CONCLUSION Frost can be considered as a link between an older era and modern culture, and his relationship to literary modernism was equivocal. His early poems are similar to those of nineteenth century American fireside poets such as Longfellow and English Georgians such as Thomas and Gibson. And many of his mature poems have more in common with the works of William Wordsworth or Robert Browning than they do with those of his contemporaries like T. S. Eliot, Wallace Stevens, or William Carlos Williams. Frost eschewed free verse and wrote his poems in traditional rhymes and metrical forms like blank verse. Moreover, like his popular New England contemporary, Edward Arlington Robinson, Frost wrote many poems which are dramatic narratives and can be appreciated, like prose fiction for their characterizations and plot development. Frost saw poetry as a way of psychological survivor in a chaotic universe. His poetry represents a continual dialogue between control and chaos, and he saw poetry as creating a momentary stay against confusion, a something facing the nothing. Frost took pleasure in chaos and waste, threats that inspired and limited the creation of order and meaning. The struggles of ordinary men, to develop individual identities in an essentially hostile world, were his most persistent themes. Time and again Frost has said that there is a striking analogy between the course of a true poem and true love. Each begins with an impulse, a disturbing excitement to which the individual surrenders himself. The ecstasy that works as an impulse to the poem nowhere remains static. The movement of the poem reveals a healthy growth from delight to wisdom. And in most of the cases the denouement heads towards the clarification. 156
The way Frost deals his poems shows his individuality and uniqueness by giving his own patterns of meaning. With an intention to penetrate deep into it the researcher has tried to touch the possible areas that might have given a shape to his poems by the poet Robert Frost. The researcher considers fondling the poet s philosophical belts better to get a closer glimpse of his mental plight. The researcher in order to find the influence of different philosophies on the poet, has studied the philosophies prevailing in the twentieth century Europe. During this period, some of the philosophies such as phenomenology, hermeneutics, existentialism, pragmatism, structuralism, critical theory, utilitarianism de-construction etc. are found to have emerged in Europe. Thus, it is obvious that the writers of the contemporary period too could not escape its influence. After going through the various poems of Robert Frost from his poetry collection, the researcher has identified some of the prevailing philosophies of that period such as pragmatism, existentialism, phenomenology, utilitarianism and critical theory lurking in his poems. The poems like The Aim Was Song, A Answer, After Apple Picking, Carpe Diem, the Census Taker, The Pasture, A Servant Of Servants, Mending Wall, The Road Not Taken, Fire And Ice, The Armful etc. are imbibed with the philosophy of pragmatism. All these poems assert in their own way the direct relationship of the truth of beliefs with only their usefulness and efficacy and not with reality. In the poems A Late Walk, Revelation, After Apple Picking, Neither Out Far Nor In deep, Stopping By Woods On a Snowy Evening and Dust Of Snow, the philosophy of phenomenology is found prevalent. Husserl s intentionality that all conscious acts are directed at or about objective content is traced in these poems. The philosophy which is concerned with finding self and the meaning of life through one s own will, choice and personal responsibility is existentialism. In 157
the poems such as Maple, Revelation, An Encounter, A Leaf Treader, An Old Man s Winter Night, A Servant of Servants, Out, Out, A Prayer in Spring, Acquainted With the Night, Birches, A Cabin in the Clearing, Bereft, The Grind Stone etc., this doctrine of the philosophy of existentialism has shown its presents in its different ways. Again, the philosophy of Utilitarianism, which defines the proper course of action to be one which increases utility, is traced in the poems like Acceptance and A Boundless Moment. The poem The Black Cottage explains the wrong along with the prevalent social reality and at the same time provides both clear norms for criticisms which is very similar to the doctrine of the philosophy of true critical theory. Every individual is, at the start and finish, absolutely singular. In his lived experience he feels himself to be selecting among the available ingredients out of which he makes himself. This coming into being of a unique universal is the subject of every biography and auto-biography. It cannot be denied that behind the employment of various philosophies in Frost s poems, the autobiographical elements act as the driving force. Frost was an immensely learned and a largely autodidactic philosopher who absorbed the prevailing ideas of his time and fashioned his own independent thought in the ace of turbulent cultural changes. The researcher has tried to bring to the surface the impact of these philosophies in his poems along with a touch of his autobiography In spite of facing a lot of turmoil in his life Frost never lost his in life. Most of his poems have reflected this trait of his outlook where even in the midst of failures and sufferings he, it seems, as if gathers up his strength to start a new. A close look at Frost s childhood would reveal how he never acquired a sense of security. His father was cruel enough and used to whip him very often. And from that time he received religious consolation from his mother. She taught Frost the 158
secrecy of religious belief and told him a series of Christian tales. From the childhood he was taught the mystery of God s creation. He learnt that God s ways are mysterious and beyond human comprehension. If one accepts them bravely, one would be rewarded in the long run. These ideas can get a clear cut reflection in the poetry of Frost, if his poems are considered from the angle of philosophy. Critics frequently point out that Frost complicated his problem and enriched his style by setting traditional meters against the natural rhythms of speech. Drawing his language primarily from the vernacular, he avoided artificial poetic diction by employing the accent of a softspoken New England. In The Function of Criticism, Yvor Winters faulted Frost for his endeavor to make his style approximate as closely as possible the style of conversation. One aspect of Frost s often discussed regionalism is his use of New England dialect. He particularly focused on New Hampshire within New England as he considered it to be one of the best states in the Union, the other being Vermont. W. G. O Donnell, in his essay Robert Frost and New England: Revaluation, noted how from the beginning in A Boy s Will, Frost had already decided to give his writing a local habitation and a New England name, to root his art in the soil that he had worked with his own hands. Many other critics have also noticed how Robert Frost has evoked the New England landscape very realistically. One can very clearly visualize an orchard in After Apple-Picking or imagine the barrenness of the landscape with the arrival of autumn in A Late Walk. In this ability to portray the locus truth in nature, O Donnell claims that Frost is without any peer. The same ability prompted Pound to declare that he knew more of farm life than before he had read his poems. It implied that he knew more of life. Different poems of Robert Frost are found to have a deep impact of his own life. It is truly said that poems can be considered as the mirror image of the poet s mind. There is no 159
pretention of the metaphysical profundity in Frost s poetry. There is only the profundity that springs from his wrestling with the problems of life. Frost s passionate expression through his poetry inspires the readers of his poems to believe in the timelessness of the basic ethical truths. The majority of his poems have an intellectual idea, but the idea is so transfused with emotion that it becomes knowledge and wisdom rather than cold fact. He knew that wisdom can be achieved not so much from books as from an intelligent observation of life. It springs from his own observations of the world about him and surrounding him. The two books A Boy s Will and North of Boston established his reputation so much that his return to the United States in 1915 was as a celebrated figure. Since 1915 Frost s position in American letters had been firmly rooted: in the years before his death he came to be considered an unofficial poet laureate of the United States. On his 75 th birthday, the U.S. Senate passed a resolution in his honour which said that his poems had helped to guide American thought and humour and wisdom, setting forth to their minds a reliable representation of themselves and of all men. In 1955, the State of Vermont named a mountain after him in Ripton, the town of his legal residence: and act the presidential inauguration of John F. Kennedy in 1961, Frost was given the unprecedented honour of being asked to read a poem. He recited The Gift Outright which Kennedy himself had asked him to read. The poetry of Robert Frost presents his readers not only the scope of philosophizing the deep and underneath truth and essence of life, but also the delight and significance in his large body of poetry. In October, 1963, President John F. Kennedy delivered a speech at the dedication of the Robert Frost library in Amherst, Massachusetts.The President said that in honouring Robert Frost they could pay honour to the deepest source of their national strength which took many forms and 160
the most obvious forms were not always the most significant their national strength mattered: but the spirit which informed and controlled their strength mattered just as much. That was the special significance of Robert Frost. Thus, the researcher emphasizes the proved fact that Robert Frost was not only the most popular poet of his time but also was considered to be America s finest poet. He was a leading figure in the Modernist movement; however unlike his contemporary such as Elliot or Pound, Robert Frost favoured more traditional metrics and forms of poetry. His masterly genius in the field of poetry, adds much to his contribution in the field of English literature, leaving him shine brighter than any other poet of his time. Place Allahabad Date 16.03.2015 161