> 00:06:49.529 at it. And then finally came the first significant 00:06:49.529 --> 00:06:52.110 artistic victory, a real affirmation that he 00:06:52.110 --> 00:06:55.569 was on the right path. Yes. In 1894, he sold 00:06:55.569 --> 00:06:57.670 his first professional poem. It was called My 00:06:57.670 --> 00:07:01.110 Butterfly, an elegy. And he sold it to the Independent 00:07:01.110 --> 00:07:03.649 of New York. For how much? The price was $15. 00:07:04.089 --> 00:07:07.750 $15. Which our sources calculate is roughly $545 00:07:07.750 --> 00:07:12.560 today. And that small injection of cash and maybe 00:07:12.560 --> 00:07:15.399 more importantly, validation. It must have been 00:07:15.399 --> 00:07:18.139 monumental for a young man struggling to prove 00:07:18.139 --> 00:07:20.560 his calling against his family's expectations. 00:07:21.000 --> 00:07:23.420 And it seems like that affirmation led directly 00:07:23.420 --> 00:07:26.819 to a major life decision. It did. He married 00:07:26.819 --> 00:07:30.139 Eleanor Miriam White in December of 1895, right 00:07:30.139 --> 00:07:32.000 after she graduated from St. Lawrence University. 00:07:32.560 --> 00:07:35.540 And their early life was, you know. More struggle 00:07:35.540 --> 00:07:37.500 teaching, trying to make ends meet, and again, 00:07:37.620 --> 00:07:39.860 the patronage of his grandfather. The grandfather 00:07:39.860 --> 00:07:42.319 steps in again. He essentially bankrolled the 00:07:42.319 --> 00:07:45.029 next crucial period of Frost's life. He purchased 00:07:45.029 --> 00:07:47.430 a farm for Robert and Eleanor in Derry, New Hampshire. 00:07:47.610 --> 00:07:49.949 And this is the famous Derry Farm period. That's 00:07:49.949 --> 00:07:52.250 the one. It lasted for nine years, from 1900 00:07:52.250 --> 00:07:55.149 to 1909. And it's so important because Freud 00:07:55.149 --> 00:07:57.329 used this period to really develop his voice. 00:07:57.569 --> 00:08:00.170 He was working the farm, but dedicating his early 00:08:00.170 --> 00:08:01.850 mornings to writing. And this is where some of 00:08:01.850 --> 00:08:03.889 the big ones came from. So many famous early 00:08:03.889 --> 00:08:06.250 poems, Tree at My Window, Mending Wall, they 00:08:06.250 --> 00:08:08.490 were born right there on that farm. But the great 00:08:08.490 --> 00:08:10.889 irony here, and we'll see this irony repeated 00:08:10.889 --> 00:08:13.910 in his themes over and over, is that while he 00:08:13.910 --> 00:08:16.610 became the ultimate literary voice of New England 00:08:16.610 --> 00:08:19.870 farm life, he was a total failure at farming 00:08:19.870 --> 00:08:23.170 itself. A complete financial failure. The farming 00:08:23.170 --> 00:08:25.870 endeavor just didn't work out, which forced him 00:08:25.870 --> 00:08:28.709 back into the one stable profession he had, which 00:08:28.709 --> 00:08:30.949 was teaching. So he goes back to the classroom. 00:08:31.149 --> 00:08:33.809 He taught English at Pinkerton Academy from 1906 00:08:33.809 --> 00:08:36.429 to 1911 and then at the New Hampshire Normal 00:08:36.429 --> 00:08:39.340 School. he just he realized that to support his 00:08:39.340 --> 00:08:42.950 poetry he had to teach And this period of struggle 00:08:42.950 --> 00:08:47.169 and false starts leads us to maybe the most pivotal, 00:08:47.269 --> 00:08:49.509 almost unbelievable decision of his early career. 00:08:49.710 --> 00:08:51.730 It's a huge gamble. After all these attempts 00:08:51.730 --> 00:08:53.629 to establish himself in New England, he just 00:08:53.629 --> 00:08:56.370 packs up his whole family in 1912 and sails to 00:08:56.370 --> 00:08:58.850 Great Britain. This move was absolutely crucial. 00:08:59.029 --> 00:09:01.669 You have to remember, he was 38 years old. Right. 00:09:01.730 --> 00:09:04.250 Not a kid anymore. Not at all. And he had completely 00:09:04.250 --> 00:09:06.830 failed to gain any real traction with American 00:09:06.830 --> 00:09:09.789 publishers. He believed, and he was correct. 00:09:10.240 --> 00:09:12.240 that he needed a fresh start and a different 00:09:12.240 --> 00:09:15.240 audience. So where in England did they go? He 00:09:15.240 --> 00:09:18.000 settled first in Beaconsfield in Buckinghamshire, 00:09:18.080 --> 00:09:21.299 just outside London. And within a year, one year, 00:09:21.519 --> 00:09:24.879 he had his debut collection, A Boy's Will, published 00:09:24.879 --> 00:09:29.070 in London. Wow. In 1913. It literally took crossing 00:09:29.070 --> 00:09:32.070 an ocean for America to finally recognize its 00:09:32.070 --> 00:09:34.610 own native genius. And the sources really emphasize 00:09:34.610 --> 00:09:37.110 that while he was in England, he didn't just 00:09:37.110 --> 00:09:39.909 publish. He connected with the intellectual heavyweights 00:09:39.909 --> 00:09:42.549 of the time. He really did. He met several influential 00:09:42.549 --> 00:09:44.850 figures who were shaping the whole literary landscape. 00:09:45.049 --> 00:09:48.299 People like T .E. Holm. the Georgian poet Edward 00:09:48.299 --> 00:09:51.820 Thomas, and the great facilitator of modernism 00:09:51.820 --> 00:09:53.840 himself, Ezra Pound. And Edward Thomas became 00:09:53.840 --> 00:09:55.679 a close friend, right? A very close friend. And 00:09:55.679 --> 00:09:57.620 our sources note he was the inspiration behind 00:09:57.620 --> 00:09:59.559 what is probably the most famous and certainly 00:09:59.559 --> 00:10:02.480 the most often misunderstood poem in the English 00:10:02.480 --> 00:10:05.019 language. The Road Not Taken. The Road Not Taken. 00:10:05.230 --> 00:10:07.450 And that is such a fascinating detail that a 00:10:07.450 --> 00:10:10.649 poem that everyone accepts as this ode to fierce 00:10:10.649 --> 00:10:13.529 individualism was really inspired by the simple 00:10:13.529 --> 00:10:17.210 fact that his friend Edward Thomas was just pathologically 00:10:17.210 --> 00:10:20.429 unable to make a decision. Exactly. He couldn't 00:10:20.429 --> 00:10:22.370 decide which path to follow on their long walks 00:10:22.370 --> 00:10:24.669 and was always worrying about what they missed. 00:10:24.830 --> 00:10:26.850 The path was always the road not taken for Thomas. 00:10:27.090 --> 00:10:29.970 Always. It just shows how Frost could transform 00:10:29.970 --> 00:10:33.529 this mundane, everyday reality into a profound 00:10:33.529 --> 00:10:36.350 philosophical meditation. And what about Pound? 00:10:36.409 --> 00:10:39.169 How did that relationship work? Well, Pound gave 00:10:39.169 --> 00:10:42.090 A Boy's Will a favorable review. He was one of 00:10:42.090 --> 00:10:44.870 the first American critics to do so. But Frost... 00:10:45.179 --> 00:10:47.779 He later resented Pound's attempts to manipulate 00:10:47.779 --> 00:10:49.740 his American prosody. He didn't want to be shaped 00:10:49.740 --> 00:10:52.820 by him. No. He was fiercely independent, even 00:10:52.820 --> 00:10:54.899 when he was interacting with the powerful gatekeepers 00:10:54.899 --> 00:10:57.600 of the new modernist movement. So he finally 00:10:57.600 --> 00:11:00.480 returns to America in 1915, right in the middle 00:11:00.480 --> 00:11:03.120 of the chaos of World War I. He has two published 00:11:03.120 --> 00:11:05.419 collections from London at a boy's will and north 00:11:05.419 --> 00:11:08.399 of Boston, and he immediately buys another farm 00:11:08.399 --> 00:11:11.240 in Franconia, New Hampshire. And the rest, as 00:11:11.240 --> 00:11:14.059 they say, is history. But the key takeaway from 00:11:14.059 --> 00:11:16.440 this first part is that the Robert Frost we all 00:11:16.440 --> 00:11:19.159 think we know, the one who seems so native to 00:11:19.159 --> 00:11:22.179 the granite and pine of New England, he was forged 00:11:22.179 --> 00:11:24.799 not by success or a stable environment, but by 00:11:24.799 --> 00:11:27.440 failure, geographical displacement, financial 00:11:27.440 --> 00:11:29.720 struggle, and, you know, the critical eye of 00:11:29.720 --> 00:11:31.879 British modernism. That's it, exactly. And that 00:11:31.879 --> 00:11:34.700 sets the stage perfectly for analyzing his style, 00:11:34.759 --> 00:11:37.759 because here is the great contradiction. He looked 00:11:37.759 --> 00:11:40.320 traditional, but the engine of his poetry was, 00:11:40.519 --> 00:11:43.580 in its own way, revolutionary. His revolution 00:11:43.580 --> 00:11:46.899 was just. It was subtle. It was disguised as 00:11:46.899 --> 00:11:49.879 common talk. Frost's distinct approach was built 00:11:49.879 --> 00:11:52.519 on this uncompromising fusion of realism and 00:11:52.519 --> 00:11:54.480 language. That's about how it sounds. It's all 00:11:54.480 --> 00:11:57.019 about how it sounds. Critics consistently praise 00:11:57.019 --> 00:11:59.840 his realistic depictions of rural life combined 00:11:59.840 --> 00:12:02.379 with his, I mean, unparalleled command of American 00:12:02.379 --> 00:12:04.519 colloquial speech. There's a great quote from 00:12:04.519 --> 00:12:06.799 Ellman and Eau Claire on this. Yes, they pointed 00:12:06.799 --> 00:12:08.679 out that his poetry shows a successful striving 00:12:08.679 --> 00:12:11.100 for utter colloquialism. He took the way people 00:12:11.100 --> 00:12:13.580 actually spoke, the idioms, the slang, the local 00:12:13.580 --> 00:12:16.379 accent, and he just elevated to high art. And 00:12:16.379 --> 00:12:19.399 this commitment to natural rhythm and intonation 00:12:19.399 --> 00:12:22.860 brings us to the core technical innovation he 00:12:22.860 --> 00:12:25.080 championed, especially when he was teaching. 00:12:25.399 --> 00:12:29.210 He called it the sound of sense. The sound of 00:12:29.210 --> 00:12:31.730 sense is absolutely foundational. It's what separates 00:12:31.730 --> 00:12:35.149 Frost from his Victorian predecessors. He wasn't 00:12:35.149 --> 00:12:36.990 just concerned with the meaning of the words 00:12:36.990 --> 00:12:40.509 or the strict meter of the line. So what was 00:12:40.509 --> 00:12:42.980 he concerned with? He encouraged his students 00:12:42.980 --> 00:12:45.860 to account for the myriad sounds and intonations 00:12:45.860 --> 00:12:48.100 of the spoken English language in their writing. 00:12:48.220 --> 00:12:50.600 So it wasn't enough to just write a line of iambic 00:12:50.600 --> 00:12:53.139 pentameter that scanned correctly. No, not at 00:12:53.139 --> 00:12:55.399 all. If a New England farmer would never actually 00:12:55.399 --> 00:12:58.159 say that line with that particular stress or 00:12:58.159 --> 00:13:01.019 pause, then for Frost it was a poetic failure. 00:13:01.460 --> 00:13:03.919 Precisely. The meaning has to be conveyed not 00:13:03.919 --> 00:13:05.840 just by the dictionary definition of the words, 00:13:05.919 --> 00:13:08.320 but by the actual rhythm of the sentence as it's 00:13:08.320 --> 00:13:11.429 spoken aloud. where the voice naturally pauses, 00:13:11.429 --> 00:13:13.409 where it stresses a word, where it drops in pitch. 00:13:13.570 --> 00:13:16.090 It's like the music of the language. It is. He 00:13:16.090 --> 00:13:18.450 argued that these patterns convey meaning and 00:13:18.450 --> 00:13:20.990 emotion independently of the words themselves. 00:13:21.970 --> 00:13:24.190 It's similar to how you can recognize a voice 00:13:24.190 --> 00:13:26.529 pattern from another room, even if you can't 00:13:26.529 --> 00:13:29.190 make out the words being mumbled. He captured 00:13:29.190 --> 00:13:31.330 the essence of American conversational rhythm 00:13:31.330 --> 00:13:34.269 and then brilliantly poured it into classical 00:13:34.269 --> 00:13:37.289 forms. And this is where... the conflict with 00:13:37.289 --> 00:13:39.909 his contemporaries, the high modernists, becomes 00:13:39.909 --> 00:13:42.870 really obvious. Because while they were all busy 00:13:42.870 --> 00:13:45.769 tearing down structure, he was fiercely defending 00:13:45.769 --> 00:13:48.610 it, which leads to one of his most famous quotes. 00:13:48.789 --> 00:13:51.830 Right. He famously rejected free verse, which 00:13:51.830 --> 00:13:54.549 was the dominant trend being practiced by Pound, 00:13:54.690 --> 00:13:57.809 Elliott, Williams, all of them. He described 00:13:57.809 --> 00:14:00.889 it as like playing tennis without a net. He was 00:14:00.889 --> 00:14:03.710 adamant that those self -imposed rules were necessary. 00:14:04.090 --> 00:14:06.830 He was. But OK, if he was so committed to structure, 00:14:06.970 --> 00:14:09.049 why do we consider him a modernist? I mean, doesn't 00:14:09.049 --> 00:14:11.190 that rejection of free verse place him firmly 00:14:11.190 --> 00:14:13.549 in the 19th century? That's the brilliant paradox 00:14:13.549 --> 00:14:15.590 you have to understand. He believed the limitations 00:14:15.590 --> 00:14:18.230 of meter were actually liberating. They forced 00:14:18.230 --> 00:14:20.889 him to work harder to make the colloquial language 00:14:20.889 --> 00:14:23.529 fit the rhythm. And that ensured the language 00:14:23.529 --> 00:14:25.710 didn't just sprawl out casually. It was condensed. 00:14:25.950 --> 00:14:28.700 It was powerful. And it was. utterly authentic 00:14:28.700 --> 00:14:31.399 to the sound of american speech the poetry foundation 00:14:31.399 --> 00:14:34.440 has a great line about this they nailed it they 00:14:34.440 --> 00:14:36.840 said his work stood at the crossroads of 19th 00:14:36.840 --> 00:14:39.559 century american poetry the traditional forms 00:14:39.559 --> 00:14:43.240 and modernism the idiomatic language he used 00:14:43.240 --> 00:14:45.730 the form of the past to house the voice of the 00:14:45.730 --> 00:14:49.330 present. He used the net to guarantee a tighter, 00:14:49.370 --> 00:14:51.990 more engaging game. Perfect way to put it. And 00:14:51.990 --> 00:14:54.289 if we look at his philosophy on writing, especially 00:14:54.289 --> 00:14:57.009 in that 1939 essay, The Figure a Poem Makes, 00:14:57.169 --> 00:15:00.129 this focus on authentic expression over just, 00:15:00.210 --> 00:15:03.240 you know, formal adherence. really shines through. 00:15:03.399 --> 00:15:06.259 That essay is mandatory reading for anyone interested 00:15:06.259 --> 00:15:08.720 in poetry. He wasn't interested in rigid academic 00:15:08.720 --> 00:15:11.360 exercises. He was interested in discovery. And 00:15:11.360 --> 00:15:13.759 he lays out what makes a successful poem. He 00:15:13.759 --> 00:15:15.779 does. And it's all focused on genuine emotional 00:15:15.779 --> 00:15:18.059 and intellectual engagement. The famous quote 00:15:18.059 --> 00:15:20.820 is, no tears in the writer, no tears in the reader, 00:15:21.000 --> 00:15:23.059 no surprise for the writer, no surprise for the 00:15:23.059 --> 00:15:26.639 reader. And then he continues. For me, the initial 00:15:26.639 --> 00:15:29.240 delight is in the surprise of remembering something 00:15:29.240 --> 00:15:32.679 I didn't know I knew. That concept, the surprise 00:15:32.679 --> 00:15:34.620 of remembering something you didn't know you 00:15:34.620 --> 00:15:38.059 knew, that suggests the poet isn't just a craftsman 00:15:38.059 --> 00:15:40.460 following a blueprint. They're more like an archaeologist 00:15:40.460 --> 00:15:43.059 of their own mind. Exactly. Uncovering connections. 00:15:43.779 --> 00:15:46.399 He viewed the writing process as a journey of 00:15:46.399 --> 00:15:50.450 revelation. He believed poetry. must be a revelation 00:15:50.450 --> 00:15:53.649 or a series of revelations for the poet as for 00:15:53.649 --> 00:15:56.950 the reader. Okay. And to get that profound, surprising 00:15:56.950 --> 00:16:00.149 insight, the poem requires, and this is his phrase, 00:16:00.330 --> 00:16:02.549 the greatest freedom of the material to move 00:16:02.549 --> 00:16:04.970 about in it. Which is so interesting. It's crucial. 00:16:05.509 --> 00:16:08.049 The structure of the meter gave him enough control 00:16:08.049 --> 00:16:11.230 to allow the material the subconscious associations, 00:16:11.610 --> 00:16:14.409 the emotional memories, to move freely and establish 00:16:14.409 --> 00:16:17.149 these surprising new relationships. And the material 00:16:17.149 --> 00:16:18.970 that emerged from that process, when you look 00:16:18.970 --> 00:16:21.269 at it closely, was, well, it was far from the 00:16:21.269 --> 00:16:23.429 pleasant pastoral scenes that America fell in 00:16:23.429 --> 00:16:25.509 love with. Not at all. Let's talk about the themes 00:16:25.509 --> 00:16:27.789 of his poetry, because this is where that duality 00:16:27.789 --> 00:16:30.490 is most apparent. Thematically, Frost is just 00:16:30.490 --> 00:16:32.730 deeply divided between the light and the dark. 00:16:33.070 --> 00:16:35.929 And the critical reception, even early on, reflected 00:16:35.929 --> 00:16:38.429 this tension. who was one of the first to point 00:16:38.429 --> 00:16:41.129 out the darkness. A critic named T .K. Whipple. 00:16:41.509 --> 00:16:44.789 He noted the absolute dark background of life 00:16:44.789 --> 00:16:47.809 in rural New England. Frost understood that isolation 00:16:47.809 --> 00:16:51.049 and indifference were central to that rural experience. 00:16:51.490 --> 00:16:53.389 And you see this especially in North of Boston. 00:16:53.549 --> 00:16:56.470 Oh, absolutely. His poetry, especially the dramatic 00:16:56.470 --> 00:16:59.289 monologues in that book, they often depict the 00:16:59.289 --> 00:17:02.070 loneliness of the individual in an indifferent 00:17:02.070 --> 00:17:05.420 universe. And he shows how that isolation could 00:17:05.420 --> 00:17:09.279 sometimes sink into total madness. But for every 00:17:09.279 --> 00:17:11.720 critic like Whipple who saw the madness, there 00:17:11.720 --> 00:17:13.660 was someone like Harriet Monroe, right? The founding 00:17:13.660 --> 00:17:15.799 editor of Poetry Magazine who championed the 00:17:15.799 --> 00:17:17.900 lighter side. Yes, Monroe focused on the more 00:17:17.900 --> 00:17:20.680 comforting elements. She praised his sympathetic 00:17:20.680 --> 00:17:23.599 humor and his success in capturing the best of 00:17:23.599 --> 00:17:25.720 the Yankee spirit. So she's looking at the resilience. 00:17:26.319 --> 00:17:28.960 She chose to focus on the human reaction to nature's 00:17:28.960 --> 00:17:31.940 processes, the resilience, the community, the 00:17:31.940 --> 00:17:34.279 wry wit rather than the stark indifference of 00:17:34.279 --> 00:17:37.099 the universe. And this critical split between 00:17:37.099 --> 00:17:40.140 the humorous regionalist and the bleak existentialist, 00:17:40.140 --> 00:17:42.420 it really defined the conversation around Frost 00:17:42.420 --> 00:17:45.619 for decades. And one of the subtle ways he ensured 00:17:45.619 --> 00:17:48.059 his poetry had this dual layer. You know, the 00:17:48.059 --> 00:17:50.779 simple surface and the complex depth was through 00:17:50.779 --> 00:17:52.859 his literary influences. And these weren't just 00:17:52.859 --> 00:17:55.220 regional writers. No, these were the heavy hitters 00:17:55.220 --> 00:17:58.279 of classical antiquity. The list of his influences 00:17:58.279 --> 00:18:01.079 is like a roadmap of Western literature. Thomas 00:18:01.079 --> 00:18:04.460 Hardy, Yeats, Keats, Emerson. He consciously 00:18:04.460 --> 00:18:07.490 placed himself within that grand tradition. But 00:18:07.490 --> 00:18:09.170 the classical connections are maybe the most 00:18:09.170 --> 00:18:10.930 surprising, and they're the most telling about 00:18:10.930 --> 00:18:13.369 his intellectual rigor. Completely. We often 00:18:13.369 --> 00:18:15.690 pigeonhole him as the heir to the 19th century 00:18:15.690 --> 00:18:18.130 American transcendentalists, but the sources 00:18:18.130 --> 00:18:21.190 point to this deep, deep classical foundation. 00:18:21.309 --> 00:18:24.289 The classicist Helen H. Bacon made a strong case 00:18:24.289 --> 00:18:27.910 for this. She did. She argued that Frost's deep 00:18:27.910 --> 00:18:30.670 knowledge of Greek and Roman classics profoundly 00:18:30.670 --> 00:18:33.769 influenced his work. And this wasn't superficial 00:18:33.769 --> 00:18:35.950 knowledge. She argued he was highly educated 00:18:35.950 --> 00:18:38.369 in the classics, likely reading them in the original 00:18:38.369 --> 00:18:40.670 Greek and Latin. And she didn't just make a general 00:18:40.670 --> 00:18:43.450 claim. She provided some really specific thematic 00:18:43.450 --> 00:18:45.650 and structural connections. Yes, she connected 00:18:45.650 --> 00:18:48.630 the recurring motifs in poems like birches and 00:18:48.630 --> 00:18:51.869 wild grapes, that image of a person or a tree 00:18:51.869 --> 00:18:54.269 being bent down toward the earth. She connected 00:18:54.269 --> 00:18:57.529 that directly to Euripides' tragic play, Buckeye. 00:18:57.849 --> 00:19:00.930 And in Buckeye, nature is not a peaceful thing. 00:19:01.150 --> 00:19:03.769 Not at all. It's chaotic, it's transformative, 00:19:04.049 --> 00:19:06.369 it's capable of violence, not just pastoral calm. 00:19:06.609 --> 00:19:08.650 So the bending of the tree or the boys swinging 00:19:08.650 --> 00:19:11.329 on it, it carries this subtle undercurrent of 00:19:11.329 --> 00:19:14.690 Dionysian chaos and transformative power when 00:19:14.690 --> 00:19:16.950 you view it through that classical lens. But 00:19:16.950 --> 00:19:18.509 why does this matter for the listener today? 00:19:18.589 --> 00:19:20.329 I mean, why should we care that he might have 00:19:20.329 --> 00:19:22.690 hidden a reference to Bakke inside a poem about 00:19:22.690 --> 00:19:25.390 a New England birch tree? It matters because 00:19:25.390 --> 00:19:28.890 it just blows up the folksy image entirely. If 00:19:28.890 --> 00:19:31.210 you read Birches simply as a nostalgic memory 00:19:31.210 --> 00:19:33.869 of a boy swinging on trees, it's charming. It's 00:19:33.869 --> 00:19:36.410 a lovely poem. Right. But if you recognize that 00:19:36.410 --> 00:19:38.990 the imagery is linked to Euripides' exploration 00:19:38.990 --> 00:19:42.009 of the destructive power of nature and the limits 00:19:42.009 --> 00:19:45.250 of human reason, the poem instantly gains this 00:19:45.250 --> 00:19:49.059 profound... universal and very dark subtext. 00:19:49.240 --> 00:19:51.759 So the rustic mask was intentional. It proves 00:19:51.759 --> 00:19:54.039 that it was consciously deployed to hide a sophisticated 00:19:54.039 --> 00:19:57.460 scholarly rigor. Frost was appealing to the masses 00:19:57.460 --> 00:20:00.660 while simultaneously having this very sophisticated 00:20:00.660 --> 00:20:02.720 dialogue with the greatest writers of history. 00:20:02.880 --> 00:20:05.660 This inherent duality. The man who spoke in the 00:20:05.660 --> 00:20:07.480 common tongue but built his house on a foundation 00:20:07.480 --> 00:20:09.579 of classical structure and existential themes. 00:20:09.960 --> 00:20:12.319 This is why his public success became so overwhelming. 00:20:12.619 --> 00:20:14.200 I think so, yeah. Okay, so let's talk about that 00:20:14.200 --> 00:20:16.299 success. The man who was writing these complex 00:20:16.299 --> 00:20:19.460 double layered poems became by the mid 20th century 00:20:19.460 --> 00:20:21.559 not just a celebrated writer but I mean literally 00:20:21.559 --> 00:20:23.960 a national monument. His path to recognition 00:20:23.960 --> 00:20:27.839 was historic. And institutionally dominant. His 00:20:27.839 --> 00:20:31.019 dominance is unparalleled in poetry. Winning 00:20:31.019 --> 00:20:33.500 the Pulitzer Prize once is a lifetime achievement. 00:20:33.759 --> 00:20:36.380 Frost did it four times. Four times. Can you 00:20:36.380 --> 00:20:39.980 listen for us? Sure. He won in 1924 for New Hampshire 00:20:39.980 --> 00:20:42.730 which really cemented his reputation as the the 00:20:42.730 --> 00:20:45.869 voice of the region. He won again in 1931 for 00:20:45.869 --> 00:20:47.970 his collected poems, which was an acknowledgement 00:20:47.970 --> 00:20:51.369 of his whole body of work. Then again in 1937 00:20:51.369 --> 00:20:54.509 for a further range. And finally in 1943 for 00:20:54.509 --> 00:20:57.109 A Witness Tree. Four times over a span of about 00:20:57.109 --> 00:21:00.009 two decades. That suggests a sustained mastery 00:21:00.009 --> 00:21:02.650 and a critical acceptance that is just astonishing. 00:21:02.990 --> 00:21:05.190 It really is. But beyond the prizes, the government 00:21:05.190 --> 00:21:08.049 itself, state and federal, embraced him fully. 00:21:08.509 --> 00:21:10.789 He was appointed United States Poet Laureate 00:21:10.789 --> 00:21:14.009 in 1958. And on top of that, the state of Vermont 00:21:14.009 --> 00:21:16.509 took the extraordinary step of creating a position 00:21:16.509 --> 00:21:18.950 just for her. They made him Poet Laureate of 00:21:18.950 --> 00:21:21.569 Vermont. Yes, in 1961 through a joint resolution. 00:21:21.829 --> 00:21:24.250 This is official institutionalized veneration. 00:21:24.690 --> 00:21:26.769 And it all culminates when he is awarded the 00:21:26.769 --> 00:21:29.630 Congressional Gold Medal in 1960, which was formally 00:21:29.630 --> 00:21:32.369 bestowed by President John F. Kennedy in March 00:21:32.369 --> 00:21:34.990 of 62. And this brings us to the moment that 00:21:34.990 --> 00:21:37.589 perhaps most deeply etched that image of the 00:21:37.589 --> 00:21:39.869 beloved white -haired sage into the American 00:21:39.869 --> 00:21:42.049 consciousness. The Kennedy inauguration. The 00:21:42.049 --> 00:21:46.190 Kennedy inauguration, January 1961. He was 86 00:21:46.190 --> 00:21:49.250 years old, standing on that platform, the embodiment 00:21:49.250 --> 00:21:52.349 of American artistic heritage. An iconic moment 00:21:52.349 --> 00:21:55.630 of immense historical significance. But the reading 00:21:55.630 --> 00:21:59.089 itself was, well, it was a struggle. Right. He 00:21:59.089 --> 00:22:01.390 had composed a poem specifically for the event. 00:22:02.240 --> 00:22:05.440 Yeah, and he attempted to read it. But the sun 00:22:05.440 --> 00:22:07.960 was just too bright, reflecting intensely off 00:22:07.960 --> 00:22:10.380 the fresh snow, and it made the text on the page 00:22:10.380 --> 00:22:12.779 unreadable. It's a perfect metaphor for life 00:22:12.779 --> 00:22:14.619 itself, isn't it? You're prepared for the big 00:22:14.619 --> 00:22:17.119 moment, but external forces just render your 00:22:17.119 --> 00:22:20.119 preparation useless. But rather than, you know, 00:22:20.160 --> 00:22:22.859 stuttering or yielding to failure, he demonstrated 00:22:22.859 --> 00:22:25.019 the intellectual muscle that lay beneath that 00:22:25.019 --> 00:22:28.339 folksy exterior. He pivoted instantly. and recited 00:22:28.339 --> 00:22:30.380 the gift outright from memory. And that poem, 00:22:30.539 --> 00:22:32.960 which begins, The land was ours before we were 00:22:32.960 --> 00:22:36.039 the lands, speaks so directly to the core themes 00:22:36.039 --> 00:22:39.099 of American identity and ownership. And by reciting 00:22:39.099 --> 00:22:41.960 it flawlessly under that kind of pressure, he 00:22:41.960 --> 00:22:44.460 transformed an incident of physical failure into 00:22:44.460 --> 00:22:47.339 this moment of profound, spontaneous triumph. 00:22:47.559 --> 00:22:50.940 It just cemented his role as the national poet 00:22:50.940 --> 00:22:53.700 sage. And his elevative status allowed him to 00:22:53.700 --> 00:22:56.480 assume this kind of quasi -diplomatic role later 00:22:56.480 --> 00:22:59.779 in life. That's true. In the summer of 1962, 00:23:00.119 --> 00:23:03.019 so this is shortly before he died, he accompanied 00:23:03.019 --> 00:23:06.279 the Interior Secretary, Stuart Udall, on a cultural 00:23:06.279 --> 00:23:08.319 mission to the Soviet Union. And what was his 00:23:08.319 --> 00:23:11.660 goal? His goal was deeply ambitious. He hoped 00:23:11.660 --> 00:23:13.799 to meet Nikita Khrushchev to lobby for peaceful 00:23:13.799 --> 00:23:16.660 Cold War relations. I mean, it's hard to imagine 00:23:16.660 --> 00:23:18.920 another poet being granted that level of access 00:23:18.920 --> 00:23:20.940 and public trust. And it was during these later 00:23:20.940 --> 00:23:23.440 years that he divided his time between the institutions 00:23:23.440 --> 00:23:26.079 of New England and the warmth of the South. He 00:23:26.079 --> 00:23:28.740 always spent his winters in Florida. In 1940, 00:23:28.940 --> 00:23:31.180 he bought a five -acre property in South Miami. 00:23:31.740 --> 00:23:34.160 And the name he gave it just perfectly captures 00:23:34.160 --> 00:23:36.740 his wry, cynical view of the world. He called 00:23:36.740 --> 00:23:39.519 it Pencil Pines. Pencil Pines. Why that name? 00:23:39.720 --> 00:23:42.440 As the sources document, he named it that because, 00:23:42.700 --> 00:23:45.720 as he said, he had never made a penny from anything 00:23:45.720 --> 00:23:48.059 that did not involve the use of a pencil. Wow. 00:23:48.460 --> 00:23:52.579 It was a clear, dry statement that all his years 00:23:52.579 --> 00:23:55.279 of farm labor, teaching, and physical struggle. 00:23:55.839 --> 00:23:58.160 None of it ever amounted to the financial stability 00:23:58.160 --> 00:24:00.680 that his poetry, The Work of the Pencil, finally 00:24:00.680 --> 00:24:04.559 provided. It's an acknowledgment that art, not 00:24:04.559 --> 00:24:07.640 labor, was his only true source of wealth. OK, 00:24:07.700 --> 00:24:09.440 now we have to turn to the other side of this 00:24:09.440 --> 00:24:11.960 magnificent public coin, because this incredible 00:24:11.960 --> 00:24:14.519 success story is juxtaposed against a private 00:24:14.519 --> 00:24:17.160 life that was just a relentless series of heartbreaks. 00:24:17.339 --> 00:24:19.779 And I believe this explains the stark philosophical 00:24:19.779 --> 00:24:22.099 bleakness in the poems that critics like Jarrell 00:24:22.099 --> 00:24:24.460 would later analyze. This is the shadow that 00:24:24.460 --> 00:24:27.740 defines him. Frost's life was plagued by extreme 00:24:27.740 --> 00:24:30.200 sustained loss and mental health issues that 00:24:30.200 --> 00:24:32.900 ran deep in his family lineage. He and his wife, 00:24:32.980 --> 00:24:35.220 Eleanor, both suckered from depression. And the 00:24:35.220 --> 00:24:37.079 specifics are truly heartbreaking. I mean, we 00:24:37.079 --> 00:24:39.059 need to slow down and really acknowledge the 00:24:39.059 --> 00:24:41.460 weight of this suffering. Four of his six children 00:24:41.460 --> 00:24:44.640 pre -deceased him. Four. The losses started early. 00:24:45.059 --> 00:24:48.140 His first son, Elliot, died of cholera in 1900. 00:24:48.829 --> 00:24:51.349 His infant daughter, Eleanor Bettina, died just 00:24:51.349 --> 00:24:53.970 one day after her birth in 1907. And it didn't 00:24:53.970 --> 00:24:56.609 stop there. No. Later, his daughter Marjorie 00:24:56.609 --> 00:24:59.490 died in 1934 from puerperal fever after childbirth. 00:24:59.920 --> 00:25:02.920 And then his son, Carol, died tragically in 1940. 00:25:03.220 --> 00:25:06.000 That is just, it's nearly impossible to comprehend. 00:25:06.180 --> 00:25:08.960 Losing four children across 40 years. And then 00:25:08.960 --> 00:25:10.779 you have to compound this with the family struggle 00:25:10.779 --> 00:25:13.039 with mental illness, which often isolates the 00:25:13.039 --> 00:25:15.039 sufferers and the caretakers. The instability 00:25:15.039 --> 00:25:17.920 was pervasive. In 1920, he had to commit his 00:25:17.920 --> 00:25:20.119 younger sister, Jeannie, to a mental hospital. 00:25:20.420 --> 00:25:23.380 She died there nine years later. And then later, 00:25:23.559 --> 00:25:26.359 in 1947, his daughter Irma was also committed. 00:25:26.519 --> 00:25:29.259 So this is a lifelong wrestling match with profound, 00:25:29.420 --> 00:25:32.000 debilitating psychological turmoil in his immediate 00:25:32.000 --> 00:25:34.420 circle. Absolutely. This is the raw source material 00:25:34.420 --> 00:25:36.460 for the darker themes of isolation and mental 00:25:36.460 --> 00:25:38.819 collapse that you find in poems like Servant 00:25:38.819 --> 00:25:41.480 to Servants or Home Burial, which deal explicitly 00:25:41.480 --> 00:25:43.759 with the terror and strain of rural isolation 00:25:43.759 --> 00:25:46.460 leading to madness. I find it astounding that 00:25:46.460 --> 00:25:49.299 a man could sustain that kind of public, eminence 00:25:49.299 --> 00:25:51.640 -winning Pulitzers hobnobbing with presidents. 00:25:51.789 --> 00:25:54.450 while carrying this private, crushing burden. 00:25:55.190 --> 00:25:57.470 How did he maintain the image of the wholesome 00:25:57.470 --> 00:26:01.069 Yankee sage when his reality was so relentlessly 00:26:01.069 --> 00:26:03.849 dark? I believe the rustic mask became a necessary 00:26:03.849 --> 00:26:07.029 shield. The final major personal blow was the 00:26:07.029 --> 00:26:10.609 death of his wife, Eleanor, in 1938. She died 00:26:10.609 --> 00:26:12.630 of heart failure after developing breast cancer 00:26:12.630 --> 00:26:14.809 the year before. And Eleanor was his anchor. 00:26:14.970 --> 00:26:17.509 She was his emotional anchor and his co -valedictorian, 00:26:17.670 --> 00:26:19.410 the woman who had been there from the very beginning. 00:26:19.839 --> 00:26:22.700 Her death left him deeply adrift, and it contributed 00:26:22.700 --> 00:26:25.160 further to that sense of cosmic indifference 00:26:25.160 --> 00:26:27.660 we find in his later work. The public needed 00:26:27.660 --> 00:26:30.339 a simple, reassuring poet, and he gave them that 00:26:30.339 --> 00:26:32.859 simple exterior while preserving the complexity 00:26:32.859 --> 00:26:35.839 for the page. Frost finally died on January 29, 00:26:36.220 --> 00:26:39.299 1963, at the age of 88. He was buried in the 00:26:39.299 --> 00:26:41.980 old Bennington Cemetery in Vermont, and the epitaph 00:26:41.980 --> 00:26:43.960 he chose, which he took from his poem The Lesson 00:26:43.960 --> 00:26:46.500 for Today, is the perfect summary of this complex 00:26:46.500 --> 00:26:50.079 life. The epitaph reads, I had a lover's quarrel 00:26:50.079 --> 00:26:53.220 with the world. A lover's quarrel. It's an acknowledgment 00:26:53.220 --> 00:26:56.140 of conflict, a quarrel, but it's framed in the 00:26:56.140 --> 00:26:59.380 language of deep, complicated affection. This 00:26:59.380 --> 00:27:01.440 is the phrase that forces us to reconcile the 00:27:01.440 --> 00:27:04.180 public success with the private sorrow. Okay, 00:27:04.220 --> 00:27:06.660 so let's discuss how that reconciliation actually 00:27:06.660 --> 00:27:09.640 unfolded after his death. The critical reputation 00:27:09.640 --> 00:27:12.740 of Robert Frost is not a static line. It moved 00:27:12.740 --> 00:27:14.960 through these dramatic cycles, almost like three 00:27:14.960 --> 00:27:17.900 distinct acts, reflecting society's willingness 00:27:17.900 --> 00:27:20.920 to accept the complexity beneath the mask. The 00:27:20.920 --> 00:27:23.779 timeline of his reputation is fascinating. As 00:27:23.779 --> 00:27:26.519 the writer Charles McGrath detailed, at the time 00:27:26.519 --> 00:27:29.779 of his death in 1963, he was universally enshrined 00:27:29.779 --> 00:27:32.579 as the safe, benevolent New England folky. That 00:27:32.579 --> 00:27:35.079 was Act I. That was Act I. Then came Act II, 00:27:35.180 --> 00:27:37.480 the biographical villain. Everything changed 00:27:37.480 --> 00:27:40.480 in 1977 with the publication of the final volume 00:27:40.480 --> 00:27:42.839 of Lawrence Thompson's biography, which was largely 00:27:42.839 --> 00:27:44.900 critical. And what specifically did Thompson 00:27:44.900 --> 00:27:46.920 reveal that caused such a rapid and dramatic 00:27:46.920 --> 00:27:49.259 reassessment? Thompson's work suggested that 00:27:49.259 --> 00:27:52.000 Frost was, quote, a much nastier piece of work 00:27:52.000 --> 00:27:54.720 than anyone had imagined. It focused on his alleged 00:27:54.720 --> 00:27:57.460 literary jealousies, his personal cruelties, 00:27:57.500 --> 00:28:00.240 his demanding nature. So it was a scandal. A 00:28:00.240 --> 00:28:02.539 huge biographical scandal. And it immediately 00:28:02.539 --> 00:28:05.559 cast this shadow over his entire poetic output. 00:28:06.850 --> 00:28:09.269 Critics were suddenly forced to go back and look 00:28:09.269 --> 00:28:11.390 for the meanness and the darkness they had previously 00:28:11.390 --> 00:28:14.549 ignored in favor of the pleasant images. It sounds 00:28:14.549 --> 00:28:17.109 like for a while there, people couldn't separate 00:28:17.109 --> 00:28:19.190 the man from the art. They couldn't. But then 00:28:19.190 --> 00:28:23.609 Act III, he bounced back, but not as the folksy 00:28:23.609 --> 00:28:27.009 figure. No, he returned as the bleak and unforgiving 00:28:27.009 --> 00:28:30.349 modernist. And this reversal was driven by intellectual 00:28:30.349 --> 00:28:33.930 giants like Harold Bloom, William H. Pritchard, 00:28:33.970 --> 00:28:36.529 and the Nobel laureate Joseph Brodsky. And what 00:28:36.529 --> 00:28:39.109 was their argument? They argued that the biographical 00:28:39.109 --> 00:28:41.869 details only confirmed the existential bleakness 00:28:41.869 --> 00:28:44.150 that had always been present in the poetry. They 00:28:44.150 --> 00:28:46.490 appreciated his controlled forms precisely because 00:28:46.490 --> 00:28:48.890 they contained such chaotic modern psychological 00:28:48.890 --> 00:28:52.150 turmoil. And central to this entire shift was 00:28:52.150 --> 00:28:54.490 the work of the great critic and poet Randall 00:28:54.490 --> 00:28:56.890 Jarrell. Jarrell was foundational in establishing 00:28:56.890 --> 00:29:00.180 the darker Frost. He fiercely defended Frost 00:29:00.180 --> 00:29:03.079 against those earlier charges of being too traditional 00:29:03.079 --> 00:29:06.000 or sentimental, arguing that those standard views 00:29:06.000 --> 00:29:09.599 were just protest simplifications, distortions, 00:29:09.599 --> 00:29:12.319 falsifications. So Gerald's genius was in showing 00:29:12.319 --> 00:29:14.720 people how to read the poems differently. Exactly. 00:29:14.720 --> 00:29:17.319 Not as simple stories, but as sophisticated, 00:29:17.500 --> 00:29:20.359 terrifying meditations. He's the one who established 00:29:20.359 --> 00:29:23.240 the portrait we largely accept today. The dark. 00:29:23.640 --> 00:29:26.240 Desperate, isolated, frightened, and yet ultimately 00:29:26.240 --> 00:29:28.640 brave in his confrontation with the world. And 00:29:28.640 --> 00:29:31.019 he defined the canon of the Dark Frost poems. 00:29:31.279 --> 00:29:34.339 He did. Gerald listed the key poems that he considered 00:29:34.339 --> 00:29:37.160 masterful, moving them from pleasant verse to 00:29:37.160 --> 00:29:40.539 high modern art. The Witch of Coos, Home Burial. 00:29:40.619 --> 00:29:42.400 Which explores that mental health and marriage 00:29:42.400 --> 00:29:46.559 tension. Also, Directive. The chilling contemplation 00:29:46.559 --> 00:29:49.539 of natural order and design, and the deep alienation 00:29:49.539 --> 00:29:52.480 of Acquainted with a Knight. And crucially, he 00:29:52.480 --> 00:29:55.240 highlighted... stopping by woods on a snowy evening. 00:29:55.420 --> 00:29:57.680 And it's through that recontextualization that 00:29:57.680 --> 00:29:59.779 the poem is no longer just about enjoying the 00:29:59.779 --> 00:30:02.420 quiet of the woods. No, it's about the temptation 00:30:02.420 --> 00:30:05.900 of eternal rest. The pull of the lovely dark 00:30:05.900 --> 00:30:08.779 and deep woods contrasted with the responsibilities 00:30:08.779 --> 00:30:12.279 that keep us tethered to life. And this profound 00:30:12.279 --> 00:30:14.980 duality, it explains why his work is so woven 00:30:14.980 --> 00:30:17.319 into the fabric of global culture. His influence 00:30:17.319 --> 00:30:19.819 is just so widespread. It crosses geopolitical 00:30:19.819 --> 00:30:21.640 and literary boundaries. I mean, consider the 00:30:21.640 --> 00:30:24.460 political resonance. Jawaharlal Nehru, the first 00:30:24.460 --> 00:30:27.299 prime minister of India, was so deeply affected 00:30:27.299 --> 00:30:30.599 by Frost's philosophical worldview that he kept 00:30:30.599 --> 00:30:33.299 a book of his poetry close to him until his death. 00:30:33.480 --> 00:30:36.460 Wow. That is a global testament to the universality 00:30:36.460 --> 00:30:38.900 of his themes. And more recently, we saw his 00:30:38.900 --> 00:30:41.039 lines adapter for a moment of national... morning 00:30:41.039 --> 00:30:43.519 here in North America. Yes. Justin Trudeau's 00:30:43.519 --> 00:30:45.960 eulogy for his father, Pierre Trudeau, back in 00:30:45.960 --> 00:30:48.519 2000. He borrowed the language of stopping by 00:30:48.519 --> 00:30:50.859 woods on a snowy evening. What did he say? He 00:30:50.859 --> 00:30:53.960 took that final resonant stanza, the promises 00:30:53.960 --> 00:30:56.920 to keep and miles to go before I sleep, and he 00:30:56.920 --> 00:30:59.460 rephrased it in this deeply personal and powerful 00:30:59.460 --> 00:31:03.200 way. He said of his father, he has kept his promises 00:31:03.200 --> 00:31:06.329 and earned his sleep. It just shows how deeply 00:31:06.329 --> 00:31:08.789 his lines are embedded in our cultural lexicon, 00:31:09.009 --> 00:31:11.630 ready to be repurposed for solemn reflection. 00:31:11.990 --> 00:31:14.910 We also see his poetry just permeating popular 00:31:14.910 --> 00:31:17.509 media, proving that his themes are instantly 00:31:17.509 --> 00:31:20.529 recognizable, even to younger generations. One 00:31:20.529 --> 00:31:23.549 of his most often quoted little four -line poems, 00:31:23.730 --> 00:31:25.650 Nothing Gold Can Stay, from the New Hampshire 00:31:25.650 --> 00:31:27.990 Collection, became central to S .E. Hinton's 00:31:27.990 --> 00:31:31.150 novel, The Outsiders. A classic, both the 1967 00:31:31.150 --> 00:31:35.430 novel and the 1983 film. In that story, the lines 00:31:35.430 --> 00:31:37.430 are used to symbolize the fragile innocence of 00:31:37.430 --> 00:31:40.240 youth and the inevitability of loss. When the 00:31:40.240 --> 00:31:42.019 character Johnny quotes a stanza back in his 00:31:42.019 --> 00:31:44.480 final letter, it defines the entire emotional 00:31:44.480 --> 00:31:47.019 arc of the book. The idea that beauty and purity 00:31:47.019 --> 00:31:49.579 are transient. Exactly. And that idea has transcended 00:31:49.579 --> 00:31:51.619 generations. It shows up in contemporary music, 00:31:51.700 --> 00:31:53.680 referenced by Lana Del Rey in a couple of songs. 00:31:53.819 --> 00:31:55.920 A different poem, Fire and Ice, has had a massive 00:31:55.920 --> 00:31:58.359 influence on the fantasy genre. This is fascinating. 00:31:58.619 --> 00:32:00.720 The sources confirm that this eight -line poem 00:32:00.720 --> 00:32:03.519 influenced the title and many of the thematic 00:32:03.519 --> 00:32:06.059 tensions in George R .R. Martin's sweeping series, 00:32:06.240 --> 00:32:09.180 A Song of Ice and Fire. So, Game of Thrones. 00:32:09.400 --> 00:32:12.000 Basically, yeah. The tension between these powerful 00:32:12.000 --> 00:32:14.740 elemental forces that could end the world in 00:32:14.740 --> 00:32:18.160 either conflagration or endless freezing. It's 00:32:18.160 --> 00:32:20.920 literally articulated in Frost's short verse. 00:32:21.119 --> 00:32:23.880 And it's not only Martin. No. Fire and Ice was 00:32:23.880 --> 00:32:26.480 also used as the epigraph for Stephenie Meyer's 00:32:26.480 --> 00:32:28.960 Eclipse from the Twilight Saga. And it was even 00:32:28.960 --> 00:32:31.720 read aloud in the film adaptation. These examples 00:32:31.720 --> 00:32:33.799 just demonstrate that Frost is not a poet confined 00:32:33.799 --> 00:32:36.859 to dusty academic texts. He is the foundation 00:32:36.859 --> 00:32:39.380 for contemporary narratives of ultimate conflict 00:32:39.380 --> 00:32:42.059 and elemental tension. And finally, his institutional 00:32:42.059 --> 00:32:44.599 legacy is cemented by the way his vast collection 00:32:44.599 --> 00:32:47.599 of materials is preserved. His ties to key academic 00:32:47.599 --> 00:32:50.119 centers ensure that this complexity remains accessible 00:32:50.119 --> 00:32:53.079 for future study. Where are the most important 00:32:53.079 --> 00:32:55.759 archival collections housed? The Jones Library 00:32:55.759 --> 00:32:58.099 in Amherst, Massachusetts, holds one of the most 00:32:58.099 --> 00:33:01.079 important original collections, which Frost himself 00:33:01.079 --> 00:33:03.769 actually helped compile. It contains thousands 00:33:03.769 --> 00:33:06.809 of manuscripts, letters, artifacts. And there 00:33:06.809 --> 00:33:08.930 are others. Amherst College and the University 00:33:08.930 --> 00:33:11.630 of Michigan Library also house significant materials. 00:33:11.950 --> 00:33:14.430 But the sources highlight that the single most 00:33:14.430 --> 00:33:16.650 significant collection of his working manuscripts 00:33:16.650 --> 00:33:19.890 is held by Dartmouth. Dartmouth, the very institution 00:33:19.890 --> 00:33:22.509 he attended for only two months before abandoning 00:33:22.509 --> 00:33:25.250 it to follow his own path. A fitting final piece 00:33:25.250 --> 00:33:28.900 of irony. For a man who always maintained a deep, 00:33:28.920 --> 00:33:31.859 complex, and sometimes antagonistic relationship 00:33:31.859 --> 00:33:34.660 with the academic world that ultimately enshrined 00:33:34.660 --> 00:33:36.740 him. This deep dive has taken us on a remarkable 00:33:36.740 --> 00:33:39.420 journey. We've mapped the geography of Robert 00:33:39.420 --> 00:33:41.960 Trost's life from a journalist's son in San Francisco 00:33:41.960 --> 00:33:44.240 through those years of failure as a New England 00:33:44.240 --> 00:33:46.579 farmer to his eventual coronation as one of the 00:33:46.579 --> 00:33:48.759 most decorated poets in American history. We've 00:33:48.759 --> 00:33:50.539 seen how he consciously built his innovative 00:33:50.539 --> 00:33:53.920 style, The Sound of Sense, by synthesizing colloquial 00:33:53.920 --> 00:33:56.019 American rhythms with classical poetic forms, 00:33:56.240 --> 00:33:59.059 all while navigating a private existence defined 00:33:59.059 --> 00:34:02.299 by staggering, repeated personal loss and mental 00:34:02.299 --> 00:34:05.200 illness. His lasting influence, I think, it truly 00:34:05.200 --> 00:34:08.420 rests on his profound duality. He mastered the 00:34:08.420 --> 00:34:11.340 ability to present these stark existential insights, 00:34:11.619 --> 00:34:14.219 the indifferent universe, the pull of the void, 00:34:14.420 --> 00:34:17.579 the loneliness of rural life, all under the guise 00:34:17.579 --> 00:34:20.400 of simple immediate language. He was a modernist 00:34:20.400 --> 00:34:23.300 in disguise. He was, in essence, a modernist 00:34:23.300 --> 00:34:26.139 whose formal control provided a necessary structure 00:34:26.139 --> 00:34:28.400 to contain the chaos and bleakness he observed. 00:34:28.739 --> 00:34:32.119 A truly complex heart beating behind that folksy, 00:34:32.119 --> 00:34:34.880 rustic facade. And that profound conflict brings 00:34:34.880 --> 00:34:36.659 us right back to the phrase he chose for his 00:34:36.659 --> 00:34:39.480 tombstone. I had a lover's quarrel with the world. 00:34:39.599 --> 00:34:42.159 Yes. We've explored the immense sustained suffering 00:34:42.159 --> 00:34:44.940 he endured, the death of four children, the mental 00:34:44.940 --> 00:34:46.860 health struggles of his closest family members. 00:34:47.179 --> 00:34:49.280 It was a life that gave him immense success, 00:34:49.360 --> 00:34:52.920 but also relentless, unbelievable pain. Given 00:34:52.920 --> 00:34:56.059 all that context, the accolades, the sorrow, 00:34:56.159 --> 00:34:58.679 the deep abiding need for order in the face of 00:34:58.679 --> 00:35:01.820 chaos, what is that phrase, a lover's quarrel? 00:35:02.170 --> 00:35:04.929 mean to you that's a great question does it sound 00:35:04.929 --> 00:35:07.510 like a weary resignation to an indifferent existence 00:35:07.510 --> 00:35:11.150 or is it a defiant enduring declaration of affection 00:35:11.150 --> 00:35:13.829 toward a difficult world acknowledging that the 00:35:13.829 --> 00:35:16.130 pain itself provided the material for his most 00:35:16.130 --> 00:35:19.750 powerful art it is a complex riddle frost left 00:35:19.750 --> 00:35:22.349 us to contemplate forcing us to explore that 00:35:22.349 --> 00:35:25.309 line between despair and enduring love for a 00:35:25.309 --> 00:35:27.809 difficult life A truly profound thought to end 00:35:27.809 --> 00:35:29.630 on. Thank you for joining us for this deep dive 00:35:29.630 --> 00:35:31.550 into Robert Frost. We hope you are leaving today 00:35:31.550 --> 00:35:33.869 not just well -informed, but newly curious about 00:35:33.869 --> 00:35:36.070 the complexity hidden in those famously simple 00:35:36.070 --> 00:35:36.530 lines.