Research Paper: Personal Experiences of Robert Frost in His Poems

Robert Frost said, “In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on.” Through the life in which he went through, Frost has learned a lot, such as the value of things and been through a lot, such as the deaths of many of his family members. All his personal experiences have put him through a lot of grief and helped form the way in which he views life and have a greater appreciation for it.

His writing reflects what he learned and all of his experiences. Robert frost became the poet he is through his early life, his later life, and his poems reflect it. Robert Frost’s life experiences have led him to his career of a poet and becoming one of the best of all time. He was born March 26, 1874 in San Francisco and when he was 11 years old, his father died. As stated by Parini, “This causes the Frost family to move to Massachusetts where his grandparents cared for him and his family” (Parini, 2015, p.5). Frost graduated high school as the valedictorian and heads to college. He had only gone for one semester when he had to return home to support his family. Robert Frost always had a love for English and writing, and with his experiences and view on life, he began to write poetry.

“On November 8, 1894, Frost’s first poem, “My Butterfly”, was published in the New York Independent”. He received $15 (approximately $400 today) from this poem and realized that that would be the start of his career as a poet. Knowing that he wanted to become an English major and a successful poet, Robert Frost did all that he could to make his dreams come true. He was accepted at Harvard and attended for two years studying Liberal Arts, but he had to drop out before he could receive his degree because he needed to support his growing family. Frost had a wife and new son at home while his wife was pregnant with a baby girl. He moved his family to a farm for work in order to pay for medication for his son who was very ill, but his son died before his fourth birthday. Frost had four other children and decided to sell his farm for the money and become a professor. This gave him more time to write and he started to publish books of his poems and dialogues. Frost won his first Pulitzer award in 1923 followed by his second, third, and many other poetry awards.

According to an article by Poetry Foundation, “One of his most memorable moments was having the opportunity of reading at the inauguration of John F. Kennedy where he recited his poem ‘The Gift Outright’”. Overall, he lived his life with many ups and downs, but he got passed all his challenges through his writing. All of Robert Frost’s poems reflect his life experiences and how he views life altogether. Some of the common themes in Frost’s poems include duty, isolation, nature, and everyday life. In his first published poem, “My Butterfly”, Frost is speaking of the death of his butterfly and the sorrow he feels without it. According to Holland, “The parallel Frost draws between the butterfly and himself suggests Frost's own dissatisfaction and sorrow”.

Holland later discusses that the butterfly could possibly be Frost’s father and how the death of him led to his sadness and melancholy. In “The Sound of Tree”, Frost is talking about being isolated from his community and having to make a decision between what he wants and doing what he has to. As a tree, he knows he must stay, for the roots are the support of all. This poem represents his time of having to leave his dreams often in order to support his family. Another one of his most famous poems, “Nothing Gold Can Stay”, Frost is showing themes of nature and everyday life. “He finds a way to make significant observations about the things in life that we often take for granted,” so in this poem, he reflects his entire view on life and how important it is to love life because soon it will be gone. All of Robert Frost’s poems are still famous today because he uses universal themes, which is why he is such an amazing poet.

Robert Frost lived a very successful life with some of the greatest poems ever written, and he is still remembered today for them from his early life, to later life, and how his poems reflect it. His early life with traumatic events and hard work were just the start of his amazing career. His later life gave him more freedom to write and life experiences to write about while he received many awards for all his works. All that he went through helped him to write the things he did and write the way he did which gave him all his fame and acknowledgement. Even with Robert Frost’s death, his poems will forever live on for they have universal themes and can appeal to all; he truly was one of the greatest poets.