Major themes of Robert Frosts poetry

Robert Frost (1874-1963) was the most popular poet of twentieth

century. He was born in San Francisco, California on Mar 26, 1874. He is a
well-known modern poet. He is generally regarded as a poet, teacher, and a
man of wisdom. Many Americans recognize his name, the titles of and lines
from his best-known poems and even his face and the sound of his voice. He
was awarded Pulitzer Prize four times. Despite his popular image as a farmer-
poet, those ten years, which he spent after his grandfathers death, were the
only period of Frost's life in which he worked seriously at farming, and in the
last five of them he also found it financially necessary to teach school.

He had a profound knowledge of literature, history, science and

philosophy. Hence he can be termed as classicist of very high order. Frost
neither describes the situations and conditions of life of modern society, nor
does he write about political and economic problems of his age. He does not
aloof himself from the contemporary society. He has penetrated from social
actions to intellectual problems of his age.

He was a poet who spoke with rhyme and meter of all things natural,
and in so doing plumbed the depths of emotions of people in all walks of life.
Louis Untermeyer best describes Frost's work as "poetry that sings and
poetry that talks ... his poems are people talking" (xxi). In describing a
simple act of nature, the mundane, or the heartfelt grief of people, Robert
Frost displays an insight into the sometimes simple instances in our lives that
when brought together constitute our very lives. One aspect of life that
touches everyone is death, whether it is the loss of a friend, neighbor, or
beloved one. Some of Frost's most beautiful work displays this stark reality of
life. Robert Frost is one of few poets in English literature that shall never
become outdated because poetry is an echo of every sensitive mans
experiences and his limitations. The main theme of his poetry is the
despairing state of man in his life. In all of Frost's works, the reader sees
encapsulated in verse, a depth and level of human emotion that is not easily
discerned by the eye, but rather felt and nurtured in the heart. Frost uses
nature at its most beautiful to explain life at its harshest.

With his down-to-earth approach to his subjects,

readers found it easy to follow the poet into deeper truths,
without being burdened with pedantry.

Robert Frosts chief concern is with man. The focus in his poetry is on
mans position and attitude and especially on his feelings. Robert Frost
reveals a good deal about his conception of universe and external reality in
his poetry. But what is important to him? It is mans thought, emotions and
behavior as they determine or reflect his relationship with the universe.
What does man do, and how does he feel in a universe as dark as this? That
is the central question for Robert Frost. The answer is found largely by the
fact that man is sharply limited as Robert Frost sees him. Man is limited both
in his intellectual power and his awareness and understanding. He has a
different way of seeing this universe. He is different in his thought and in his
intellectual power.

Behind the largely unruffled public facade was a personal life of

great stress and sorrow. None of the traumatic experiences of his personal
life found their way directly into Frost's poetry. To the broad public,
Frost may be a painter of charming postcard scenes and a front-
porch philosopher dispensing consolation and cracker-barrel
wisdom, but behind these stereotypes there is in Frost's work a
tragic and (in Lionel Trilling's phrase) a terrifying poet, whose
deepest note is one of inevitable human isolation.

In a life more painful than most, Frost struggled heroically with his
inner and outer demons, and out of that struggle he produced what many
consider to be the single greatest body of work by any American poet of
the twentieth century. He uses traditional forms and structures while
exploring modern themes of alienation and isolation. Throughout his
poetry, we find motifs of seasons, alternation of night and day, natural
phenomenon and rural images. Frosts poetry is commented on as:

A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom, begins as

a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, homesickness,
lovesickness. No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader.

Nature:

The omnipresence of nature in frosts poetry can very well be felt in

the mountains that rear high above mans head; in the curve of valleys; in
the leaf-strewn roads; in the crowding of trees; singly or in dense dark
woods; in the blooming of turf flowers; in the brooks that race downhill; in
the happy description of seasonal changes, taking care not to leave to
minute detail concerning the changes the earth wears. The cycle of growth,
the light giving way for darkness, the parade of stars firing mans aspiration
all go hand in hand to frame Frosts memorable world, where he touches
mans life at all points. Nature can at once be a destroyer, causing frustration
and disappointment. Frost driving a middle path seems to declare, that
mans relation to nature is also both together and apart. In nature, Frost
discloses the presence of both the friend and foe:

There is much in nature against us. But we forget:

 Take nature altogether since time began,

Including human nature, in peace and war,

And it must be a little more in favor of man

Say a fraction of one percent at the very least.

Nature is a dominant theme in the poetry of Frost, but he is not a

Nature-poet in the tradition of Wordsworth or Thomas Hardy. He is a nature
poet of a different kind. His best poetry is concerned with the drama of man
in Nature, whereas Wordsworth is generally best when emotionally displaying
the natural world. Frost himself said in 1952:I guess Im not a Nature poet. I
have only written two poems without a human being in them. In the epitaph
that Frost proposed for himself, he said that he had a lovers quarrel with
the world. This lovers quarrel is Frosts poetic subject and throughout his
poetry there are evidences of this view of mans existence in the natural
world. His attitude towards nature is once of armed and amicable truce and
mutual respect. His descriptions of the natural objects are characterized by
accuracy and minuteness. In Birches, we get a concrete and faithful
description of the habit of birches and how they react to a storm:

When I see birches bend to left and right

Across the lines of straighter darker trees,

I like to think some boy's been swinging them.

---------------They click upon themselves

As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored

As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.

Frosts love of nature is more comprehensive, many sided and all-

inclusive than that of Wordsworth. Wordsworth loved to paint only the spring-
time beauty of nature, or what Coleridge called Nature in the groove,
but Frost has an equally keen eye for the sensuous and the beautiful in
nature, as well as for the harsher and the unpleasant.

Frost also sees in nature; rather, it is they which give his song birds,
wild flowers, brooks and tress their poignant appeal. The charm of many of
the nature-lyrics results from the vividness with which sweet, delicate things
stand out against the somber background. You cannot have the one
without the other love of natural beauty and horror at the
remoteness and the indifference of physical world, are not opposite
but different aspects of the same view.

Man is not idealistically integrated with nature and so Frost shows man
as lonely in the midst of nature, as in Stopping by woods on a Snowy
Evening; Wordsworths man is not completely alone, as in Daffodils. Brower
writes, Frosts speaker, by being so surely fixed in the physical
world, the neutralized nature of the late nineteenth and twentieth
century, is much more surely alone.

Frost places a great deal of importance on Nature in all of his

collections. Because of the time he spent in New England, the majority of
pastoral scenes that he describes are inspired by specific locations in New
England. However, Frost does not limit himself to stereotypical pastoral
themes such as sheep and shepherds. Instead, he focuses on the dramatic
struggles that occur within the natural world, such as the conflict of the
changing of seasons (as in "After Apple-Picking") and the destructive side
of nature (as in "Once by the Pacific"). Frost also presents the natural
world as one that inspires deep metaphysical thought in the individuals who
are exposed to it (as in "Birches" and "The Sound of Trees"). For Frost,
Nature is not simply a background for poetry, but rather a central character
in his works.

Throughout Frosts work, speakers learn about themselves by exploring

nature, but nature always stays indifferent to the human world. In other
words, people learn from nature because nature allows people to gain
knowledge about themselves and because nature requires people to reach
for new insights, but nature itself does not provide answers. Frost believed in
the capacity of humans to achieve feats of understanding in natural settings,
but he also believed that nature was unconcerned with either human
achievement or human misery. Indeed, in Frosts work, nature could be both
generous and malicious. The speaker of Design, for example, wonders
about the design of darkness that has led a spider to kill a moth over
the course of a night. While humans might learn about themselves through
nature.

Man in Frosts poetry:

Robert Frost while pondering a lot over man as an individual

emphasizes that in spite of the amiable socialization of man, he is basically
single and alone with his fate. To him life covers both possibility of terror and
potential of beauty. Man must educate himself to know which it is to be. It
becomes the primary task of a man to understand him and his place in this
world. This can be achieved by observation and self-analysis. Repetitive
portrayals of harvest and mowing and in particular, poems upon abandoned
dwellings can be taken as evidence for Frosts belief in mans hapless
position in the ever changing world. Within the terribly limited period of
existence, he is destined to face the changes that take place in almost
everything around him. The nature cycles preach man that he is no
inevitable end, which shatters off all his hopes and dreams. The thing that
cant be altered must be understood and accepted. Frost stresses in
Acceptance, that man must learn to bow and accept the end.

Let what will be, be.

Among the various themes of Frost, mans relationship to his fellows

can be considered as an interestingly significant one as it comprises of both
apartness and togetherness. Frost strongly advocates individualism. Man
caught within the boundaries laid by nature, strives to achieve with whatever
talents he has been granted. Frost thinks if man is isolated, he cant be
achiever. This isolation might lead man to egocentrism or even to lonely
madness. Frost always being a moderator tries to achieve an ideal
reconciliation between the individual and the group.

Frosts observation regarding mans relationship to man is quite

opposing. For instance, The Turf of Flowers speaks of the bond that lies
between the individuals effecting universal brotherhood:

Men work together, I told him from the heart,

Whether they work together or apart.

In most of his poems, we find Frosts people are quite willing to offer a
friendly hand. A Time to Talk presents the farmer who responds to the
invitation of his neighbor for a friendly talk, without any inhibitions.

When a friend calls to me from the road

-------------------------------------

I dont stand still

---------I go up to the stone wall

For a friendly visit.

Isolation

In several Frosts poems, solitary individuals wander through a natural

setting and encounter another individual, an object, or an animal. These
encounters stimulate moments of revelation in which the speaker realizes his
or her connection to others or, conversely, the ways that she or he feels
isolated from the community. Some poems feature speakers who actively
choose solitude and isolation in order to learn more about themselves, while
the other return focus to solitude, exploring how encounters and community
only heighten loneliness and isolation. This deeply pessimistic, almost
misanthropic perspective sneaks into the most cheerful of late Frost poems.

The majority of the characters in Frosts poems are isolated in one way
or another. Even the characters that show no sign of depression or
loneliness, such as the narrators in The Sound of Trees or Fire and Ice,
are still presented as detached from the rest of society, isolated because of
their unique perspective. The old-style farmer in Mending Wall not only
refuses to pull down the useless barriers but, to make matters worse, insists
upon having the last word:

Good fences make good neighbors.

The girl in The Fear of Man, who walks breathlessly at midnight to

her home, symbolizes mans thronging for warmth and reassurance. The
timid professor in A Hundred Collars, his unwarranted suspicion resulting
up in isolation, dramatize a familiar human conflict. The struggle between
the need for companionship and the innate fear of the unfamiliar becomes
quite prominent. He dislikes isolation, but he sees its inevitability.

A concern with barrier is the predominant theme in Frosts poetry. Man

is always erecting and trying to bring down barriers----between man and
man, between man and environment. To Frost, these barriers seem favorable
to mutual understanding and respect. Frost insists on recognizing these
barriers instead of trying to tear them down as in the modern trend. And he
even builds them wherever necessary.

Barrier between man and the universe:

First, there is the great natural barrier, the void, the space, which
separates man from the stars. Man foolishly tries to bridge this gap, but all
his efforts in this respect are of no avail. Such efforts only make him more
conscious of his own littleness. In the poem entitled Stars, the poet tells us
how man gets attracted by nature only to be disillusioned by it. Here, the
stars shining in the sky at midnight do not lend any glory or state to the
gazer. Rather, they produce a note of disenchantment:

And yet with neither love nor hate

Though the stars like some snow-white

Mine roars snow like marble eyes

 Without the gift of sight.

In another poem, we find how clever human plans to establish

relationship with nature are thwarted. The protagonist of The Star-
Splitter, purchases a telescope with the insurance money that he gets by
burning his house down. He gazes at the stars but cannot escape the
question that raises its ugly head towards the end:

We have looked and looked

But after all where are we?

Barrier between man and nature:

Secondly, there are the barriers, between man and the immediate
natural world,the barren and desert placeswhich man must conquer,
reclaim and cultivate. He must constantly wage a war against such
wildernesses, if he is to survive in an environment which seems hostile to
him, which at least, is not meant for him and in which he is an alien.
Says Marion Montgomery, "there are those souls, of course, who are
content to have a barrier stand as a continual challenge which they
never quite accept; such is the old teamster of The Mountain who
lives and works in the shade of the mountain he always intends to
climb but never does. And there are those who accept the challenge
and go down in defeat; the deserted village of the
Census Taker with its gaunt and empty buildings is evidence of such
failure. The woman in A Servant to Servants has lost out to the
wilderness by losing her sanity. Her days are spent in caring for the house
while the men are away, and the emptiness of the world has overcome her.
There are others on the border line of tragic failure. The Hill Wife, though not
out of her mind, still has a fear of her house once she has left it, deserted it,
and has to return to it. When she comes back she has to reconquer it:

They learned to rattle the lock and key

To give whatever might chance to be

Warning and time to be off in flight.

Courage is needed to reclaim at home. In Generations of Men the

boy and girl meet for the first time at the ruins of an old home place, sit on
the edge of the cellar, and talk about families and the decayed places. In the
end they are in love, or about to fall in love, and have made a pact to return
and rebuild the old home place. Alone and helpless as he is, man must wage
a constant war against his physical environment which is inimical to human
existence.
The Otherness of Nature:

Thirdly, Man's physical existence itself is a barrier which divides man

from the soul or spirit of nature. While Wordsworth denied the very existence
of barriers between man and nature, for Frost a wide gulf separates man and
nature, spirit and matter. In a number of poems he stresses the otherness
and indifference of Nature, and shows that it is futile to expect any sympathy
from the spirit of soul which moves or governs the world. Individual man and
the forces of nature are two different principles, and the boundaries which
separate them must be respected. A Minor Bird also stresses the active
barriers between man and nature. The poet is bored by the bird which sings
at his window and wishes it away:

I have wished the bird would fly away,

And not seen by me have of day

Have clapped my hands at him from the door

When it seemed as if I could hear no more--

Barrier between man and man:

Fourthly, there are barriers which separate man from man. Such
barriers come in the way of social communication and lack of communication
leads to social alienation and emotional isolation and loneliness. Mending
Wall is an ironic comment on those who raise walls between themselves and
their neighbors, because they think, "good fences make good
neighbours". Read symbolically, the poem is a comment on racial, religious,
national and ideological barriers which divide and separate man from man.
Such barriers come to the way of human relationship; generate tensions,
which result in neurosis and emotional imbalance verging on insanity. North
of Boston is full of such emotionally isolated and alienated people. In
the Home Burial there is a grievous lack of communication between the
husband and the wife, and the mother's grief deepens into insanity. The
shadow of their dead child is the barrier which divides them and alienates
them from each other. The essential loneliness of the human spirit is also
expressed convincingly in poems like Acquainted with the Night, An Old
Man's Winter Night, Stopping by Woods, etc.

Provide, Provide evokes an agonizing emotion of alienation which no

amount of bantering can attenuate or overcome. No one can miss the
pronounced tragic tone of the ironic lines:

Die early and avoid the fate

 Or if predestined to die late

Make up your mind to die in state.

Isolation/Separateness from God:

Fifthly, man's reason and intellect is the barrier that alienates him from
God, his Maker. His rational bias deprives him of the bliss of communion with
God. The theme of the Masque of Reason is that reason combined with faith
alone can lead to understanding and wisdom. It is only through faith that
man can work out his own salvation and make life agreeable.

Though barriers and alienation loom large in the poetry of Frost, it does
not mean that he is against democracy or the brotherhood of man. Speaking
psychologically, Frosts concern with loneliness is an expression of his
intensely felt need for human love, sympathy and fellowship.

Communication:

Communication or the lack thereof, appears as a significant theme in

several of Frost's poems, as Frost presents it as the only possible escape
from isolation and despair. Unfortunately, Frost also makes it clear that
communication is extremely difficult to achieve. For example, in "Home
Burial," Frost describes two terrible events: the death of a child and the
destruction of a marriage. The death of the child is tragic, but inability of the
husband and wife to communicate with each other and express their grief
about the loss is what ultimately destroys the marriage. Frost highlights this
inability to communicate by writing the poem in free verse dialogue; each
character speaks clearly to the reader, but neither is able to understand the
other. Frost explores a similar theme in "Acquainted with the Night," in
which the narrator is unable to pull himself out of his depression because he
cannot bring himself even to make eye contact with those around him. In
each of these cases, the reader is left with the knowledge that
communication could have saved the characters from their isolation. Yet,
because of an unwillingness to take the steps necessary to create a
relationship with another person, the characters are doomed.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet

When far away an interrupted cry

-----------------------------

But not to call me back or say good-bye

 (Acquainted with night)

Everyday Life:

Frost is very interested in the activities of everyday life, because it is

this side of humanity that is the most "real" to him. Even the most basic act
in a normal day can have numerous hidden meanings that need only to be
explored by a poetic mind. For example, in the poem "Mowing," the simple
act of mowing hay with a scythe is transformed into a discussion of the value
of hard work and the traditions of the New England countryside. As Frost
argues in the poem, by focusing on "reality," the real actions of real people,
a poet can sift through the unnecessary elements of fantasy and discover
"Truth". Moreover, Frost believes that the emphasis on everyday life allows
him to communicate with his readers more clearly; they can empathize with
the struggles and emotions that are expressed in his poems and come to a
greater understanding of "Truth" themselves.

There was never a sound beside the wood but one,

And that was my long scythe whispering to the ground.

-------------- -------------- ----------

Something, perhaps, about the lack of sound

And that was why it whispered and did not speak.

Isolation of the Individual:

This theme is closely related to the theme of communication. The

majority of the characters in Frost's poems are isolated in one way or
another. Even the characters that show no sign of depression or loneliness,
such as the narrators in "The Sound of Trees" or "Fire and Ice," are still
presented as detached from the rest of society, isolated because of their
unique perspective. In some cases, the isolation is a far more destructive
force. For example, in "The Lockless Door," the narrator has remained in a
"cage" of isolation for so many years that he is too terrified to answer the
door when he hears a knock. This heightened isolation keeps the character
from fulfilling his potential as an individual and ultimately makes him a
prisoner of his own making. Yet, as Frost suggests, this isolation can be
avoided by interactions with other members of society; if the character in
"The Lockless Door" could have brought himself to open the door and face
an invasion of his isolation, he could have achieved a greater level of
personal happiness.
It went many years,

But at last came a knock,

And I thought of the door

With no lock to lock.

---------- -----------

So at a knock

I emptied my cage

To hide in the world

And alter with the cage.

Duty:

Duty is a very important value in the rural communities of New

England, so it is not surprising that Frost employs it as one of the primary
themes of his poetry. Frost describes conflicts between desire and duty as if
the two must always be mutually exclusive; in order to support his family, a
farmer must acknowledge his responsibilities rather than indulge in his
personal desires. This conflict is particularly clear in "Stopping by Woods
on a Snowy Evening," when the narrator expresses his wish to stay in the
woods and watch the snow continue to fall. However, he is unable to deny
his obligation to his family and his community; he cannot remain in the
woods because of his "promises to keep," as he says:

The woods are lovely, dark and deep

But I have promises to keep

And miles to go before I sleep

And miles to go before I sleep.

Similarly, in "The Sound of Tree," Frost describes a character who

wants to follow the advice of the trees and make the "reckless" decision to
leave his community. At the end of the poem, the character does not choose
to leave (yet) because his sense of duty to those around him serves as the
roots that keep him firmly grounded.

I shall make the reckless choice

 Some day when they are in voice

And tossing so as to scare

The white clouds over them on.

I shall have less to say,

But I shall be gone.

Rationality versus Imagination:

This theme is similar to the theme of duty, in that the hardworking

people whom Frost describes in his poetry are forced to choose between
rationality and imagination; the two cannot exist simultaneously. The adults
in Frost's poetry generally maintain their rationality as a burden of duty, but
there are certain cases when the hint of imagination is almost too seductive
to bear. For example, in "Birches," the narrator wishes that he could climb a
birch tree as he did in his childhood and leave the rational world behind, if
only for a moment. This ability to escape rationality and indulge in the
liberation of imagination is limited to the years of childhood. After reaching
adulthood, the traditions of New England life require strict rationality and an
acceptance of responsibility. As a result of this conflict, Frost makes the poem
"Out, Out--" even more tragic, describing a young boy who is forced to leave
his childhood behind to work at a man's job and ultimately dies in the
process.

Rural Life versus Urban Life:

This theme relates to Frost's interest in Nature and everyday life.

Frost's experience growing up in New England exposed him to a particular
way of life that seemed less complicated and yet more meaningful than the
life of a city dweller. The farmers whom Frost describes in his poetry have a
unique perspective on the world as well as a certain sense of honor and duty
in terms of their work and their community. Frost is not averse to examining
urban life in his poetry; in "Acquainted with the Night," the narrator is
described as being someone who lives in a large city. However, Frost has
more opportunities to find metaphysical meaning in everyday tasks and
explore the relationship between mankind and nature through the glimpses
of rural life and farming communities that he expresses in his poetry. Urban
life is "real," but it lacks the quality and clarity of life that is so fascinating to
Frost in his work.
Youth and the Loss of Innocence:

Youth appears prominently in Frosts poetry, particularly in connection

with innocence and its loss. A Boys Will deals with this theme explicitly,
tracing the development of a solitary youth as he explores and questions the
world around him. Frosts later work depicts youth as an idealized, edenic
state full of possibility and opportunity. But as his poetic tone became
increasingly jaded and didactic, he imagines youth as a time of unchecked
freedom that is taken for granted and then lost. The theme of lost innocence
becomes particularly poignant for Frost after the horrors of World War I and
World War II, in which he witnessed the physical and psychic wounding of
entire generations of young people. Later poems, including Birches
(1916), Acquainted with the Night (1928), and Desert Places
(1936), explore the realities of aging and loss, contrasting adult experiences
with the carefree pleasures of youth. In Home Burial, the lady suffers from
a terrible sense of self-alienation, as well as alienation from her surroundings.
And more than the physical loneliness, man suffers from the loneliness
within.

They cannot scare me with their empty spaces

Between stars--on stars where no human race is.

I have it in me so much nearer home

To scare myself with my own desert places.

(Desert places)

Human limitation:

Practically all of Frosts poems depict the theme of human limitation.

The universe seems chaotic and horrific because mans limited faculties
cannot comprehend its meaning. Walls, physical and real, mental and
invisible separate man from nature. Neither Out Far Nor In Deep shows
mans limitation concerning the universe. Frosts human beings are aware of
the gap between the actual and the ideal. In After Apple-Picking, the
apple-picker set out on his work with great hopes, but faces disillusionment.

For I have too much

Of apple-picking: I am overtired

Of the great harvest I myself desired

 Frost is aware of the limited capacity of man for changing the world
and therefore shows mans partial control of nature, as in Birches or
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. In Stopping by Woods on a
Snowy Evening the traveler is charmed by nature but his spirit impels him
to get along to do his duty. Frost indicates that nature requires mans
awareness and shows the earning of a livelihood in several of his poems. In
some poems, however, Frost does indicate that man can exceed his
limitation in his thought as in Sand Dunes.

Extinction or death:

Theme of extinction or death runs through the major works of Frost. In

many a poems, he writes of sleep which is associated with death. Fire
and Ice is a noteworthy poem on destruction by excess of desire or hatred.
Stopping by Woods On a snowy evening , After Apple-Picking, An Old
Mans Winter Night all these poems have a reference to death.

In most of Frosts poems, the speaker undergoes a process of self-

discovery. The wood-chopper of Two Tramps in Mud Time realizes by the
end of the poem that he chops woods for love of work only but love and need
should not be separated.

Theme of Affirmation:

Theme of affirmation is also found in some of his poems. Frost

ultimately presents the needs for man to make the most of his situation.
Aware of mans limitations, he yet desires man to explore and seek
knowledge and truth. Man should learn to accept things and his limitations
cheerfully. He suggests stoical will and effort in face of adversity as in West
Running Brook.

In the face of the mystery and the riddle of life there is necessity for
determined human performance.

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

Theme of love is central to Frosts poems. If there is any force that can
help man meet the challenges of the universe, it is love. In several of Frosts
poems, the significance of love between man and woman, or friendly love is
brought out. It is when love breaks down or fades off that life becomes
unbearable especially for women in Frosts poetry.
 Frost does not deal with the type of themes which we come across in
T.S.Eliot, but that does not mean that he is any the less modern. Lynen
observes: Subject matter is a poor measure of a poets modernity. Frosts
attachment with New England and rural life generally cause a
misinterpretation of his themes. Thus a number of critics think that Frost
never wanted to be characterized by topical labels. He ignores many of the
overwhelming subjects of the twentieth century, to be specific the two world
wars and the problems of urbanization and mechanization. But a point
worthy to be stressed here is that the work of his contemporary writers who
are characterized by topical labels became lusterless and outdated as the
year passed. Meanwhile Frosts poems retain their freshness, as they are less
reliant on contemporary idioms, events and people.