罗伯特弗罗斯特诗歌中的悲剧主题---毕业论文

1、【标题】罗伯特?弗罗斯特诗歌中的悲剧主题 【作者】王 高 【关键词】罗伯特?弗罗斯特；悲剧主题；诗歌 【指导老师】张海霞 曾琳玲 【专业】英语 【正文】. introductiona. introduction to the life and career of frostin any list of important poets in the twentieth century, robert frost was perhaps the most beloved poet in the united states and the most successful american poet

2、widely accepted all over the world. he was the pulitzer prize winner on four occasions(in 1924, 1931, 1937 and 1943 respectively); he received honorary degrees from about 40 colleges and universities; and american government presented him a gold medal in 1960 for his contribution to american culture

3、.robert frost was born on 26 march, 1874, in san francisco. he spent his early childhood in the far west and the family moved to new hampshire when he was eleven. after graduating from high school as class poet in 1882, he entered dartmouth college but soon left to work at odd jobs and to write poet

4、ry. in 1897, he tried college again, harvard this time, but though he did extremely well he left in the middle because of his tuberculosis. frost moved to a farm in derry, new hampshire after leaving harvard. for the next twelve years he supported himself by various means, ranging from shoe-making t

5、o editing a country newspaper, not to mention poetry writing. in 1912, he decided to venture everything on a literary career. he sailed for england, where his first book, a boys will(1913), brought him to the attention of influential critics. in 1914, his second volume of poems, north of boston(1914

6、) came out in england, but frost and his large family were forced to return to the united states because of the first world war. hereafter, although his fame grew with the appearance of a succession of books and papers, frost continued to write in his style. he considered the farm as his home and it

7、s activities remained the focus of his poetry. in 1961, when frost was eighty-seven, he was honored to read one of his poems, the gift outright, at the inauguration of president john kennedy. he lived to be 88, loved and honored not only in his native new england but also throughout the united state

8、s. robert frost died on the 29th of january 1963 in boston, massachusetts.b. introduction to his poetryrobert frost is a serious poet. though he is generally considered as a regional poet whose subject matters mainly focus on the landscape and people of new england, he wrote many poems that investig

9、ate the basic themes of human life in his long poetic career. his first collection a boys will, whose lyrics trace a boys development from self-centered idealism to maturity, is marked by an intense but restrained emotion and the characteristic flavor of new england life. north of boston is describe

10、d by the author as“a book of people” which shows a brilliant insight into new england character and the background that formed it. many of his major poems are collected in this volume, such as“mending wall” and“home burial”. the same expressive idiom and brilliant observation appear in mountain inte

11、rval(1916), containing such characteristic poems as“the road not taken”,“birches” and so on. new hampshire(1923) that won frost the first of four pulitzer prizes includes“stopping by woods on a snowy evening” which, repeatedly discussed, stems from the ambiguity of the speakers choice between safety

12、 and the unknown. the collection west-range(1928) poses disturbing uncertainties about mans prowess and importance. collected poems(1930) and a further range(1935), which gathered frosts second and third pulitzer prizes, both translate modern upheaval into poetic material the poet could skillfully c

13、ontrol. frosts fourth pulitzer prizes was awarded for a witness tree(1942) which includes“the gift outright”. at the age of seventy frost took up, in different forms, a religious question he had explored before, most notably in“after apple picking” can a man is best efforts ever satisfy god. a masqu

14、e of reason(1945) and a masque of mercy(1947) are comic-serious dramatic narratives, in both of which biblical characters in modern settings discuss ethics and mans relation to god.c. thesis statementit is always enjoyable to read robert frosts poems. many people“begin in delight, and end in wisdom”

15、, they tend to think of robert frost as an optimistic“country philosopher” and his poems as simple, ordinary nature poems. however, it would be nothing less than foolish to read frost as a simple purveyor of homely truths and yankee wisdom. it would also be a mistake to imagine that frost is easy to

16、 understand because he is easy to read, even poems that focus on casual country scenes.as far as the theme of the poetry is concerned, critics attention is mainly focused on his nature theme and new england theme. whats more, most of them agree that frost is an optimistic poet. indeed, frosts poetry

17、 is deeply influenced by emersons transcendentalism in terms of both themes and rhetoric devices. emersons ideas of the oversoul, individualism, optimism and nature as symbolic of the spirit or god can all be found in frosts poetry, especially in his meditative poems which begin with a scene in natu

18、re or some event in daily life and end in wisdom. it is safe to say that optimism and an active attitude towards life are the mainstream in frosts poetry.however, great artist like robert frost is never of a single mind, nor does he often concentrate on single, unified methods and effects in given p

19、oems. in many of his poems, frost shows deep concern about modern mans tragedy in society and even in the universe. he writes about the relationship between modern men in an industrialized society: their emotional crisis, failure of communication, spiritual loneliness and isolation. living in a tran

20、sitional period, frost is clearly aware of mans tragic position in modern society. so it is clear that tragic theme is also an inneglectable topic compared with other more frequently discussed ones. however, in china there is no systematic comment on this. this thesis attempts to reveal his tragic t

21、hemes, in hopes of offering a fuller understanding of robert frost. tragedy in human societyalthough frost is more frequently considered as a“nature poet”，the human being is also one of the most important elements in his poetry. frost says over and over,“i am not a nature poet. there is almost alway

22、s a person in my poems.” there are in his entire volume of collected work, as he himself has pointed out, only two or three poems which do not include the active participation of a human being-another one besides the author. in most of his poems, the human being is put at the first priority. most of

23、 his poems concerning people are collected in north of boston which is considered to be an anthology describing the lives of lonely people.modern civilization and industrialization bring men material prosperity but fail to maintain the harmonious and friendly relationship between people. in most of

24、his poems, frost depicts new england people, but the themes he reveals are quite common to modern people as a whole. he shows deep concern about modern mans emotional crisis, their loneliness, frustration, isolation and lack of understanding and communication against modern society. on the following

25、 pages, this theme will be illustrated thoroughly with some poems as examples.a. mans alienation in emotional and spiritual crisisit is quite clear that in modern society, human beings face all kinds of crises. those in material world can easily be solved by the development of economy and industrial

26、ization; however, the crises in mans emotional and spiritual world are so serious that man himself can not manage to conquer them. in his poems, frost shows deep concerns about modern mans tragic experience in his emotional crises. in the following part, one of his most famous poems,“home burial”, w

27、ill be taken as an example.in“home burial”, frost reveals the couples different attitudes toward the death of their first child and the ongoing, unresolved conflict between them. frost gives his audience various signals that the present conflict is part of an ongoing unstable situation, an impasse t

28、hat began when the child died. frosts focus on her husbands efforts to connect with amy reveals that the husband genuinely cares about her and their marriage. then her husband moves to judge her:i do think, though, that you overdo it a little.what was it brought you up to think it the thingto take y

29、our mother-loss of a first childso inconsolably-in the face of love.youd think his memory might he satisfied-(1ines 62-65)the poem pivots because, prior to this point, the husband has seemed willing to do whatever is necessary to reconnect, even offering to agree to some arrangement:by which id bind

30、 myself to keep hands offanything special youre a-mind to name.(1ines 51-52)at this juncture, not just amy is torn about how to respond; her husband, even as he is trying his best to connect, fluctuates among loving kindness, fearful defensiveness, and threat. the husbands reference to amys being sa

31、tisfied, with its presumption to know how she should feel, brings out amys fierce defensiveness:“there you go sneering now!”(1ine 67). his immediate and not unreasonable denial“im not, im not!”(line 68) soon leads to her articulation of their respective attitudes toward their sons death. amys first

32、speech castigates the husband for being unfeeling, for digging the childs grave and being able to talk of how a birch fence rots, for bringing the spade that dug the grave into the house. frost captures the husbands pain-rooted in his comprehension not of her pain but of her incomprehension of him-b

33、y quoting his brief interruption:“i shall laugh the worst laugh i ever laughed./im cursed. god, if i dont believe im cursed”(1ine 89-90).it is true the husband does not understand his wifes view-indeed, cannot allow himself to understand it because it is too threatening to his own attitude.“conseque

34、ntly, he responds by focusing not on the content of her speech by on her having spoken from the heart.” 1“there, you have said it all and you feel better”(1ine 108). having explained herself and been misunderstood, amy reaches her breaking point:“you-oh, you think the talk is all i must go-/somewher

35、e out of this house. how can i make you-”(1ine 112-13). her resolve arouses his fear, and so her resorts to threats:“if-you-do”(tine 114) and, when she leaves anyway.“ill follow and bring you back by force. 1 will-”(1ine 116).in reading these lines:“we watch with horror as they fall from the precipi

36、ce upon which they have been so precariously swaying into a very uncertain future.”2 our understanding of their way of dealing with their childs death now makes that fall appear inevitable, but that sense of inevitability does no make it less painful to witness.here, it would be safe to say that bot

37、h the husband and wife are victims. they suffer a lot from the loss of their child, but they suffer more from their emotional conflicts which give them the feeling of alienation. both of them are trapped in their house with the small grave in the yard, which symbolizes a life with inevitable tragedy

38、. on a larger scale, the tragic undercurrent lurking in human life, especially in peoples emotional world, will shadow the love and understanding they once shared and make them aliened from each other.b. indifference to the lonely old and youngman exists in a given set of circumstance, which is full

39、 of various pains and miseries. as the unprivileged groups in society, the old people and children suffer more and have every reason to get more love and care. however, in modern society, nobody cares about their situation and existence. they are left in unbearable loneliness and desperation. in fac

40、t, it is not merely a tragedy for the old and the children, but a tragedy for human beings as a race.in some of his poems, frost shows deep concern and compassion to the unprivileged groups in society. the old are helpless and even the death of the children cannot arouse any compassion from other pe

41、ople. the overwhelming loneliness and helplessness of them and the indifferent attitude of people form a sharp contrast and make the tragic theme loom large.perhaps the most haunting poem in mountain interval is“an old mans winter night”, a poem about an old man dying in the wintry climate of new en

42、gland:“all out-of-doors looked darkly in at him/through the thin frost, almost in separate stars,/that gathers on the pane in empty rooms”(line 1-3). with his memory failing him, eroding his sense of purpose, the old man cannot remember“what it was/that brought him to that creaking room”(line 6-7).

43、here we find salvation neither in a human relationship, nor in communion with the outside world, nor in devotion to a task. there is no sense here of the old mans existing for anything or anyone at all.we are told“a tight he was to no one but himself”(1ine 15) and he also holds a light, a light that

44、 prevents his“giving back the gaze”(1ine 4) to the out-of-doors because he is tilting it back toward his eyes. the light he was unto himself and the light he holds unto himself work together to intensify the mans isolation: we understand that his aloneness is not simply the absence of another person

45、 in the house, or the fact that no one is caring for him; it is that he means nothing to anyone. there is no meaning for his existence. this keeping of his light and his concern to himself seem to have some bearing on the mans relationship with the out-of-doors, for his very aloneness makes the worl

46、d outside and the world in the cellar especially frightening. the two lights work together, for were he to have cast light outward in either sense, to have been a light to another, to have shone his light out the window, the out-of-doors would not seem to be“looking darkly in at him”. with another h

47、e would be able to“keep house”-to have a home; this way the house is a“keep”-a fortress against hostile forces, but not a real home. as it is, he reflects only himself and his condition, haunted by what he imagines threatens from without.yet in that dim and frozen atmosphere we hear noise, the noise

48、 he makes to scare the cellar and scare the outer night. we hear what must be his futile attempt to scare them back. the night“had its sounds familiar like the roar/of trees and crack of braches, common things/but nothing so like beating on a box”(line 12-14). it seems that the noise of“beating on a

49、 box” sounds not“common” in the night. the act of a man alone beating on a box seems even more frightening than noises from the cellar or the out-of-doors, which makes his lonely situation more pitiful.“most telling, though, is the echo effect in the description of his disturbed sleep.”3 he sleeps,

50、and“the log that shifted with a jolt/once in the stove, disturbed him and he shifted/and eased his heavy breathing, but still slept”(line 23-25). it is almost as if he is one with that log. box-beating and clomping over, light put out, he sleeps like a log, moves when the log moves.“it is almost as

51、if in the mans aloneness, his connection with no one, no purpose, his lack of connection even with himself and his thoughts, he is less than fully human-not even connected with nature, for the log is no longer alive.”4 the poem ends with a handful of deeply haunting lines:one aged man-one man-cant k

52、eep a house,a farm, a countryside, or if he canits thus he does it of a winter night.(line 26-28)this is all old mans winter night, but we are not allowed to rest the blame for his condition simply on age. what keeps him from remembering is age, but we are made to see, at the end, that not only call

53、 one aged man not keep a house, but that one man-any man alone-cannot keep a house, a farm, a countryside any better than this.“the old man is somehow made to bear the weight of all human loneliness.”5 it is a tragedy for human beings as a race to abandon the unprivileged people in his group. this i

54、ndifference produces in man a sense of cosmic alienation which will definitely bring about human beings winter night.mans helplessness in the universein a world stripped of its illusions and false pretensions, the human being is all outsider, who lives without any meaning. the human being is placed

55、in a hopeless and void situation, where the limiting reality leads him to encounter the absurd in every aspect of being, ranging from routine activities in life to unusual and unconventional circumstances. frost sees poetry as a way of psychological survival in a chaotic universe. his poetry represe

56、nts a continual dialogue between control and chaos, and he sees poetry as creating“a momentary stay against confusion,” a something facing the nothingness. the poetic act for frost provides order and form set somewhat heroically against chaos.a. mans helplessness and isolation in the universesartre

57、observes in his being and nothingness the world we live in as offering man little support, leaving him“abandoned” to his own resources.“i carry the weight of the world by myself alone without any person or thing able to lighten it.”6 in frosts poems, even men are willing to make metaphysical explora

58、tion and even spiritual enlargement, the universe only provides them with tantalizing hints but no true knowledge. his speakers are isolated, reflective, willfully trying their hardest to discover meaning, but usually resign to their failure.“the most of it” is about the gulf between man and the universe. the protagonist has been living alone by a lake across from a cliff.he thought he kept the universe alone;for all the voice in answer he could wakewas but