广州大学陆道夫老师美国文学课件rober frost.ppt

Robert Frost School of Foreign Languages Guangzhou University Lu Daofu Robert Frost His life story ☆ Birthplace: San Francisco ☆ Family: His father died of T.B. when Robert was 11. ☆ Education: wrote poems in high school; went to Dartmouth College in 1893(at 19); 1897-1899 Harvard College without getting a degree. ☆ Working Experiences: worked at various jobs while tending his small farm in New Hampshire. ☆ Getting recognized in London at the age of 40 with the help of Ezra Pound. Frost was the most popular American poet from 1914 to his death. ☆ was invited to read “The Gift Outright” at the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy in 1961. The representative poems □ A Boy’s Will □ Mending Wall □ The Road Not Taken □ Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening The theme of his poems His poems are great combination of wisdom, harmony and serenity; rural life of New England, full of peacefulness and serenity; good at exploring the complexity of human existence through trivial subjects; A momentary stay against confusion; Style of his poems simple language and traditional forms of poetry; a perfect combination of the traditional poetic forms and modern vocabulary and speech rhythms; suggests rather than speaks; leaving spaces for his readers; The road not taken You have to be careful of that one; its a tricky poem – very tricky.“-----Frost warned the poem is inspirational, a promoting individualism and non-conformity; free will, rationality, responsibility; In face of critical choices, he measures the situation, makes a rational decision (he prefers a harder life), and is ready to take full responsibility for his decision for better or for worse. Appreciation of the poem four stanzas of five lines. The rhyme scheme is ABAAB. the rhymes are strict and masculine, with notable exception of the last line. There are four stressed syllables each line, varying on iambic tetrameter base.