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摘要：A modern poet as he was , Robert Frost did not write poems in the same way as other modern poets did. He held to traditional patterns of composing poems, i.e. poems with rhyme and rhythm，but this did not prevent him from becoming an outstanding poet. He claimed repeatedly that he was content to convey new ideas in the old form.
關键词：poetry;new contents;old container
中图分类号：H31 文献标识码：A 文章编号：1009-0118（2011）-10-0-01
Robert Frost is one of the most popular poets in the 20th century United States,who had won four Pulitzer Prizes and many other honors and was known as a Poet Laureate in American literature.
Though a modern poet,Frost took a path which was quite different in terms of the form of poetry from that of most of other American poets of his time.In the 20th century most poets were turning to the free verse and even conducting experiments with newer forms while Frost still kept to the traditional poem patterns such as rhyme and rhythm.He never attempted to make changes and innovations in the form of poetry but announced repeatedly that he was content to express new contents in the old form.He learned to convey his feelings and depict everyday events in common language from Wordsworth the 19th century British Romantic poet,to apply monologues and dialogues in a play to poetry from Browning(a 19th century British poet), and learned to write madrigals from ancient Greek and Latin writers. Frost was good at composing couplets,triplets and sonnets in rhyme and rarely wrote free verses for he believed that creating poems without rhyme and rhythm was just like playing tennis without net.Frost once said that iambus was the only natural meter in English poetry.Iambus,a measure of poetry consisting of one weak (or short) beat followed by one strong (or long) beat,is indeed the most common of the four meters.The lines written in the iambic meter sound rhythmic,continuous and smooth,just like a flowing stream,and are more fit to describe scenery in the rural areas.That is why Frost favored iambus.
Let’s have an example.Frost’s most famous poem is The Road Not Taken,which goes as follows.“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,/And sorry I could not travel both / And be one traveler, long I stood / And looked down one as far as I could / To where it bent in the undergrowth;// Then took the other, as just as fair, /And having perhaps the better claim, / Because it was grassy and wanted wear; / Though as for that the passing there /Had worn them really about the same,// And both that morning equally lay / In leaves no step had trodden black. / Oh, I kept the first for another day! / Yet knowing how way leads on to way, /I doubted if I should ever come back. //I shall be telling this with a sigh / Somewhere ages and ages hence: /Two roads diverged in a wood,and I— / I took the one less traveled by, / And that has made all the difference.” In this poem,there are four stanzas,each one having five lines.Most of the lines have nine syllables each and only a few have eight or ten.The whole poem goes roughly in the iambic meter.In every stanza,line 1,line 3 and line 4 rhyme with one another,and line 5 rhymes with line 2.The rhyme and iambic meter,which must have cost Frost a great deal of thought,bring a wonderful musical effect to the poem.The poet uses the divergence in the yellow wood to symbolize the divergence of the path of human life.Every human’s life is full of choices and different choices will lead to different results.This philosophical symbolism,together with the wonderful musical effect of rhyme and rhythm,makes it a well-known and often-quoted poem and allows it to stay for a long time among the top ten of the 100 most popular English poems.
Another good instance is Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening:
“Whose woods these are I think I know./ His house is in the village though; /He will not see me stopping here /To watch his woods fill up with snow. //My little horse must think it queer /To stop without a farmhouse near /Between the woods and frozen lake /The darkest evening of the year. //He gives his harness bells a shake /To ask if there is some mistake. /
The only other sound’s the sweep /Of easy wind and downy flake. //The woods are lovely, dark, and deep, /But I have promises to keep, /And miles to go before I sleep, /And miles to go before I sleep.”This poem is also a famous one,ranking among the first ten with last poem on the list of the 100 most popular English poems.It has four stanzas,each having four lines.Every line has eight syllables.In each stanza(except the last one),line 1 rhymes with line 2 and line 4.In the last stanza,all the four lines rhyme on the same syllable.The whole poem goes roughly in the iambic meter.The rhyme and rhythm give a beautiful sound effect to the poem.
The last line is a simile.“miles to go”means“miles of road of life to live”,“so many things to do in life”.“sleep”means“die”.
關键词：poetry;new contents;old container
中图分类号：H31 文献标识码：A 文章编号：1009-0118（2011）-10-0-01
Robert Frost is one of the most popular poets in the 20th century United States,who had won four Pulitzer Prizes and many other honors and was known as a Poet Laureate in American literature.
Though a modern poet,Frost took a path which was quite different in terms of the form of poetry from that of most of other American poets of his time.In the 20th century most poets were turning to the free verse and even conducting experiments with newer forms while Frost still kept to the traditional poem patterns such as rhyme and rhythm.He never attempted to make changes and innovations in the form of poetry but announced repeatedly that he was content to express new contents in the old form.He learned to convey his feelings and depict everyday events in common language from Wordsworth the 19th century British Romantic poet,to apply monologues and dialogues in a play to poetry from Browning(a 19th century British poet), and learned to write madrigals from ancient Greek and Latin writers. Frost was good at composing couplets,triplets and sonnets in rhyme and rarely wrote free verses for he believed that creating poems without rhyme and rhythm was just like playing tennis without net.Frost once said that iambus was the only natural meter in English poetry.Iambus,a measure of poetry consisting of one weak (or short) beat followed by one strong (or long) beat,is indeed the most common of the four meters.The lines written in the iambic meter sound rhythmic,continuous and smooth,just like a flowing stream,and are more fit to describe scenery in the rural areas.That is why Frost favored iambus.
Let’s have an example.Frost’s most famous poem is The Road Not Taken,which goes as follows.“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,/And sorry I could not travel both / And be one traveler, long I stood / And looked down one as far as I could / To where it bent in the undergrowth;// Then took the other, as just as fair, /And having perhaps the better claim, / Because it was grassy and wanted wear; / Though as for that the passing there /Had worn them really about the same,// And both that morning equally lay / In leaves no step had trodden black. / Oh, I kept the first for another day! / Yet knowing how way leads on to way, /I doubted if I should ever come back. //I shall be telling this with a sigh / Somewhere ages and ages hence: /Two roads diverged in a wood,and I— / I took the one less traveled by, / And that has made all the difference.” In this poem,there are four stanzas,each one having five lines.Most of the lines have nine syllables each and only a few have eight or ten.The whole poem goes roughly in the iambic meter.In every stanza,line 1,line 3 and line 4 rhyme with one another,and line 5 rhymes with line 2.The rhyme and iambic meter,which must have cost Frost a great deal of thought,bring a wonderful musical effect to the poem.The poet uses the divergence in the yellow wood to symbolize the divergence of the path of human life.Every human’s life is full of choices and different choices will lead to different results.This philosophical symbolism,together with the wonderful musical effect of rhyme and rhythm,makes it a well-known and often-quoted poem and allows it to stay for a long time among the top ten of the 100 most popular English poems.
Another good instance is Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening:
“Whose woods these are I think I know./ His house is in the village though; /He will not see me stopping here /To watch his woods fill up with snow. //My little horse must think it queer /To stop without a farmhouse near /Between the woods and frozen lake /The darkest evening of the year. //He gives his harness bells a shake /To ask if there is some mistake. /
The only other sound’s the sweep /Of easy wind and downy flake. //The woods are lovely, dark, and deep, /But I have promises to keep, /And miles to go before I sleep, /And miles to go before I sleep.”This poem is also a famous one,ranking among the first ten with last poem on the list of the 100 most popular English poems.It has four stanzas,each having four lines.Every line has eight syllables.In each stanza(except the last one),line 1 rhymes with line 2 and line 4.In the last stanza,all the four lines rhyme on the same syllable.The whole poem goes roughly in the iambic meter.The rhyme and rhythm give a beautiful sound effect to the poem.
The last line is a simile.“miles to go”means“miles of road of life to live”,“so many things to do in life”.“sleep”means“die”.