outline_us_lit

his daring, innovative early work,has influenced generations.Robert Frost (1874-1963)Robert Lee Frost was born inCalifornia but raised on a farm inthe northeastern United Statesuntil the age of 10. Like Eliot andPound, he went to England, attractedby new movements in poetrythere. A charismatic public reader,he was renowned for his tours. Heread an original work at the inaugurationof President John F. Kennedyin 1961 that helped spark a nationalinterest in poetry. His popularity iseasy to explain: He wrote of traditionalfarm life, appealing to a nostalgiafor the old ways. His subjectsare universal — apple picking,stone walls, fences, country roads.Frost’s approach was lucid andaccessible: He rarely employed pedanticallusions or ellipses. His frequentuse of rhyme also appealedto the general audience.Frost’s work is often deceptivelysimple. Many poems suggest adeeper meaning. For example, aquiet snowy evening by an almosthypnotic rhyme scheme may suggestthe not entirely unwelcomeapproach of death. From: “Stoppingby Woods on a Snowy Evening”(1923):Whose woods these are I think Iknow.His house is in the village,though;He will not see me stoppinghereTo watch his woods fill up withWALLACE STEVENSPhoto © The Bettmann Archive65snow.My little horse must think itqueerTo stop without a farmhousenearBetween the woods and frozenlakeThe darkest evening of the year.He gives his harness bells ashakeTo ask if there is some mistake.The only other sound’s thesweepOf easy wind and downy flake.The woods are lovely, dark anddeep,But I have promises to keep,And miles to go before I sleep,And miles to go before I sleep.Wallace Stevens (1879-1955)Born in Pennsylvania, WallaceStevens was educated at HarvardCollege and New York UniversityLaw School. He practiced law inNew York City from 1904 to 1916,a time of great artistic and poeticactivity there. On moving to Hartford,Connecticut, to become aninsurance executive in 1916, hecontinued writing poetry. His life isremarkable for its compartmentalization:His associates in the insurancecompany did not know that hewas a major poet. In private he continuedto develop extremely complexideas of aesthetic orderthroughout his life in aptly namedbooks such as Harmonium (enlargededition 1931), Ideas of Order