Robert Frost - Jay Parini

In this important new biography of Robert Frost (1874-1963), Jay Parini offers a major reassessment of the life and work of America's premier poet of the twentieth century and the only true 'national poet' America has yet produced.Elegantly yet simply, Parini traces the various stages of Frost's colourful life: his boyhood in San Francisco, his young manhood in rural New England, his college days at Dartmouth and Harvard, the years of farming in New Hampshire, and the sojourn in England, where he befriended Edward Thomas, Ezra Pound and other major figures of modern poetry. Parini follows the astounding rise of Frost's fame and fortunes in America upon his return in 1915. He shows how Frost gradually evolved from poet to cultural icon, becoming a friend of presidents (he read at President Kennedy's inauguration and visited Khrushchev on his behalf), and a sage whose announcements attracted world press attention.Parini also takes the reader back to the poems, which he reads closely, offering a sensitive roadmap to this remarkable verbal planet.