Robert Frost Frosts Early Years Born in 1874

Robert Frost

Frost’s Early Years • Born in 1874 in San Francisco. • Frost’s father, William Frost, worked mostly as newspaperman and wasted his money in saloons. • Frost’s mother, Isabelle Frost, was a school teacher. • When Robert turned two, his mother took him to Lawrence, Massachusetts to live with his in-laws. • By age eleven, Frost had crossed the U. S. three times. • At age fourteen, Frost went to high school and was an excellent student.

Frost Growing Up • He married his co-valedictorian, Elinor White. • Frost attended Dartmouth College for a few months and then decided to quit and work in the cotton mills. • As a young man, Frost experienced great difficulty selling his poems. • Isabelle Frost started a private school in Lawrence, and Robert and Elinor were teachers there. Elinor taught French and Robert taught mathematics. • Elinor gave birth to Eliot, and five other children soon followed. • Frost decided to go back to school after the birth of his son.

Frost’s Career Scramble • Frost re-applied to Harvard and was accepted. • He attended Harvard for only two years. Frost later wrote: “Harvard had taken me away from the questions of whether I could write or not. ” • Frost’s mother and his son Eliot died at this time. • Frost decided to work a farm for the next ten years instead of going back to school. • Frost found that he was too exhausted to write poetry after a full day of physical labor. He did not enjoy waking up early either. He gradually readjusted his cow’s milking schedule, so he could milk her at noon and midnight.

England • Frost decided to move to England for a change of scenery. • He spent three years in England published two books of poetry: A Boy’s Will and North of Boston. • Frost said, “I knew not a soul in England. But I felt impelled to lose myself among strangers to write poetry without further scandal to friends or family. ” • Some people believe that Frost’s poetry transformed when he moved to England, but Frost brought a whole trunk full of poems to England that he had already written.

Back to America • Frost worked as a professor at the University of Michigan and Amherst College in Massachusetts. He could not decide which place he liked better, so he moved back and forth. • In the 1930 s, Frost experienced both tragedy and success. • He published his most comprehensive book, Collected Poems. • His daughter Marjorie died of tuberculosis. • Frost’s wife Elinor died of a sudden heart attack, and their son Carol committed suicide soon after this.

Frost’s Accomplishments • Frost won the Pulitzer Prize four times. • Frost was often asked to lecture and to read his poems at prestigious universities. • He was nicknamed the “New England Poet. ” • Frost continued to write poetry and was considered to be a well known poet until his death in 1963.