Robert Frost: A Biography

September 5, 2007 Ardsley, PA The audio version of this biography accompanied me to work. I have been a lifelong fan of Robert Frost's poetry, but never knew much about the man. This book gave me an excellent look into Robert Frost's life. I must admit now that I like Robert Frost's poetry far more than him. Mr. Meyers does a very good job examining the many influences in Frost's life and gives numerous examples of how they are reflected in his poetry. (I wish it told me a bit about who Brad McLaughlin was ... see Starsplitter.) It is hard for me to reconcile the picture I had of Robert Frost before I read this biography with the more accurate picture I now have of who this great poet was. I would recommend this biography to anyone familiar with Robert Frost's work who is interested as I was in knowing more about the man. However, I would warn you to be prepared to be somewhat let down by the time you finish this biography. Finally, regardless of Robert Frost, the man, his poetry has a special place in my heart and has accompanied me on many a walk in the woods. Although this biography gives me an unflattering view of Frost, it does not detract from the joy I derive from his wonderful work. I recommend you read this biography to learn more about Robert Frost and that you read Robert Frost's Poetry to learn more about yourself and this fascinating world in which we live. Cordially, Joe Rooney "To warm the frozen swamp as best it could With the slow smokeless burning of decay." ... Awesome!

This is a solid, workmanlike biography of Robert Frost. It will probably appeal more to the reader who wants to know about Frost the man as opposed to the reader who is more interested in the poetry. There are some excerpts from the poetry but not a lot, and very little analysis. Probably the best thing about the book is the balanced attitude Mr. Meyers takes towards the poet. The author doesn't gloss over Frost's faults, but doesn't demonize him either. Yes, Frost had a tremendous ego. (Show me an artistic person that doesn't!) He loved to receive praise. He "collected" honorary degrees. Towards the end of his life he made it clear that he wanted degrees from Oxford and Cambridge, so that he could equal the achievement of Longfellow and James Russell Lowell. He was famous enough and knew enough of the "right" people that he was able to get what he wanted. He was extremely competitive and made nasty comments about other poets who he perceived to be a "threat", both in terms of popularity and talent- such as Carl Sandburg, Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot. Frost made fun of Sandburg's self-created "folksy" persona- playing his "geetar" and combing his long, white hair over his eyes. But Mr. Meyers makes clear that Frost wasn't alone in his competitiveness. Though Sandburg was apparently a very nice fellow, Eliot and Pound had plenty of nasty things to say about Frost and other poets as well. Where Mr. Meyers is most sympathetic is in discussing Frost's relationship with his family. In the past, Frost has been portrayed as a selfish "monster" who ignored his wife and children and caused their unhappiness, mental problems and, in the case of Frost's son Carol, a suicide. It seems clear that mental illness ran in Frost's family, going back at least to his father and mother. Frost heard "voices" in his youth and they came back in times of severe stress, such as right after Frost's wife Elinor died in 1938. Frost had an unnatural fear of the dark and apparently suffered from some degree of depression. He managed to overcome these problems and to live a long, creative life. He did the best he could to be a good husband and father. He remained faithful to his wife despite the temptation of female students "throwing" themselves at him. (After all, even in middle-age, he was a handsome man, as well as being charismatic, artistic and famous.) He tried to be emotionally present for his children, giving advice (if also at times trying to control them) and he was always generous with money. Again, this book is strong on Frost's personal life. But it is a bit weak on analyzing the poetry and it covers Frost's teaching career in too cursory a manner, "flitting" about from place to place too quickly. Some of this is inherent in Mr. Meyers' decision to write a relatively brief biography. He tries to cover in 350 pages the personal life and career of a man who lived to be 88 years old, and who remained creative for approximately 70 of those years. Mr. Meyers had to make c

In spite of the barrier of silence choking it, the vitality of American identity and consciousness continues to survive, thanks to clues, planted in Robert Frost: a biography, written by Jeffrey Meyers. The first major hint that America is alive and struggling for breath comes with the affirmation of the importance of Frost's identity as a native San Franciscan; the second is the remembrance of Lionel Trilling's valiant attempt in 1985 to put into sharper focus the image of Frost's work and his reputation. Nevertheless, author Meyers does not develop the latter point in which Trilling stated that Frost's reputation had been created over a misinterpretation of his work. In fact Trilling's was a major effort to raze the barrier of silence, to state and restate lines of research in the development and study of literature in America from the East Coast to the West, from Columbia University to the University of California at Berkeley (Lizarraga 1999a y b). In response to criticism both professional and personal, published in major literary reviews of the East Coast, Trilling made a valiant attempt to defend the remarks made on that historical evening, recording in permanent form by way of the Partisan Review both his speech and his will to defend it. Although Meyers describes the reaction of Frost on that evening as one of surprise, the poet was not a stranger to the effects of the barrier of silence. A letter written in 1929 by Frost to Lincoln MacVeagh (Thompson 1964:362), as well as subsequent events in the 1930's, not only establish Frost's initial attitude toward 'the silencers', but also serves as a vindication of Trilling. The letter reads as follows "The first poem I ever wrote (La Noche Triste) was on the Maya-Toltec-Aztec civilization and there is where my heart still is, while outwardly i profess an interest more or less perfunctory in new England. Never mind, I'm lucky to be allowed to write poetry on anything at all". Actually, this was but a prelude to continuing manifestations of the relation of poetry, politics, religion and repression, experienced in 1936, when Frost achieved the publication of a number of works. Key among them is the booklet titled A Further Range, which includes the poems "The Vindictives 'The Andes"and "The Bearer of Evil Tidings 'The Himalayas"and for which he won the Pulitzer Prize, and the booklet entitled from Snow to Snow, which, apparently, was the initial publication of the poem "The Road Not Taken"and which by the end of the Thirties as an integral text had been banished to oblivion by Frost himself. It is here that a concept of AngloAmerican literature, which rejects the primacy of geography in the formation of consciousness, begins to be formulated; and, time is divorced from space. This then created a dichotomy in the Americas, centering in the north of america concepts of Angloamerican and Western culture, grounded in language only, as opposed to So

Jeffrey Meyers' ROBERT FROST: A BIOGRAPHY is a masterful account of Frost's lives, personal and literary. Cast in the long shadow of Lawrance Thompson's three-volume diatribe against the modern titan, Meyers' work is balanced, judicious, and highly entertaining. It does not deny Frost's tragic shortcomings, but it also lauds his compelling and unique body of work and restores his eminence as a 20th- century virtuoso, all the while exposing the contradictions in the personal and moral life of the intellectual. The work is full of wonderful anecdotes and has unparalleled direct accounts of Frost's early courtship of his wife, Elinor, and of his later complicated relationship with his mistress, Kay Morrison. Meyers is especially adept at providing insight into the biographical events that shaped individual poems. This is the most honest biography of Frost yet written.