TL;DRAbstract
Robert Frost and the Work of Retelling David Wyatt (bio) It has been almost forty years since Richard Poirier began Robert Frost: The Work of Knowing by adverting to the prevailing assumption that Frost “is more easily read than are his contemporaries.” Despite subsequent interventions by readers as “strenuous”—it is Poirier’s word—as William Pritchard, Katherine Kearns, and Mark Richardson, the assumption persists. That a modern poet ought to be difficult, and that Frost’s poems are not, remains a predisposition that many readers of Frost, if I may judge at least from the behavior of my students, continue to bring to the page. Frost’s strongest poems often take as their subject the expectation that they will go under-read, with “The Road Not Taken” being the most famous case in point. When teaching the poem I continue to be astonished at its power to disarm an attentive reading and to encourage instead a careless and self-congratulatory one. “‘The Road Not Taken,’” I say to the class.
Chat with Paper
AI Agents for this Paper
Robert Frost and the Work of Retelling David Wyatt (bio) It has been almost forty years since Richard Poirier began Robert Frost: The Work of Knowing by adverting to the prevailing assumption that Frost “is more easily read than are his contemporaries.” Despite subsequent interventions by readers as “strenuous”—it is Poirier’s word—as William Pritchard, Katherine Kearns, and Mark Richardson, the assumption persists. That a modern poet ought to be difficult, and that Frost’s poems are not, remains a predisposition that many readers of Frost, if I may judge at least from the behavior of my students, continue to bring to the page. Frost’s strongest poems often take as their subject the expectation that they will go under-read, with “The Road Not Taken” being the most famous case in point. When teaching the poem I continue to be astonished at its power to disarm an attentive reading and to encourage instead a careless and self-congratulatory one. “‘The Road Not Taken,’” I say to the class.
Keywords
Chat
Click to start Chat