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Unread 10-05-2012, 03:06 AM
Gregory Dowling Gregory Dowling is offline
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Default 7. Robert Frost: New Hampshire

As I said in my earlier post, for me it would be a toss-up between North of Boston and New Hampshire. While the earlier book is probably the more important from the point of view of literary history - it showed there was another way to be Modernist, or at least another way to "make it new" - in the end I think I prefer New Hampshire. North of Boston contains some of Frost's greatest narratives and dialogue/monologue poems but doesn't show Frost's equally strong gift for the lyric. That, of course, increased its impact at a time but does mean that there is the risk of monotony. New Hampshire has some great longish narratives ("Maple", "Wild Grapes", "Two Witches", which are not as famous as the earlier ones but do have a wonderful quality of weirdness), some shorter but extremely powerful narratives ("Two Look at Two", "Census Taker", for example), but the volume also contains some of his greatest short lyrics: "Dust of Snow", "Fire and Ice", "Nothing Gold Can Stay". And then there are poems that are halfway between lyric and nursery rhyme ("Gathering Leaves") poems between comedy and lyrical beauty ("Hillside Thaw") and, of course, his most famous poem ever, "Stopping by Woods". There is not a dud poem in the whole book, with the possible exception of the rather plodding title poem (which still has its quotable moments), and the range of tones, forms, registers and styles is stunning.
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