Book Description
Word count: 6549. ... Read more

Book Description
This collection of specially commissioned essays by experts in the field exploreskey dimensions of Robert Frost's poetry and life. Frost remains one of the most memorable and beguiling of modern poets. The essays in this volume enable readers to explore Frost's art and thought, from the controversies of his biography to his subtle reinvention of poetic and metric traditions. This volume will bring fresh perspectives to the poetry of an American master, and its chronology and guide to further reading will prove valuable to scholars and students alike. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Frost as one of the all-time greats
If you agree that Robert Frost was one of the greatest poets in English literary history, and enormously erudite if "elusively complex," then you will love this book unreservedly. I think of Frost more as a melodist, perhaps because I sang Randall Thompson's Frostiana in a chorus shortly after its composition, and because I generally find Frost's poetry more musical than scholarly. Still, there's lots of excellent stuff in this book. Highly recommended. ... Read more

Book Description

Robert Frost is one of the most widely read, well loved, and misunderstood of modern writers. In his day, he was also an inveterate note-taker, penning thousands of intense aphoristic thoughts, observations, and meditations in small pocket pads and school theme books throughout his life. These notebooks, transcribed and presented here in their entirety for the first time, offer unprecedented insight into Frost's complex and often highly contradictory thinking about poetics, politics, education, psychology, science, and religion--his attitude toward Marxism, the New Deal, World War--as well as Yeats, Pound, Santayana, and William James. Covering a period from the late 1890s to early 1960s, the notebooks reveal the full range of the mind of one of America's greatest poets. Their depth and complexity convey the restless and probing quality of his thought, and show how the unruliness of chaotic modernity was always just beneath his appearance of supreme poetic control.

Edited by preeminent Frost scholar Robert Faggen and annotated to help readers with the poet's more elusive references, the notebooks are also thoroughly cross-referenced, marking thematic connections within these and Frost's other writings, including his poetry, letters, and other prose. This is a major new addition to the canon of Robert Frost's writings.

Customer Reviews (5)

Read What Frost Himself Published
The few finished essays that Robert Frost offered to his public ("The Figure a Poem Makes," e. g.) are so extraordinarily memorable, so full of canny, down-to-earth shrewdness and overall scintillation that I picked up his _Notebooks,_ edited by Robert Faggen in this attractive, 809 page book from Harvard with anticipation.

I am sorry to say that I was disappointed. The drafts or starts of poems seemed to me mostly flaccid and unfocussed. Of course, these are drafts; they were never meant to be read. Frost seems to have used most all his best lines in his published work. The work here never breaks into the dead-on, stunning revelations, the suggestive aphoristic brilliance of the crystallized Frost. Moreover, there are pages and pages of fragments like "A few words of policy now and then A stroke of policy now and then." That is either obvious and not with saying, or obscure in reference. There are thousands of phrases here that hold no meaning by themselves--e. g., "Not fantastic." So what? What is not fantastic? "What is philosophy. Education as inuring. Tom-tom in poetry." What is that all about?

Faggen has dutifully chased down everything an editor could be asked to chase down--references, dates, connections to other Frost material, sources of quotations. He has reproduced these notebooks with all their cross outs so indicated (and faithfully crossed out), and indicated when Frost switches from pen to pencil. On occasion there are nuggets--blasts against Roosevelt and the New Deal, bracing comic flashes ("And oh but it was fetching / To see the wretches retching"), and insight breaking through obviousness or obscurity every seventy pages. However, as a whole I don't think all this is worth it by itself, nor am I sure how much it helps read the Frost that is worth it, which is the Frost we already had.

Frost Revived and Rejuvenated
I had read and heard Frost too often and had come to think of him as an old poet, too familiar, too crotchety, too tired.This volume re-ignited my interest in his life and his poetry because more than any other volume it reveals his thinking.He thinks all sorts of ways other than poetically, and thinks about poetry as well as anyone ever has.

He acknowledges that the poets "at whose metric feet we worshipped and bowed down were Arnold Keats Browning Tennyson Kipling (wooden music xylophone) Emerson Longfellow" and declares "Poetry is that in us that will not be terrified by science."In Notebook 17 (26-30) he lists 39 things that can be done with a poem besides read it.

For me, this volume makes him more intriguing and much more exciting than he has ever been before.I have gone back to the poems with enthusiasm.Readers are advised to sample back and forth to get a sense of the whole before starting from the beginning and reading through:the first notebooks are by no means the most interesting, or even typical.

As Robert Faggen's introduction emphasizes, this volume presents Frost as a first-class aphorist, comparable to Francis Bacon and Friedrich Nietzsche.Faggen's intimacy with Frost's life, poetry, and other works adds much to the introduction and notes.This must have been an exceedingly difficult task.

A prior reviewer objected to the "dark" Frost.Faggen explains that by "dark" Frost meant a great deal, not least the need to grope in the dark in order to advance.The notebooks have meditations on the dark, including this from Notebook 23:
"Dark darker darkest.
"Dark as it is that there are these sorrows and darker still that we can do so little to get rid of them the darkest is still to come.The darkest is that perhaps we ought not want to get rid of them."

I have two complaints:(1) I wish the book had a better index.Only names and book and poem titles are indexed.Of course, any kind of subject index would have been laborious, but it would have added greatly to value of this very rich book.(2)The proofreading for the editor's introduction and notes is atrocious, so plainly bad that I worried about the accuracy of the transcriptions.For instance, this note:"Enoch Lincoln (1788-1829), a Congressman for Massachusetts and Maine when the two states were one.When Maine was made separate, he represented that state from 1921 to 1926."

Even so, a huge book, hugely wonderful.

Buyer Beware
Why am I skeptical about "the dark side of Frost".Academics need to get their work published to get tenure or to get promoted--why not claim that one of America's greatest poets had secrets and a shady past?
However, having heard about academics who studied the Frost material at UVA and Pinkerton Academy, I challenge other scholars, poets, and experts in handwriting to compare Robert Faggen's work with the original sources.The Financial Times said that Faggen "meticuously catalogued and cross referenced Frost's thoughts." If this is true, why did Faggen claim that Frost's handwriting was "abyssmal" and utterly illegible in places, and therefore had to do a lot of guessing as to what Frost had written.Other scholars have found the handwriting legible.Also, Faggen's friends assert that he reprinted all the Frost material in its entirety.I beg to differ--having noticed some glaring ommissions.I hope that a competing publisher will give another scholar or starving graduate student a chance to present an alternative transcription of this material to the reading public.With no other text to compare it to, we are asked to accept it as the gospel according to Faggen.

An essential tool in understanding America's most famous poet
Robert Faggen has forever changed the course of poetry scholarship with this finely tuned and sensitively annotated collection of all the known notebooks of Robert Frost, arguably America's most famous and controversial poet.

Faggen's comments are helpful without being intrusive and the material itself is all Robert Frost without interpretation or added punctuation. Previously this material would have only been accessible by visiting the special collections of the major institutional libraries that keep it under archival lock and key.

It's the kind of book you can open at random and find something fascinating to read. However, if you take advantage of the well organized and cross-referenced notes, the context in which Frost created these notebooks becomes much clearer, and the poet's creative process is revealed.

Recently, a great deal of publicity was generated when the Barrett library at the University of Virginia uncovered a previously unpublished early poem by Frost in their archives - here in this one collection are 688 pages of material that only a few scholars have ever seen. Frost fans should be lighting some serious fireworks in celebration of such an important addition to the Frost canon.

To better understand the man and the poetry
This volume includes the forty- eight notebooks which Frost wrote during his lifetimefrom the 1890's to the 1960's. It contains much about Frost's credo as a poet, and much of his aphoristic thought about a whole range of matters from the political and educational to the philosophical and poetic. Meghan O'Rourke in an outstanding review of the book in the 'Los Angeles Times' points out its inherent contradictions in bringing together two sides of Frost the popular public poet and the dark and difficult skeptic.
" The author was a set of inconsistencies: a Romantic bent on critiquing Romanticism; a pragmatist and quasi-Social Darwinist who wasn't quite convinced of his own views. As Faggen points out in an insightful introduction, Frost returns again and again to the feeling that life "can consist of the inconsistent."

Frost defined himself as an exception in all things, and he truly made a difference by taking the road not taken.
There is a stubborn recalcitrant quality to both his personality and prose which often give the reader a hard-won pleasure in struggling to understand his often deceptively simple sentences. Often only through indirections could his directions be found out.
This is an invaluable work for all students of Frost and all lovers of his poetry. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

intersting
This book has opend up my eyes. Robert Frost is in my mind one of the best potes in the world. ... Read more

Book Description

During his lifetime, Robert Frost notoriously resisted collecting his prose--going so far as to halt the publication of one prepared compilation and to "lose" the transcripts of the Charles Eliot Norton Lectures he delivered at Harvard in 1936. But for all his qualms, Frost conceded to his son that "you can say a lot in prose that verse won't let you say," and that the prose he had written had in fact "made good competition for [his] verse." This volume, the first critical edition of Robert Frost's prose, allows readers and scholars to appreciate the great American author's forays beyond poetry, and to discover in the prose that he did make public--in newspapers, magazines, journals, speeches, and books--the wit, force, and grace that made his poetry famous.

The Collected Prose of Robert Frost offers an extensive and illuminating body of work, ranging from juvenilia--Frost's contributions to his high school Bulletin--to the charming "chicken stories" he wrote as a young family man for The Eastern Poultryman and Farm Poultry, to such famous essays as "The Figure a Poem Makes" and the speeches and contributions to magazines solicited when he had become the Grand Old Man of American letters. Gathered, annotated, and cross-referenced by Mark Richardson, the collection is based on extensive work in archives of Frost's manuscripts. It provides detailed notes on the author's habits of composition and on important textual issues and includes much previously unpublished material. It is a book of boundless appeal and importance, one that should find a home on the bookshelf of anyone interested in Frost.

Book Description
One of the most vexing problems facing American modernist poets was how to find a place for poetry and religion in a culture that considered science its most reliable source of truth. By the time Robert Frost began writing, the Emersonian concept of nature as an analogue for a benevolent deity had been replaced among the scientifically educated by the view that nature's mechanisms were based solely upon accident, competition, and survival. Immersed in his mother's peculiar blend of Emersonian and Swedenborgian mysticism, and already inclined by age sixteen toward a career in poetry, Frost not only saw his religious belief shattered by Darwin's theory of natural selection but also recognized that poetry, in the wake of stunning scientific accomplishment, was slowly losing to science what was left of its cultural authority. With both designer and purpose absent from the post-Darwinian world, the old religious orders appeared trivial, and humankind found itself dislodged from the center of the natural order. This view of nature, coupled with a series of debilitating personal tragedies, plunged Frost into a spiritual crisis, which he surmounted by writing poetry.

Arguing that the central problem of Frost's career was his conflict with science, Robert Bernard Hass examines the ways in which the conflict affected the development of Frost's career from beginning to end. Hass situates the poet's work in the intellectual ferment of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and argues that as materialism collapsed under the weight of new scientific discovery, Frost began to see science as a historically conditioned mode of perception. Gradually viewing science as an imposed construct rather than a literal transcript of the physical world, Frost ameliorated his fear of science's disturbing conclusions, reaffirmed his belief in a spiritual reality, and subsequently formulated the most convincing defense of poetry since Sidney.

In this engaging and substantial exploration of Frost and the philosophical and scientific currents that influenced him, Hass situates the poet as a foundational figure in ecocritical thought. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Going by Contraries - An Extremely Stimulating Book
Dr. Robert Bernard Hass' mind is a vast pool of information on the subject of Robert Frost.It is amazing to see the amount of information he found and interwove into his book.He sites intellectuals like Kant, Bergson, Thoreau, Emerson, and others, and enlightens us as to how each affected Frost's life and writing.Dr. Hass gives a lot of deep, explanations that clearly illustrate how the ideas of science and philosophy influence Frost's writing.(On a lighter side, Dr. Hass references William James several times.If you love William James the way I do, you will love this book!)

Dr. Hass' writing moves us to look at life in a different way. He shows us how intellectual ideas, both scientific and philosophical, affected Frost's writing.I love what Dr. Hass found and wrote, about Henri Bergson concerning intuitive vision.It is especially amazing to me how he finds the many ways to apply Bergson's, and other contemporaries' thoughts to Frost's poetry.Hass' ability to communicate this knowledge is amazing and each sentence is so full of thought.I find myself contemplating certain sentences over and over in my mind until a light comes shining through with illuminated intensity!"Going by Contraries" is a book that truly makes you think as you read, and I love that in a book.

Romanticism Resurrects Itself in the Dawn of the Information Age, in the book "Going by Contraries" by Dr. Robert Bernard Hass
My first reaction to this book was one of wonder.I found myself wondering how one man could find and associate so much in-depth and fascinating information about the poetry of Robert Frost.With authority and finesse, Dr. Robert Bernard Hass is more than expert at conveying the compelling influences that affected Robert Frost's life and poetry.

At times, the beauty of Hass' interpretation of Frost's poems, moved me to tears.Being a woman, my favorite interpretation is that of "A Silken Tent." I'm sure any women would find this part of the book to be very moving and true to life.As evidenced in this passage, Hass almost leaves you breathless at times.

The main premise of Going by Contraries opens your eyes to the chasm of conflict created between scientists such as Galileo, Newton, and Descartes and the philosophy of Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Kant, John Locke, and Henri Bergson and how these thoughts and teachings affected Robert Frost's poetry.Hass explains this, word-by-word and line-by-line as evidenced in Frost's writings.The book also puts into perspective the lives and works of writers such as Dickinson, Longfellow, Poe, Emerson, Eliot, and Hemingway and how their lives and/or writings had a bearing or relationship with Frost.

An educator (and poet) at heart, Hass is able to explain Frost's conflict with science in a way that we can all understand.He arms us with historical facts, and explains that this was an age when science was gaining popularity in our culture. In dramatic ways, Hass explains how the industrial boom started taking priority over the simple romanticisms that prevailed in earlier times.Going by Contraries has you reminiscing about a time when poetry was actually important to culture and subtly reveals how enlightening and refreshing poetry was.

Going by Contraries brings up the question, "What happened to poetry, and why isn't it now a part of our everyday life?"I remember reading Frost's poetry as an elementary student and I remember how much I loved it.Now in adulthood, it is very disappointing to see that we don't have any modern day poets like Frost.I would love to read a romanticized account or new poem in my newspaper every morning as I sip my tea (or coffee) and read.Instead, I am greeted with world problems, violence and death on the front page of my morning wake-up call.We wonder as a society why there is pornography, violence, and wars.Maybe its time again, to embrace pure types of reading and writing such as poetry, that can make our spirits soar and our hearts pound in a way that purifies our souls and makes us better persons.Maybe it's time to follow "The Road Not Taken", and encourage and purchase 21st century poetry.Maybe Dr. Robert Bernard Hass' next book will be one of poetry, that I am sure would enlighten and delight us all, in a way that only he can do, as evidenced in Going by Contraries.

All in all, I would say Going by Contraries is a must read for literary minded folks, advanced high school students, and college level readers.

Robert Frost's Conflict with Science
Robert Hass not only recognizes the difficulties that Robert Frost encountered as a poet in such a technologically advanced environment, he further addresses the obstacles one must overcome in his/her aspiration to compose.He has written an eminently enlightening book that virtually any individual with an adoration of literature, philosophy, and/or science can appreciate and surely relate to.Along with an educated analysis of Frost's life and his works, particularly in regard to Darwinian concepts, Hass also recognizes the unfortunate fall of literature and its growing insignificance as technology replaces the need for aesthetics. ... Read more

Book Description
John F. Kennedy said of Robert Frost: "He has bequeathed his nation a body of imperishable verse from which Americans will forever gain joy and understanding."A four-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for poetry, Frost created a new poetic language that has a deep and timeless resonance.
In addition to Robert Frost's first three books, this collection includes eighteen early poems that did not appear in his eleven books of poetry and have rarely been reprinted.Some of these express the idealism of youth inspired by heroic figures of the past.Others are love poems to Elinor White, whom he married in 1895.
This book features a deluxe cover, ribbon marker, top stain, and decorative endpapers with a nameplate. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

the Hobo Philosopher
Robert Frost graduated from Lawrence high school in Lawrence, Mass. I mention this fact in my Book about growing up in Lawrence "A Summer with Charlie". It was because of this common heritage that I was first lead to Mr. Frost. I must have read his poem about picking apples a thousand times. And since my wife and I also attempted to become "back-to-the-landers" in Mena, Arkansas, his poems about exploring the back forty and laying up a stone wall I also visit frequently. He is very rural. When he began writing poetry America was for the large part farmers - or recently off the farm. He writes a simple small farmer type poetry. This is a nice volume and Robert, like all poets, was a thoughtful man. Robert Frost was famous for a very short poem that is very hard to find. It is not in this volume either.
"Forgive me God for my little joke on thee,
And I will forgive you for your great big one on me."
He had another one, also hard to find, about his visiting heaven and finding God nice but rather inadequate and not very handy.
I don't consider Robert Frost a controversial poet. Any reactionary flavor is very subdued. His poetry is simple, honest and down to earth.

The road less traveled
This selection of Frost's poetry contains his first three volumes, " A Boy's Will", "North ofBoston" " Mountain Interval". It contains someof his most well-known poems, "Mending Wall"," Home Burial", "The Road not taken""Birches" "The Hired Man" " After Apple Picking".It also contains a brief biographical sketch and survey of the works of this volume by Gail Harvey.
Frost in my own judgment does not quite make it to the top-of-the -top of American poetry, where Whitman, Dickinson and Wallace Stevens stand. But his insistent dialogue with Nature and Life do make for an often harshly beautiful poetry. He often seems to me somehow stronger in mind and will than in human sympathy. But the messages are clear and resound as part of the American heritage in poetry.

" Two roadsdiverged in a wood,and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."

But "Jewels" neglected to mention:
Julie-Anne Dentici "Jewels" said her favorite Frost poem was "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening."She neglected to mention that this poem is not included in the book."Often overlooked," indeed!

Epitome of GREATNESS!
Robert Frost is my favorite American poet.My favorite poem written by him is "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening."This poem is generally overlooked, because people tend to associate "The Road Not Taken" with Frost.Both are great, but "Snowy Evening" is better, I think!For anyone who is a Robert Frost fan, this book is a nice addition to any library, and a nice edition to have. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

The complete Frost- The road not taken
For most of us most poets live through a few poems of theirs we have read in anthologies. It may be that in the case of a poet we especially love we have gone and read most of their poetry.
This volume presents a wonderful opportunity for the devotees of Frost to have in one book the work of a lifetime.
For me Frost is "The Road Not Taken" and "Birches" and "Mending Wall"and a host of scattered lines, " Good fences make good neighbors" and " The land was ours, before we were the land's".
Frost is also however, I must admit , for me the poet whose life casts a shadow on his work. Unfortunately perhaps I long ago read parts of the Thompson biography of Frost the central theme of which was his inveterate cruelty to all those around him.
All this has left me, you will excuse this, a bit 'cool toward Frost' and I personally prefer the more musical metrics of Wallace Stevens to the canny, often pithily wise lines of Frost.

You'll Never Need Another Frost Book
I took a class last semester on Robert Frost, and it was quite an experience. Frost was truly a wonderful poet who deserves every bit of praise he gets (and who is unfairly ignored in academia it seems). His words are so often true and lifechanging and beautiful and honest. Nobody is fully educated until they have read Frost's classics: "The Death of the Hired Man," "Mending Wall," "Birches," "After Apple-Picking," "Storm Fear," "Meeting and Passing," etc. There are so many good ones.

The Library of America edition is a great way to be exposed to Frost's poetry. It's true that there are a lot of pretty bad poems since everything, good and bad, is included in the volume; the uncollected poems here were meant to stay uncollected. Nevertheless, that everything is here is really a great strength to the book. It's great being able to place a single poem in Frost's entire oevre. I also liked seeing how his command of the language and the forms of poetry. Seeing everything also helped to see how his conception of his role changed. Most importantly, I loved that Frost's prose and his plays were included here. There are a number of gems to be found there. I particularly enjoyed the "'Sermon' at the Rock Avenue Temple" and Frost's children's stories. The ability to read Frost's prose alongside his poetry really enhances the reading of both.

Overall, Frost was a magnificant poet who cannot be given less than five stars, and by reading everything in this edition, one can certainly gain a greater appreciation of the poet at his finest.

Pure Frost Without Editorial Heat
Are you someone who buys for the art of the book as much for the art of the contents? If so, you can't do better than any of the stellar titles from the Library Of America series of books... This splendid collection of Frost will not dissapoint...One of the many treats of this volume as is virtually true with all of the Library Of America volumes is the ease with which you can hold it comfortably in your hand...Exclusively thin acid free paper is the secret and this volume packs in a two inch thick volume what normal paper would weigh you down with five or six inches of...

What nice unedited and thorough Frost you get here!...Speaking of editing, the true Frost afficionado will want to be sure to avoid items edited by an Edward Latham...This edition is Latham free and contains Frost's work as he originally wrote it...Unfortunately, from the late sixties on, several editions of Frost went forward with unnecessary "clean up" editing by this very punctuation weilding word meister...He added to many editions extra commas and punctuation in places Frost never originally put it...If you'd like to read a much more thorough analysis of this than I can describe here, be sure to pick up a copy of writer Donald Hall's " Breakfast Served Anytime" and read the article he wrote exposing Latham and his added cleansing of Frost's work...This Library Of America edition captures Frost unedited and at his purest and best...

The reader can choose here from a smorgasbord of outstanding selections and offerings...Poetry, prose, plays...there is quite a variety of choice fare offered here...

In the words of Mr. Frost.." I'm going up to the meadow to check the newborn calf,...I shan't be long...You come too!"

A fine edition of a great American Voice.
Robert Frost is a unique American voice that many people love.A few reject him, but the majority of those whom he was writing for still love and admire his poetry.His fans always have favorites and can quote lines and whole poems from memory.When a poet gets into people's memories and hearts it is not a sure sign of greatness, but it is a good indicator of something special.

In some ways his works have aged because they are about an America that has passed.One poem that I think catches a lot of the issues surround Frost is "The Literate Farmer and the Planet Venus".This piece is about the electrification of rural America and the strangeness of it all.It talks about the speeding up of life and wonders if the future will simply do away with beds because there won't be time to sleep.The poem is set in 1926, but was published in 1942 as part of "A Witness Tree".I don't know when it was written, but if it was written around the Second World War its nostalgia seems a bit more cynical to me (which I suspect to be the case).However, if it was written back in the late 1920s then it has more whimsy and an earnest wonder.

This poet does have a capacity for irony and bite as well as humor and whimsy.His words are more conversational than lyric and that is fine.They have less music, but a great deal of color and subtle observation.It really doesn't matter what any critic says about Frost.He will outlast all of them.What matters is what he says to you.He is certainly a more worthwhile read than most of what gets published nowadays, just expect to have to deal with some words and references to an America from a century ago.

This volume from the Library of America is terrific.The table of contents in the front refers to the whole volume.The Collected Poems is the reprint that takes up most of the book and has its own table of contents as well.There is also a chronology of Frost's life, notes on sources, and many very helpful notes that can help you understand certain references.There is an index of titles and first lines, and an index of prose titles.

I always feel grateful to the Library of America whenever I get a chance to read their volumes.Heck, they are simply great to hold and flip through!

Buy this now!
Very attractive, solid and sturdy, materials are very well organized. Not the cheapest, but well worth it -- especially at the discount Amazon provides... And then there's the content -- top notch stuff, perfect. ... Read more

Book Description
Features: * The complete Collected Poems

* An originalhalf-hour documentary video, "The Risk of Spirit, " narrated byPulitzer Prize winner and former Poet Laureate, Richard Wilbur

* Anadditional 25 minutes of historical and interview video footage,including Frost's famous performance at JFK's 1960 inauguration

*Audio recordings of Frost performing 70 of his finest poems--more than90 minutes of CD-quality audio

* Over 30 minutes of audio of Frost inlectures and interviews discussing his life and ideas

* Over 200photographs of Frost, his family, and important figures of his time

*Over 1500 pages of letters, major critical statements, biographicalmaterial (including the official one-volume biography), and Frost'sessays and interviews--all in searchable, live text format

*Original commentary on over 100 poems by 10 distinguishedscholars--plus point-and-click annotation. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Won't work on XP
If you're using XP, this CD won't work. The R Frost program requires small fonts, so it says, in order to display properly. On my Windows 2000 Pro, laptop, the Frost CD operates correctly (when I have chosen small fonts). This is done by right clicking on your desktop and chosing properties. (Contrary to what the previous reviewer states, my Frost CD has worked on all my windows operating systems until XP.)

Under Windows XP, the only options for Fonts are Normal, Large andExtra Large. So... even though the Frost CD would *probably* work on an XP system (if one could edit the program) because XP tells the Frost program that it is using the "normal" font size, the Frost CD refuses to boot. This is a real shame because the CD is beautifully done & well worth the money. The fix is probably a simple one for a hacker. Any hackers out there?

Robert Frost CD ROM Rocks
This is the conclusion of my rhymed review
published in The ROBERT FROST REVIEW,
Fall 1999, pages 75-80.
Copyright (c) 1999 by John Ridland:

Who's this book good for in the end?
Anyone, whether foe or friend
Of Frost, or neutral, to explore
His "world" (and ours)--an open door,
Just as its press release declares,
Which leads up/down Escherian stairs,
For "poetry lovers, scholars, schools,
Libraries", with the learning tools
Laid in our hands, or CD drawer,
(Which true-blue Luddites will deplore
As treacherous tautology)
By our last century's technology--
Or several doors by which to enter
And search for one who, in the center,
Sits, like his "Secret" I once got
In a fortune cookie, I kid you not!
HIS Secret, which this disk will guard,
Is out: he's still America's Bard. ... Read more

Book Description

Customer Reviews (1)

A Break-through Book for Lovers of Frost's Poetry
For all who have been captivated by Robert Frost's poetry, Peter Stanlis's break-through book "The Poet as Philosopher" offers a unique overview of the philosophical underpinnings that shed a clear light on the issues and beliefs imbedded in Frost's poetry.Other scholars have chosen to view Frost primarily as a monist, that is either as a God-centered spiritualist or a science-based materialist, quoting passage after passage of his poetry in support of their positions.But Stanlis squarely faces what Frost called "contraries." In this book, Stanlis presents a convincing array of evidence for Frost as a dualist.In his first chapter, Stanlis sets his own high standard for what "is required for a thorough and valid comprehension of Frost's dualism.""Nothing short," he maintains, "of a complete natural history of his life and thought."
And that is precisely what he gives us in this monumental study of everything that Frost said, thought, did, and wrote relevant to his philosophical thinking, correlating it all to such thinkers as Darwin, the Huxleys, Lovejoy, and Einstein, and to such fields as education, religion, science, politics, and poetics.
At the same time, his book is a concise review of Western philosophy all the way from the Greeks to quantum physics.As an esteemed scholar of Edmund Burke, Stanlis's perspective of the field is masterful.No one is better qualified to write about Frost and philosophy than Stanlis who combines his academic expertise with the direct experience he had with Frost's thoughts during their long friendship.
According to Stanlis, Frost's dualism rejects the resolution of reality into oneness, but views the world in pairs of opposition that are never completely resolved.His "melancholy dualism" is balanced in a sort of play.The sense of play permeates his poetry and way of looking at life.Stanlis presents us with a Frost who had a very eclectic but sophisticated and far reaching world view.
As someone who has taught Frost's poetry in the college classroom for over thirty years, I know the myriad questions that inevitably come up about what did Frost really believe.This book provides insights that can help Frost readers better understand the poet they already respond to and admire.The necessarily complex ideas Stanlis covers are organized effectively.They are expressed clearly and concisely without the jargon often associated with philosophical writing.Dr. Peter Stanlis has combined meticulous scholarship with what he learned from his personal friendship with Frost to write a much needed book, one that provides a valuable new perspective for academics but is also meaningful and accessible for the general reader.I highly recommend it to all who want to deepen their appreciation of Frost the poet and to enrich their understanding of one aspect of Frost that has too often been overlooked, his philosophical beliefs.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Robert Frost's Derry Years in Detail
Fans of Robert Frost's poetry will appreciate the insight into his life at the Derry Farm in New Hampshire. Lawrence Thompson provides his readers with the details of Frost's daily life which so influenced his poetry. Through Thompson's careful chronicling of Frost's activites, we see thepoet as husband, father, neighbor, friend, and farmer. Frost's strugglesand triumphs at the Derry Farm shaped all the poetry that followed thistime in his life. In this book, Lawrence Thompson does justice to thisgreat poet. ... Read more

Book Description
Often thought of as the quintessential poet of New England, Robert Frost is one of the most widely read American poets of the 20th century. He was a master of poetic form and imagery, his works seemed to capture the spirit of America, and he became so emblematic of his country that he read his work at President Kennedy's inauguration and traveled to Israel, Greece, and the Soviet Union as an emissary of the U.S. State Department. While many readers think of him as the personification of New England, he was born in San Francisco, published his first book of poetry in England, matured as a poet while abroad, taught for several years at the University of Michigan, and spent many of his winters in Florida. This reference helps illuminate the hidden complexities of his life and work. Included in this volume are hundreds of alphabetically arranged entries on Frost's life and writings. Each of his collected poems is treated in a separate entry, and the book additionally includes entries on such topics as his public speeches, various colleges and universities with which he was associated, the honors that he won, his biographers, films about him, poets, and others whom he knew, and similar items. Each entry is written by an expert contributor and closes with a brief bibliography. The volume also provides a chronology and concludes with a general bibliography of major studies. ... Read more