Robert Frost: A Modern Poet

In spite of the Pastoral element predominant in Frost’s poems, he is still a modern poet because his poetry has been endowed with the awareness of the problems of man living in the modern world dominated by Science and Technology.


Critics have a difference of opinion over considering him a modern poet. Frost is a pastoral poet – poet of pastures and plains, mountains and rivers, woods and gardens, groves and bowers, fruits and flowers, and seeds and birds. They do not treat such characteristically modern subjects as ‘the boredom implicit in sensuality’, ‘the consciousness of neuroses’ and ‘the feeling of damnation’. Cleanth Brooks says:

“Frost’s best poetry exhibits the structure of symbolist metaphysical poetry. Much more clearly than does of many a modern poet.”

In fact, Frost’s poetry portrays the disintegration of values in modern life and the disillusionment of the modern man in symbolical and metaphysical terms as much as the poetry of great, modern poets does, because most of his poems deal with persons suffering from loneliness and frustration, regrets and disillusionment which are known as modern disease. In “An old Man’s Winter Night”, the old man is lonely, completely alienated from the society, likeness, the tiredness of the farmer due to over work in “Apple-Picking” and as a result of it his yielding to sleep:

For I have too much
Of apple-picking: I am overtired
Of great harvest I myself desired.
In his nature poems, Frost has also commented on the misery of the modern man which due to his going away from nature.


His metaphysical treatment of the subject in some of his poems is also an evidence of his modernity. In “Mending Walls”, Frost juxtaposes the two opposite aspects of the theme of the poem and then leaves it to the reader to draw his own conclusion. The conservative farmer says:
Good fences make good neighbour
and the modern radical farmer says:
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
According to J.F.Lynen the use of the pastoral technique by Frost in his poems, does not mean that the poet seeks an escape from the harsh realities of modern life. He argues that it provides him with a point of view.

Frost uses pastoral technique only to evaluate and comment on the modern lifestyle. His pastoralism thus registers a protest against the disintegration of values in the modern society and here he is one with great poets of the modern age like T.S.Eliot, Yeats and Hopkins.

Another poetic technique adopted by Frost which makes him a modern poet is symbolism. “The Road Not Taken” symbolizes the universal problem of making a choice of invisible barriers built up in the minds of the people which alienate them from one another mentally and emotionally thought they live together or as neighbours in the society. Similarly the Birch trees in “Birches” symbolize man’s desire to seek escape from the harsh suffering man to undergo in this world.

Unlike Romantics he has taken notice of both the bright and dark aspects of nature as we see in his poem “Two Tramps in Mud Time”. Beneath the apparently beautiful calm there is lurking turmoil and storms:
Be glad of water, but don’t forget
The lurking frost in the earth beneath
In fact the world of nature in Frost’s poetry is not a world of dream. It is much more harsh, horrible and hostile than the modern urban world. Hence his experience of the pastoral technique to comment on the human issue of modern world his realistic treatment of Nature, his employment of symbolic and metaphysical techniques and the projection of the awareness of human problems of the modern society in his poetry justly entitle him to be looked up to as modern poet.

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Heart of Darkness: Theme of Isolation

“Heart of Darkness” has a multiplicity of themes interwoven closely and produces a unified pattern. The theme of isolation and its consequences constitute a theme in this book, though a minor one. Marlow and Mr. Kurtz illustrate this theme, dominate the novel and have symbolic roles. Both these men stand for much more than the individuals which they certainly are.

Marlow strikes us from the very start as a lonely figure. Although he is a member of a small group of people sitting on the deck of the streamer called the “Nellie”. He is, at the very outset, differentiated from the others. He sits cross-legged in the pose of a Buddha preaching in European clothes without a lotus-flower. Then he begins his story, and nowhere in his narration does he appear to be feeing perfectly at home among other people. He seems to have the temperament of a man who would like to stay away from others, though he would certainly like to observe others and to mediate upon his observations.

When Marlow goes to Brussels for an interview, he depicts himself as an alien who has stepped into an unpleasant environment. The city of Brussels makes him think of a “whited sepulcher”. This feeling clearly shows that he has nothing in common with the people of this European city, though he is himself a European. Then he finds something ominous in the atmosphere of the office of the Company. The two knitting-women strike him as mysterious and sinister beings.
"In the outer room the two women knitted black wool, feverishly."

Even the doctor tells him that he is the first Englishman to have come under his observation. Marlow says:
'The old doctor felt my pulse, evidently thinking of something else the while. "Good, good for there," he mumbled, and then with a certain eagerness asked me whether I would let him measure my head.


There seems to be a distance even between Marlow and his aunt who has got him the job. She is enthusiastic and cordial enough, but Marlow has his reservations. He thinks that she is a most unrealistic woman. She is under the impression that the white men go into the backward regions to confer benefits upon the savages. But, in Marlow’s opinion, this view of the white men is entirely wrong.

When voyaging upon the sea in order to get to the Congo Marlow found himself to be perfectly idle and isolated from all the others on board the steamer because he had no point of contact with them. The sound of the sea-waves was the only source of comfort to him because these sounds seemed to be like “the speech of a brother”. He finds a kinship with the sea-waves but no kinship with the human beings on board the steamer.

Marlow’s sense of loneliness increase when he sees certain sights in the Congo. These sights convey to him the futility of the white man’s exertions and activities in the Congo, and miseries of the black natives. His realization by him of white man’s cruelty creates a kind of barrier between him and the white men living in Congo. When he has to deal with the individual white men, his isolation is further emphasized. He finds absolutely no point of contact with the manager of the Central Station, with the manager’s uncle, and with the brick-maker. The manager is a man who inspires no fear, no love, no respect and there is “nothing within this man”. The manager’s uncle is an intriguer and plotter as the manager himself. The brick-maker is described by Marlow as a “papier-mâché Mephistopheles” and a devil who is hollow within. The only man, whom Marlow can respect, is the chief accountant who keeps his account-books in apple-pie order and is always seen dressed neatly and nicely; but perhaps Marlow is speaking here ironically. Actually none of the white men seems to have any merit in him. Marlow does discover some good points in the natives but none in the white men. The cannibal crew of his steamer shows an admirable self-restraint and are hard-working but the white agents seem to be useless fellows and to them he gives the nickname of the “faithless pilgrims”. It is only when Marlow meets Mr. Kurtz that some sort of contact is established between him and the chief of the Inner Station of the Company.

The effect of isolation upon Marlow is profound. He is by nature somewhat unsociable. He is a kind of philosopher who meditates upon whatever he sees. Isolation further heightens his meditative faculty. Finding no point of contact with others, Marlow becomes more of a thinker, and more of a philosopher-cum-psychologist and studies the character and habits of Mr. Kurtz; and it is because of his isolation that he falls a victim to the influence of Mr. Kurtz whom he has himself described as a devil. This isolation can have grave consequences.

Mr. Kurtz is another isolated figure. He has become an absolutely solitary man after his prolonged stay in the Congo. He is not solitary in the sense that he does not mix with other. In fact, he has begun to identify himself with the savages and has become a sharer in their activities and in their interests. He participates in their “unspeakable rites” and he gratifies, without any restraint, his various lusts and his monstrous passions.
“The wilderness has caressed him, loved him, embraced him, entered his blood, consumed his flesh and has taken complete possession of his soul.”

In the case of Mr. Kurtz, it is isolation which proves the man’s undoing. Being cut off from all civilized society at the Inner Station of the Company, Mr. Kurtz begins slowly to fall under the influence of the savage till he becomes one of them. Gradually he acquires great power and begins to be regarded as a god by them. Thus now he has to keep himself at a distance even from them. He “presides” over their midnight dances which end with “unspeakable rites”.

But he is a solitary figure in the context of his western education and European upbringing. Even among the savages, he stands far above them. The savages regard him as a man-god. Mr. Kurtz is indeed a deity for the savages, and therefore he is a solitary figure even among them. Perhaps the savage closest to him under these conditions is the native woman who is his housekeeper and also perhaps his mistress. But the evil within him has already acquired huge proportions. Thus the effects of isolation in Mr. Kurtz’s case are disastrous.

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Heart of Darkness: Theme of Isolation

“Heart of Darkness” has a multiplicity of themes interwoven closely and produces a unified pattern. The theme of isolation and its consequences constitute a theme in this book, though a minor one. Marlow and Mr. Kurtz illustrate this theme, dominate the novel and have symbolic roles. Both these men stand for much more than the individuals which they certainly are.

Marlow strikes us from the very start as a lonely figure. Although he is a member of a small group of people sitting on the deck of the streamer called the “Nellie”. He is, at the very outset, differentiated from the others. He sits cross-legged in the pose of a Buddha preaching in European clothes without a lotus-flower. Then he begins his story, and nowhere in his narration does he appear to be feeing perfectly at home among other people. He seems to have the temperament of a man who would like to stay away from others, though he would certainly like to observe others and to mediate upon his observations.

When Marlow goes to Brussels for an interview, he depicts himself as an alien who has stepped into an unpleasant environment. The city of Brussels makes him think of a “whited sepulcher”. This feeling clearly shows that he has nothing in common with the people of this European city, though he is himself a European. Then he finds something ominous in the atmosphere of the office of the Company. The two knitting-women strike him as mysterious and sinister beings.
"In the outer room the two women knitted black wool, feverishly."

Even the doctor tells him that he is the first Englishman to have come under his observation. Marlow says:
'The old doctor felt my pulse, evidently thinking of something else the while. "Good, good for there," he mumbled, and then with a certain eagerness asked me whether I would let him measure my head.


There seems to be a distance even between Marlow and his aunt who has got him the job. She is enthusiastic and cordial enough, but Marlow has his reservations. He thinks that she is a most unrealistic woman. She is under the impression that the white men go into the backward regions to confer benefits upon the savages. But, in Marlow’s opinion, this view of the white men is entirely wrong.

When voyaging upon the sea in order to get to the Congo Marlow found himself to be perfectly idle and isolated from all the others on board the steamer because he had no point of contact with them. The sound of the sea-waves was the only source of comfort to him because these sounds seemed to be like “the speech of a brother”. He finds a kinship with the sea-waves but no kinship with the human beings on board the steamer.

Marlow’s sense of loneliness increase when he sees certain sights in the Congo. These sights convey to him the futility of the white man’s exertions and activities in the Congo, and miseries of the black natives. His realization by him of white man’s cruelty creates a kind of barrier between him and the white men living in Congo. When he has to deal with the individual white men, his isolation is further emphasized. He finds absolutely no point of contact with the manager of the Central Station, with the manager’s uncle, and with the brick-maker. The manager is a man who inspires no fear, no love, no respect and there is “nothing within this man”. The manager’s uncle is an intriguer and plotter as the manager himself. The brick-maker is described by Marlow as a “papier-mâché Mephistopheles” and a devil who is hollow within. The only man, whom Marlow can respect, is the chief accountant who keeps his account-books in apple-pie order and is always seen dressed neatly and nicely; but perhaps Marlow is speaking here ironically. Actually none of the white men seems to have any merit in him. Marlow does discover some good points in the natives but none in the white men. The cannibal crew of his steamer shows an admirable self-restraint and are hard-working but the white agents seem to be useless fellows and to them he gives the nickname of the “faithless pilgrims”. It is only when Marlow meets Mr. Kurtz that some sort of contact is established between him and the chief of the Inner Station of the Company.

The effect of isolation upon Marlow is profound. He is by nature somewhat unsociable. He is a kind of philosopher who meditates upon whatever he sees. Isolation further heightens his meditative faculty. Finding no point of contact with others, Marlow becomes more of a thinker, and more of a philosopher-cum-psychologist and studies the character and habits of Mr. Kurtz; and it is because of his isolation that he falls a victim to the influence of Mr. Kurtz whom he has himself described as a devil. This isolation can have grave consequences.

Mr. Kurtz is another isolated figure. He has become an absolutely solitary man after his prolonged stay in the Congo. He is not solitary in the sense that he does not mix with other. In fact, he has begun to identify himself with the savages and has become a sharer in their activities and in their interests. He participates in their “unspeakable rites” and he gratifies, without any restraint, his various lusts and his monstrous passions.
“The wilderness has caressed him, loved him, embraced him, entered his blood, consumed his flesh and has taken complete possession of his soul.”

In the case of Mr. Kurtz, it is isolation which proves the man’s undoing. Being cut off from all civilized society at the Inner Station of the Company, Mr. Kurtz begins slowly to fall under the influence of the savage till he becomes one of them. Gradually he acquires great power and begins to be regarded as a god by them. Thus now he has to keep himself at a distance even from them. He “presides” over their midnight dances which end with “unspeakable rites”.

But he is a solitary figure in the context of his western education and European upbringing. Even among the savages, he stands far above them. The savages regard him as a man-god. Mr. Kurtz is indeed a deity for the savages, and therefore he is a solitary figure even among them. Perhaps the savage closest to him under these conditions is the native woman who is his housekeeper and also perhaps his mistress. But the evil within him has already acquired huge proportions. Thus the effects of isolation in Mr. Kurtz’s case are disastrous.

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Symbolism in Yeats' Poetry

W. B. Yeats is one of the greatest poets of the English language. He had in common two main methods of writing poetry: one spontaneous and the other a laborious process involving much alteration and substitution. However, it was only in the early phase of his poetic career that he relied entirely on inspiration giving himself upto “the chief temptation of the artistic creation without toil”. In the later phase he became a conscious artist who took great pains and re-polish his verse. He was very painstaking artist and tried to say what he has to say in the best possible words. Following lines from “Adams’s Curse” throw valuable side light on his artistic methods:
I said, “All line will take us hours may be;
Yet if it does not seem a moment’s thought
Our stitching and unstitching has been naught.”
One of the most admirable things about Yeats was that he continued to grow and mature as a craftsman throughout his long poetic career. His early poetry has a dreamy luxuriant style full of sleepy languorous rhythms. The tone is mostly wistful and nostalgic in these poems. There is an abundance of ornate word pictures as in Spenser.

It is a great tribute to Yeats craftsman that he soon grew dissatisfied with verse of this sort and tried to bring his versification nearer to the day to day speech. Along with this he tried to give a new directness and precision to his poetic language. He did away with archaism and poeticism. His imagery also became more definite and accurate and acquired a new pithy quality. Verbiage and superfluity start giving way to vigour and intensity. His diction now became terse and his poetry grew in density.

Simultaneously, Yeats tried to develop what may be called “passionate syntax” and he came to have remarkable skill in modulating his rhythm so as to be in time with the spirit of the poem. This skill is greatly evident in poems like “The Second Coming”, “Sailing to Byzantium”, “The Tower”, “Easter 1916” and “Among School Children” and even in one of his earliest poems “When You are Old”.

The confidence and assurance found in his poetic style in the later years is astounding. His rhythms were very definite and accurate and above all he could now do justice to demands of grandeur and sublimity with effortless ease. His language became very functional. It has now grown trenchant and adaptable to wide range of ideas. When he chooses he can put the starkest facts into the starkest words. As he says in “Sailing to Byzantium”:
“An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick”
Starkest words as used in “Vacillation”:
“What theme had Homer but original sin?”
He was now able to use poetry for a variety of effects – whether it was exhortation or calm comment, philosophizing or passionate condemnation, lamentation or celebration, nostalgia or prophesy. This does not mean that Yeats’ command over versification and metre was in any way less remarkable during his early poetic career. Even at the time he was able to have close correspondence between the mood of those escapist poems and the language he chose for them. In keeping with the other-worldly atmosphere of his early poetry, his rhythms also were half-entranced. In a collection like “The Wind Among the Reeds” he was able to manipulate wavering and meditative rhythms to great effect.

In his later poetry, again in keeping with his thematic content, Yeats was able to develop subtler, more varied and dramatically more adjustable cadences. His vocabulary had also become more inclusive. As a result, the metaphors were fresher and their range of reference wider. We also find that he employs the metaphorical aphorism. His use of epigram is a properly poetic one, giving the reader a shock of surprise. For example:
Out of Ireland have we come.
Great hatred, little room,
Maimed us at the start.”
The imaginative structure of the poem and its actual manifestation came to be more firmly worked out and more spontaneous and natural in effect.
As an artist Yeats continued to mature and grow right upto the end of his poetic career. His confidence and assurance grew more and more and he handled words with perfect ease like a master. However, this very self-assurance accounts for his tendency to indulge in hyperboles and exaggerations. This tendency to exaggerate and use hyperboles has been considered a serious fault in his style by a number of critics. D. S. Savage criticizing this weakness in Yeats’ poetry writes:


“This exaggeration and over-heightening, this indulgence in dramatics, is exemplified in the repeated use of hyperboles phrases and of resounding words whose effect is to inflate the meaning.”

To sum up Yeats was a conscious and gifted craftsman who has few equals in the whole range of English poetry. It is true that there are some serious faults in his poetry but they do not detract in any way from his true greatness as an artist. He wrote from inner compulsion which gave to his poetry “its peculiar inner glow, as of inspiration, and classes it among our political monuments, if not precisely among “monument of unaging intellect”.

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Yeats' Style

W. B. Yeats is one of the greatest poets of the English language. He had in common two main methods of writing poetry: one spontaneous and the other a laborious process involving much alteration and substitution. However, it was only in the early phase of his poetic career that he relied entirely on inspiration giving himself upto “the chief temptation of the artistic creation without toil”. In the later phase he became a conscious artist who took great pains and re-polish his verse. He was very painstaking artist and tried to say what he has to say in the best possible words. Following lines from “Adams’s Curse” throw valuable side light on his artistic methods:
I said, “All line will take us hours may be;
Yet if it does not seem a moment’s thought
Our stitching and unstitching has been naught."
One of the most admirable things about Yeats was that he continued to grow and mature as a craftsman throughout his long poetic career. His early poetry has a dreamy luxuriant style full of sleepy languorous rhythms. The tone is mostly wistful and nostalgic in these poems. There is an abundance of ornate word pictures as in Spenser.

It is a great tribute to Yeats craftsman that he soon grew dissatisfied with verse of this sort and tried to bring his versification nearer to the day to day speech. Along with this he tried to give a new directness and precision to his poetic language. He did away with archaism and poeticism. His imagery also became more definite and accurate and acquired a new pithy quality. Verbiage and superfluity start giving way to vigour and intensity. His diction now became terse and his poetry grew in density.

Simultaneously, Yeats tried to develop what may be called “passionate syntax” and he came to have remarkable skill in modulating his rhythm so as to be in time with the spirit of the poem. This skill is greatly evident in poems like “The Second Coming”, “Sailing to Byzantium”, “The Tower”, “Easter 1916” and “Among School Children” and even in one of his earliest poems “When You are Old”.

The confidence and assurance found in his poetic style in the later years is astounding. His rhythms were very definite and accurate and above all he could now do justice to demands of grandeur and sublimity with effortless ease. His language became very functional. It has now grown trenchant and adaptable to wide range of ideas. When he chooses he can put the starkest facts into the starkest words. As he says in “Sailing to Byzantium”:
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick
Starkest words as used in “Vacillation”:
What theme had Homer but original sin?
He was now able to use poetry for a variety of effects – whether it was exhortation or calm comment, philosophizing or passionate condemnation, lamentation or celebration, nostalgia or prophesy. This does not mean that Yeats’ command over versification and metre was in any way less remarkable during his early poetic career. Even at the time he was able to have close correspondence between the mood of those escapist poems and the language he chose for them. In keeping with the other-worldly atmosphere of his early poetry, his rhythms also were half-entranced. In a collection like “The Wind Among the Reeds” he was able to manipulate wavering and meditative rhythms to great effect.

In his later poetry, again in keeping with his thematic content, Yeats was able to develop subtler, more varied and dramatically more adjustable cadences. His vocabulary had also become more inclusive. As a result, the metaphors were fresher and their range of reference wider. We also find that he employs the metaphorical aphorism. His use of epigram is a properly poetic one, giving the reader a shock of surprise. For example:
Out of Ireland have we come.
Great hatred, little room,
Maimed us at the start.
The imaginative structure of the poem and its actual manifestation came to be more firmly worked out and more spontaneous and natural in effect.


As an artist Yeats continued to mature and grow right upto the end of his poetic career. His confidence and assurance grew more and more and he handled words with perfect ease like a master. However, this very self-assurance accounts for his tendency to indulge in hyperboles and exaggerations. This tendency to exaggerate and use hyperboles has been considered a serious fault in his style by a number of critics. D. S. Savage criticizing this weakness in Yeats’ poetry writes:
This exaggeration and over-heightening, this indulgence in dramatics, is exemplified in the repeated use of hyperboles phrases and of resounding words whose effect is to inflate the meaning.

To sum up Yeats was a conscious and gifted craftsman who has few equals in the whole range of English poetry. It is true that there are some serious faults in his poetry but they do not detract in any way from his true greatness as an artist. He wrote from inner compulsion which gave to his poetry “its peculiar inner glow, as of inspiration, and classes it among our political monuments, if not precisely among “monument of unaging intellect”.

Read More