Communications in Humanities Research
- The Open Access Proceedings Series for Conferences
Communications in Humanities Research
Vol. 20, 07 December 2023
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“Outdoor Game”: The Invention of Boundary in Robert Frost’s Poetry
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Abstract
Being one of the most renowned American poets, Robert Frost has paid much attention to the interplay between humans and nature, and this interplay usually takes place at a boundary – a wall, a fence, or a house. To examine the human-nature relationship and respond to the existing studies, the article delves into the theme of boundary in Frost’s poetry through close reading of Frost’s poems, interviews, and notes. Because of the development of natural science in Frost’s time, the image of landscape undergoes metamorphosis, switching from a mirroring of the human spirit to a living entity with agency. Therefore, nature is depicted as a counterpart of human beings with an attempt to cross over limits. Nevertheless, Frost emphasizes on coexistence and interdependence between two realms by deliberately leaving the boundary unsettled. Moreover, figures in Frost’s poetry bear two opposite impulses: to destroy and recreate limits, which reveals the floating and playful nature of boundaries; in this regard, the images of houses, walls, and fences are a metaphor for the contradictory human attributes. The article further argues that the feeling of limits reappears in poems displaying emptiness. In Frost’s poetry, a boundary is regarded as a protection both physically and mentally, yet it fails in a state of consolation.
Keywords
Robert Frost, poetry, nature, boundary
References
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6. Lathem, C. (1968). Interviews with Robert Frost. New York: Holt Rinehart, and Winston. 114.
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12. Faggen, R. (2007.) The Notebooks of Robert Frost, ed: Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Data Availability
The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study will be available from the authors upon reasonable request.
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- Volume Title
- Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Interdisciplinary Humanities and Communication Studies
- ISBN (Print)
- 978-1-83558-183-4
- ISBN (Online)
- 978-1-83558-184-1
- Published Date
- 07 December 2023
- Series
- Communications in Humanities Research
- ISSN (Print)
- 2753-7064
- ISSN (Online)
- 2753-7072
- DOI
- 10.54254/2753-7064/20/20231268
- Copyright
- 07 December 2023
- Open Access
- This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited