Robert Frost's Theory of Poetry

A poem begins with a lump in the throat a homesickness or a love sickness. ll is a reaching out toward expression; an effort to find fulfilment. A complete poem is one where an emdtion has found its thought and the thought has found words ..My definition of poetry would be this: words that have become deeds" (Frost) so said, Frost of poetry. Robert Frost, won the admiration and respect individuals in a literary age'made nervous by the tugging conflicts ol faclions. The secret of Frost's wide appeal lies in the fact that his poetry lrom the beginning caught fresh vitality without recourse to the fads and limitations of modern experimental techniques. ln an era oI expe rimentalists Frost carried on his own experiments emphasising speech rhythms and the sound of sense. "He called attention to those dramatic tones oi voice which had hitherto constituted the better half of poetry". ln Frost's theory of poetry, the self imposed restrictions ot meter in form and ol coherence in content stand not half way down the scale of grace. He has made many casual references to the general quality of those limitations to which work to the advantage not to the disadvantage of new and lively poetry. Frost, unlike the other poets of his era, hates to see poets use their medium as a vehicle for shrieking frustralion and disgust. "Gievances he would willingly restrict to prose so that poetry might concentrate on grieves on woes, woes immediate:. To him the mystery, the wonder, the virtue, the magic ot poetry is its heterogeneity of elements some how blended to a single autonomous unit. The problem of the poet is to achieve this integration, this fusion. 

Frost considers'form'as the most important characteristic essenlial o, poetry. Form in poetry is modulated by the relation, the balance of emotion and emotion, of thought and thought, of emotion and thought, of the image and metaphor, of the specilic and the general, of the trival and the significant, of the transient and the permanent.

All these facets appear to Frost related aspects of 'form'. To give form in poetry is also to employ lhat intricale method of conveying organization shapeliness, fitness, to the matter or substance of context or meaning of the poem. Before meaning find its place in a poem it must become subordinated to its proper balance with structure. And Frost further to assert quiet bluntly that another requirement of poetry is that this formal fusion of distinct elements shall achieve the personal idiom oi lhe poet's expression without sacriticing that happy correspondence which must exist between his own experience and the experience of those who come after to read or hear the poem. Frost finds variety in poetry more closely allied to many - sided o, content than to the many - sideness o{ form, difficult as it may be a to extricate the one from the other in a poem. A good poem, then to Frost is one where the form and content are inextricably lused. To work out a poem, Frost feels an impulse is importanl. Frost believes that poetry is a clarification ol life. 

He linds poetry at its best when its statements and observations touch realms ol spiritual values where there is no room for argument, sorrow, aspiration, loneliness, love. Songs are built around everlasting perceive values which are lrue for us all. A poem written on human nature (its enduring qualities and everlasting truths - joys and sorrows) will forever keep its freshness as a metal keeps its lragrance. Poetry deals with a meaning and truth which may clarily the mingled goodness and bandess of tife without growing too optimistic over the existence of the one or too pessimistic over the existence of the other. The poem is something more than a mere expression or release tor the poet. lts lunction is not fulfilled as an autonomous unit if it has merely satisJied the poet. For the poem must be able to establish a basic corresporldence between writer and reader. lI it fails to contain statement intelligible at least to lhe intelligent and intelligible to the degree thal there is a common ground in experience for genergl agreement as to its denotation, then it does not succeed as a poem no matter how certain the poet may be that his intent is stated. To Robert Frost, the tone or sound of words themselves or in their relation to each other and the symbolic meaning of words and phrases are the two basic elements in any poetry. 

Aloneness is common theme in the poetry of Robert Frost, another New Englander. ln style, he also loved the old way of being new, he always worked in the traditional form of poetry. But there the similarity stops. Frost uses a language absolutely unliterary and although he is realist, his moods are rarely as black as Robinson wellknown a poet of his time. Frost liked to say he was only having a lovers quarrel with the world. These various qualities made him one of the best loved poets of 20th century America. Most of Frost's well-known poetry is nature poetry. lt has a smoothness and simplicity. Then suddenly the surface breaks under our feet, like ice on a pond. We look down into unexpecled depths of meaning as in Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. "A g.od poem begins in delight and ends is wisdom" said Frost about poetry. lt cannot give us a complete philosophy ol life. But it can sometimes help us top live with the contusions of human life. ln fact we can see a kind of philosophy in Frost's poetry. lt has much in common with Emerson's idea of self-reliance. The Road Not Taken (1916) shows how individuals are forced to make choices in their lives. This little decision "has made all the difference." "Knowing how way leads to way", he realizes he can never go back again. ln his blank verse play. "A Mosque of Mercy (1947) Frost says. "The saddest thing in life is that the best thing in it should be courage". Still, the individual is not completely alone in this world. Countless ties of love and thought connecl him to everything on earth. Frost's conservatism made him reject the new "free verse" styles of poetry. "Free verse is like playing tennis with the nei down", he ones remarked.