Robert Frost | Biography, Poems, Awards & Facts

Robert Frost was an American poet. He won four Pulitzer Prizes for his work. His work was initially published in England before it was published in the united states. His famous works include "Mending Wall", "Fire and Ice", "Out Out", "Birches", "Home Burial", and "Nothing Gold Can Stay".

• Full Name: Robert Frost
• Born: 26 March 1874, San Francisco, California, United States
• Died: 29 January 1963, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
• Spouse: Elinor Frost (m. 1895–1938)
• Children: Lesley Frost Ballantine, Irma Frost, Marjorie Frost, Elliot Frost, Elinor Bettina Frost, Carol Frost
• Parents: William Prescott Frost, Jr., Isabelle Moodie

Early life

Robert Frost was born on 26 March 1874, in San Francisco, California. His father, William Prescott Frost Jr. was a journalist. Robert Frost spent the first 11 years of his life there until his journalist father died of tuberculosis. Soon after his father's death, Frost moved with his mother and sister, Jeanie, moved in with his grandparents, to the town of Lawrence, Massachusetts, where Frost attended Lawrence High School.

After completing high school, Frost attended Dartmouth College for several months and returned home. Robert married Elinor White, on 19 December 1895. Frost attended Harvard University in early 1897, but dropped out after two years due to health concerns and returned to Lawrence to join his wife. Frost moved with his wife and children to a farm in New Hampshire, in 1900. This time was fruitful for his writing career but was a difficult time in his personal life, caused by the death of two of his young children.

During Their stay in Hampshire, Frost with his wife attempted several endeavors, but all of that was fairly unsuccessful. despite such problems, Frost acclimated himself to rural life and started setting many of his poems in the countryside.

Early Career

Frost's first poem, "My Butterfly: an Elegy," was published in 1894 in a weekly literary journal based in New York City, "The Independent". Later on, his two more poems "The Tuft of Flowers" and "The Trial by Existence," was published in 1906. But in his early years of writing, he could not find any publishers who were willing to underwrite his other poems.

Due to this, Frost and his wife decided to sell their farm in New Hampshire and move to England, with the hope that, there would be more publishers willing to take a chance on new poets. Soon after they moved to England, they found a publisher, Within just a few months, when Frost become 38. The publisher would print his first book of poems, A Boy’s Will, followed by North of Boston a year later. This time in England was one of their most significant intervals of his. But after World War I broke out in August 1914, Frost and Elinor were forced to return to America.

When Frost arrived back in America, he was well-received by the literary world. Henry Holt, his new publisher in America, purchased all of the copies of North of Boston. Henry published Frost's "Mountain Interval" In 1916. Mountain Interval is a collection of Frost's works that he created while in England, including a tribute to Thomas. Atlantic Monthly a Journal started calling frost, who had turned Frost down when he submitted work earlier. Frost sent the same poems to the Atlantic, that they had rejected before his stay in England. Frost with his family, settled down on a farm that they purchased in Franconia, New Hampshire, in 1915.

In Hampshire, Frost began a long career as a teacher at several colleges. Although he thought at many famous colleges and universities, such as the University of Michigan at various times but his most significant association was with Amherst College. He taught steadily at Amherst College, from 1916 until his wife’s death in 1938.

Personal life

Frost met his love Elinor White, in Lawrence High School. She was his co-valedictorian when they graduated in 1892. Frost proposed to Elinor White, firstly in 1894, but she turned him down because she wanted to finish his school first. After it, Frost decided to leave on a trip to Virginia, and after returning back he again proposed white. Since White had graduated from college, at that time thus she accepted the proposal. Then they married on 19 December 1895.

Frost and White had six children together. Their first child, Elliot, was born in 1896 and their second daughter "Lesley" was born in 1899. Their first child Elliot died of the disease 'cholera' in 1900. After two years of her death, Elinor gave birth to her son Carol in 1902, and Irma's couple's fourth child was born in 1903. Irma faced some mental illness. Roberts's wife gave birth to two more children, Marjorie in 1905 and Elinor in 1907. Their son Carol committed suicide in 1940. Robert's wife White was suffering from heart troubles for a long time and died in 1938.

Frost's famous Poetries and Work

Some of Frost's famous works are

1. The Road Not Taken
2. Nothing Gold Can Stay
3. Mending Wall
4. Birches
5. Fire and Ice
6. Acquainted with the Night
7. Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening
8. Home Burial
9. The Death of the Hired Man
10. Out, Out
11. Acquainted with the Night

Awards won by Frost

Robert Frost won four Pulitzer Prizes. He won his first Pulitzer Prize in 1924, for his book "New Hampshire" and then he won his next three Pulitzer Prizes for his works "Collected Poems" in 1931, "A Further Range" in 1937, and "A Witness Tree" in 1943. Congress awarded Frost "the Congressional Gold Medal" in 1960. He also won the "Bollingen Prize" in 1963. Frost was also nominated for the Nobel prize in literature 31 times.

Death

Robert Frost dead in 29January 1963, Due to complications related to prostate surgery. In his last years, he was survived by two of his daughters, Lesley and Irma. His ashes are interred in a family plot in Bennington, Vermont.