Acute Isolation in the Poetry of Robert Frost

Abstract

eriod of the first half of the twentieth century was a critical era for a literary figure. The social, economic, and political circumstances put their hands in every corner of life and led to enormous impacts and changes. Such changes were present in the new perspectives that literary figures wanted to follow on one hand, and in the aggressive realities and atrocities which demanded attention on the other hand. In consequence, there were three avenues to be followed by a literary figure: either to advocate the established norms of the literary scene, or set new ones, or make some amendments; that is, to form kind of hybrid between the old and the new. The last avenue was taken by Frost in which he "rejected the revolutionary poetic principle of his contemporaries, choosing instead 'the old-fashioned way to be new'."1

Robert Lee Frost (1874-1963) had a troubled life. He had seen ups and downs which were to leave their touches on his life and work. His father died when he was eleven years old and after twenty years, his Scot mother died of cancer. In 1920, Frost put his younger sister Jeanie to a