Title

Robert Frost : a life

Description

A biography of Robert Frost, the poet who won four Pulitzer prizes before dying in 1963. The book describes his early life--he wanted to be a baseball player--his farming in New England, its influence on his poetry, and his many bouts with depression and self-doubt.

Identifier

789559

805031812

Creator

Parini, Jay

Format

1st ed.

Source

Brian Lamb Booknotes Collection

Gift of Brian Lamb, 2011.

Catalog record

Language

eng

Date

1999

Program air date: September 12, 1999

Publisher

Henry Holt

George Mason University. Libraries. Special Collections & Archives

Text

Transcription of Annotations
Notes on front and back endpapers include biographical information on Robert Frost, his childhood, his education, his marriage and family, his years as a farmer and English teacher in England, and then, after his return to America, as a teacher at Amherst and Middlebury College, and then as a poet. Frost is said to have been intensely skeptical about the value of a college education, disliked the liberal atmosphere at Amherst, was an avid walker, and won his first Pulitzer Prize in 1924. Several contradictory characteristics are pointed out: He was a Democrat who hated FDR, a poet of labor who did not support the new Deal, he believed in war, but not World War II, he supported Eisenhower, campaigned for JFK, was a fierce anti-communist, but called Khrushchev a great man. Other notes refer to his 1941 lecture at the Library of Congress titled 'The role of the poet in a democracy', his reading at Kennedy's inauguration, the deaths of several of his children and his wife, his mental problems later in life, his efforts to bring culture and politics together, and his biographers' negative views of him, particularly Lawrance Thompson's. Also mentioned in the notes is his poem 'The silken tent' - in the author's opinion one of the finest sonnets written in English in the 20th century. -- Annotations by Brian Lamb in the margins and underlining of pertinent phrases throughout the book.

Subject

"Frost, Robert, 1874-1963."

"Poets, American--20th century--Biography."

Relation

Original Booknotes interview

Rights

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