Robert Frost

Robert Frost and Ralph Waldo Emerson are two obviously different

types of writers. They both wrote during different times, Emerson during

the nineteenth century, and Frost during the twentieth. Emerson and Frost

had different views on the poet's role. Both authors views were

characteristic relating to the different time period in which each of them

wrote. In Alvan S. Ryan's essay "Frost and Emerson: Voice and Vision" he

writes "There is nothing about Frost's Conception of the role of a poet

that is close to Emerson's."(Ryan126) Emerson and Frost both had different

writing styles, as again described in Alvan S. Ryan's essay Frost and

Emerson: Voice and Vision he says " Whereas Emerson prefers to be

suggestive, to develop a few images or a series of briefly sketched scenes,

Frost characteristically structures a poem around a single symbolic event.

Emerson's unifying principle is ideational, Frost's metaphorical."(Ryan127)

Both of these writers have their differences as all writers do. A close

look at their works will show that Frost and Emerson have similarities.

At a first glance the works Frost and Emerson seem to have numerous

similarities. In Alvan S. Ryan's essay "Frost and Emerson: Voice and

Vision" he states that Frost and Emerson "agree on the central importance

of symbol and metaphor.

They have a common preoccupation with rural subjects. They share

basic sense of 'correspondence'. . . ."(Ryan125)Also, these two writers are

similar in that they both tend to write about the same subject matter.

Many of the titles of Frost's poems: "Mending Wall," "Storm-Fear," "The

White- Tailed Hornet," "I Could Give All to Time," and "Spring Pools" are

similar to the titles of some of Emerson's poems: "The Snow- Storm," "Give

All to Love," "Two Rivers," "The Humble-Bee," "The Rhodora." These

similarities are superficial and can be seen in comparing many other

authors. Where these two writers really connect is in their common

interest in nature.

Both writers have reputations of being poets of nature. In

Emerson's essay "Nature" he writes "In the wilderness, I find something

more dear and connate than streets or villages. In the tranquil landscape,

and especially in the distant line of the horizon, man beholds somewhat as

beautiful as his own nature."(Emerson442) An essay written by Roberts W.

French "Robert Frost and the Darkness of Nature" states, in his poems Frost

always "seems to be participating in the life of nature, deriving

sustenance from it , and finding in it a deeply satisfying source of

pleasure"(French155).

They both have similar theories as to why it was important for them

to write about nature. Emerson writes in his essay "The American Scholar",

"the first important influences upon the mind is that of

nature"(Emerson468). He also says that nature is a

"circular power returning into itself. Therein it resembles his own spirit,

whose beginning, whose ending he never can find - so entire - so

boundless."(Emerson469) In

Emerson's essay "Nature" he writes "It is not words that are

emblematic; it is things which are emblematic. Every natural fact is a

symbol of some spiritual fact . . . . Who looks upon a river in a

meditative hour and is not reminded of the flux of all things?"(Emerson447-

448) From these quotes it is seen that Emerson believed nature was a

force everything was connected through. By understanding nature one can

understand his own spirit. Thus Emerson believed nature helped to clarify

the supernatural. Seemingly Emerson believed writing about nature brought

him closer to nature thus bring him closer to his own spirit.

Frost does not go as deep as Emerson in that he did not believe

that nature helped to clarify the supernatural. In his essay "Education by

Poetry" Frost says " The figure a poem makes?It begins in delight, it

inclines to the impulse, it assumes direction with the first line laid down,

it runs a course of lucky events, and ends in a clarification of life- not

necessarily a great clarification, such as sects as cults are founded on ,

but a momentary stay against confusion."(Frost77). Frost believed that his

poems helped to clarify life.

However Frost also believed as Emerson that poetry helped to make

the