Robert Frost As Symbolist Poet

The apparent ditference between Frosts' verse and Symbolist poetry makes his work seem out of place in contemporary lit' erature. Yet if modern is a meaningful term, it is neither tair nor accurate lo deny him modernily He is not only a poet ot the 20th century but one who in his own way, deals with the very problem which is the concern of the symbolisls. The connection between

his art and the more characteristic modern poetry can best be seen. noting their structural resemblance. Both Frost and Symbolism tend to view realily through the perspective of contrasting levels of being. ln Frosts' nature poem this technique quite obviously results from his desire to recognise the validity of science. Thus despite his indebtedness to Romanticism, he must be seen as essentially anti-romantic, by insisting in the gulf separating man and nature, he directly opposes the romantic attempl to bring the two together. While the romantic sought a place for sensations, Ieelings and values within physical nature, he conceives of the physical world as a distinct level of being. And just because of this, he is able to avoid the assumption that the physical world comprises the whole

of reality. He can accept nature as the limited, purely physical world which science depicts and yet place il within a larger context which includes the realities of purpose, feeling and value. His method is to unify scientiiic nature and the realm of human experience, rrot by blending them, bui by viewing reality as a vista of distinct bul parallel planes.

Symbolist poetry should involve both a very strong historical orientation and a crilique of the concept of time. Poetry oI this kind require that the symbol be seen in its various manifestations and the means a constant reference backward from the presenl to other periods more or less remote. Thus symbolism creales a very acute awareness of the distance betvveen the past and the present and o, the passing ol time. lt also leads to ordinal of time and an historical sense which in Eliot's words 'involves perception not only ol the pastness of the past, but of its presence'.