Biography

Although he is commonly associated with New England, Frost was born in San Francisco to Isabelle Moodie, of Scottish ancestry, and William Prescott Frost, Jr., a descendant of a Devonshire Frost who had sailed to New Hampshire in 1634[1]. His father was a former teacher turned newspaper man, a hard drinker, a gambler, a harsh disciplinarian; he had a passion for politics, and dabbled in them, for as long as his health allowed.

Frost lived in California until he was eleven years old. After the death of his father, he moved with his mother and sister to eastern Massachusetts, near his paternal grandparents. His mother joined the Swedenborgian church and had him baptized and circumcised in it, but he left it as an adult. He grew up as a city boy and published his first poem in Lawrence, Massachusetts. He attended Dartmouth College in 1892, for just less than a semester, and while there he joined the fraternity, Theta Delta Chi. He went back home to teach and work at various jobs including factory work and newspaper delivery. In 1894 he sold his first poem, My Butterfly, to The Independent for fifteen dollars. Proud of this accomplishment he asked Elinor Miriam White to marry him. They had graduated co-valedictorians from their high-school and had remained in contact with one another. She refused, wanting to finish school before they married. Frost was sure that there was another man and went on an excursion to the Great Dismal Swamp in Virginia. He came back later that year and asked Elinor again, she accepted and they were married in December 1895.

They taught school together until 1897. Frost then entered Harvard University for two years. He did well, but felt he had to return home due to his health and because his wife was expecting a second child. His grandfather purchased a farm in New Hampshire for the young couple. He stayed there for nine years and wrote many of the poems that would make up his first works. His attempt at poultry farming was not successful, and he was forced to take another job at the Pinkerton Academy, a secondary school.

In 1912, Frost sailed with his family to Glasgow, and later settled in Beaconsfield, outside London.

His first book of poetry, A Boy's Will, was published the next year. In England he made some crucial contacts including Edward Thomas (a member of the group known as the Dymock poets), T. E. Hulme, and Ezra Pound, who was the first American to write a (favorable) review of Frost's work. Frost wrote some of the best pieces of his work while living in England.

Frost returned to America in 1915, bought a farm in Franconia, New Hampshire and launched a career of writing, teaching and lecturing. From 1916 to 1938, he was an English professor at Amherst College. He encouraged his writing students to bring the sound of the human voice to their craft.

He recited his work, The Gift Outright, at the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy in 1961 and represented the United States on several official missions. He also became known for poems that include an interplay of voices, such as Death of the Hired Man. Other highly acclaimed poems include Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, Mending Wall, Nothing Gold Can Stay, Birches, After Apple Picking, The Pasture, Fire and Ice, The Road Not Taken, and Directive. Frost won the Pulitzer Prize four times, a great achievement for a poet.

Beginning in 1921, and for the next 42 years (with three exceptions), Frost spent his summers teaching at the Bread Loaf School of English of Middlebury College in Ripton, Vermont. Middlebury College still owns and maintains Robert Frost's Farm as a National Historic Site near the Bread Loaf campus.

Upon his death in Boston on January 29, 1963, Robert Frost was buried in the Old Bennington Cemetery, in Bennington, Vermont. Harvard's 1965 alumni directory indicates his having received an honorary degree there. Frost also received an honorary degree from Bates College as well as Oxford and Cambridge universities. During his life, the Robert Frost Middle School in Fairfax, Virginia, and the main library of Amherst College were named after him.

Contributions

Poetry

• A Boy's Will (David Nutt, 1913; Holt, 1915).


• North of Boston (David Nutt, 1914; Holt, 1914).


• Mountain Interval (Holt, 1916).


• Selected Poems (Holt, 1923)


• New Hampshire (Holt, 1923; Grant Richards, 1924).


• Several Short Poems (Holt, 1924).


• Selected Poems (Holt, 1928).


• West-Running Brook (Holt, 1929).


• The Lovely Shall Be Choosers (Random House, 1929).


• Collected Poems of Robert Frost (Holt, 1930; Longmans, Green, 1930).


• The Lone Striker (Knopf, 1933).


• Selected Poems: Third Edition (Holt, 1934).


• Three Poems (Baker Library, Dartmouth College, 1935).


• The Gold Hesperidee (Bibliophile Press, 1935).


• From Snow to Snow (Holt, 1936).


• A Further Range (Holt, 1936; Cape, 1937).


• Collected Poems of Robert Frost (Holt, 1939; Longmans, Green, 1939)


• A Witness Tree (Holt, 1942; Cape, 1943).


• Steeple Bush (Holt, 1947).


• Complete Poems of Robert Frost, 1949 (Holt, 1949; Cape, 1951).


• Hard Not To Be King (House of Books, 1951).


• Aforesaid (Holt, 1954).


• A Remembrance Collection of New Poems (Holt, 1959).


• You Come Too (Holt, 1959; Bodley Head, 1964)


• In the Clearing (Holt Rinehart & Winston, 1962)


• The Poetry of Robert Frost, (New York, 1969).

• A Way Out: A One Act Play (Harbor Press, 1929).


• The Cow’s in the Corn: A One Act Irish Play in Rhyme (Slide Mountain Press, 1929).


• A Masque of Reason (Holt, 1945).


• A Masque of Mercy (Holt, 1947).

Achievements

Famous quotes