Toward Robert Frost - The Reader and the Poet (Paperback, 1st pbk ed)

Every poem, Robert Frost declared, ""is an epitome of the great predicament, a figure of the will braving alien entanglements."" This study considers what Frost meant by those entanglements, how he braved them in his poetry, and how he invited his readers to do the same. In the process, it contributes to a new critical awareness of Frost as a complex artist who anticipated postmodernism - a poet who invoked literary traditions and conventions frequently to set himself in tension with them. Using the insights of reader-response theory, Judith Oster explains how Frost appeals to readers with his apparent accessibility and then, because of the openness of his poetry's possibilities, engages them in the process of constructing meaning. Frost's poems, she demonstrates, teach the reader how they should be read; at the same time, they resist closure and definitive reading. The reader's acts of encountering and constructing the poems parallel Frost's own encounters and acts of construction. Commenting at length on a number of individual poems - among them ""Storm Fear,"" ""Spring Pools,"" ""The Silken Tent,"" ""Range-Finding,"" ""Maple,"" and ""Gathering Leaves"" - Oster ranges in her discussion from the ways in which the poet dramatises the inadequacy of the self alone to the manner in which he ""reads"" the Book of Genesis or the writing of Emerson. Oster illuminates, finally, the central conflict in Frost: his need to be read well against his fear of being read; his need to share his creation against his fear of its appropriation by others.

General

Imprint:	University of Georgia Press
Country of origin:	United States
Release date:	February 1994
First published:	February 1994
Authors:	Judith Oster
Dimensions:	229 x 139 x 23mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Paperback
Pages:	360
Edition:	1st pbk ed
ISBN-13:	978-0-8203-1621-5
Categories:	Books > Language & Literature > Literature: history & criticism > Literary studies > From 1900 Books > Language & Literature > Literature: history & criticism > Poetry & poets > General
LSN:	0-8203-1621-0
Barcode:	9780820316215

Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate? Let us know about it.

Does this product have an incorrect or missing image? Send us a new image.

Is this product missing categories? Add more categories.

Review This Product

No reviews yet - be the first to create one!