Life and Nature - Scf - State College of Florida

Transcendentalism
Robert Frost‟s work is the ideal work of a transcendentalist. His work helps
to find refuge in a greedy world, as well and heal and find a common relationship
with man and nature by using metaphors for one or the other. Even though he
has poems that do not necessarily involve nature, his works ranging from “Out,
Out” to “Mending Wall” to “After Apple Picking” all depict the philosophies of
life lessons from finding common ground and experiencing something greater than
themselves. According to Nan Sisemore at Southeast High School, Frost
takes common people in common places and puts them into his poems filled with
nature and metaphors about the human condition and restores their “spirit
through vigorous activities and communion with nature” (“Frost Lecture”). Frost
filled his poems with New England nature and settings typically in the winter, fall,
or at night, because it causes his subjects to create “their own resources for
survival” when isolated instead of reaching towards a materialistic society that
would not understand them or what it means to work towards something (“Frost
Lecture”). Frost, though he did not live during a transcendentalist time, was
unquestionably a transcendentalist poet that found a unique writing style to
accompany what he stood for, believed in, and thought was pure form of reality in
a tarnished society.