Description
Book SynopsisThe Life of Robert Frost presents a unique and rich approach to the poet that includes original genealogical research concerning Frost s ancestors, and a demonstration of how mental illness plagued the Frost family and heavily influenced Frost s poetry.
Trade ReviewHart did a great job of dramatizing the precariousness of Frost s life. The letters Hart found in various new sources, combined with a close reading of many of Frost s poems, enable Hart to reveal Frost as a much more complicated person and poet than some critics and biographers believed. Frank Schatz, The Virginia Gazette, May 3 2017.
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix
List of Abbreviations and Author’s Note xi
1. The New England Frosts 1
2. Rebel Sons and Punitive Fathers 8
3. Strong Man’s Food and Swedenborgian Mysticism 18
4. “A Boy’s Will Is the Wind’s Will” 26
5. Reluctant Yankees 39
6. Monuments to After‐thought 55
7. “Precipitate in Love” 64
8. Adventures in the Great Dismal Swamp 80
9. From Riffraff to Harvard 93
10. Deaths of a Son and a Hired Man 104
11. Indoor and Outdoor Schooling 121
12. Hen Man in the Academy 134
13. To the Land of The Golden Treasury 148
14. The Lively Gallows 167
15. Victory at Home 180
16. Amherst Interval 202
17. Sense and Sensibility 217
18. A Home that Never Was on Land or Sea 230
19. Something beyond Conflict 240
20. Delivering Battle 251
21. Weddings, Divorces, and Funerals 261
22. A Survivalist’s Further Range 278
23. Elinor’s Final Ordeal 294
24. Inferno to Vita Nuova 302
25. A Biblical Job by a Witness Tree 320
26. Mercy for the Damned 332
27. Mr Frost Goes to Washington 344
28. A Brief Shining Moment with the Kennedys 361
29. Last Act on the Global Stage 376
Notes 390
Bibliography 415
Index 423
