Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers today; And give us not to think so far away As the uncertain harvest; keep us here All simply in the springing of the year. Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white, Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night; And make us happy in the [...]
As the last of the snow melts in my backyard—once again—I am amazed that we were able to bury so many effigies of Punxsutawney Phil during the extra month that his shadow added to an already relentless winter. Although though it is well past March 20, the official first day of the season, and even [...]
Education by poetry is education by metaphor. We like to talk in parables and in hints and in indirections. Poetry provides the one permissible way of saying one thing and meaning another. “Education by Poetry” was a talk delivered at Amherst College and subsequently revised for publication in the Amherst Graduates’ Quarterly of February 1931. [...]
Robert Frost: The Poet as Philosopher, by Peter J. Stanlis. Probably no other American poet has suffered more misunderstanding at the hands of his readers, admirers and detractors alike, than Robert Frost. The range and variety of misreadings of both the man and his poetry are legion: he was simply a nature poet, child of [...]
M.E. Bradford It is a paradox of our times that close observers of the American literary scene residing beyond our borders receive, from the self-appointed guardians of “high” culture and the life of the mind within this country, so little really useful direction or assistance in identifying what American writing is worthwhile or [...]
Poetry was to Robert Frost a special form of human revelation. It was distinct from the divine or prophetic revelations of religion, the rational understanding of philosophy and science, and the prudential wisdom of history. It was the only way mankind had of saying one thing in terms of another, aimed at insight and wisdom. [...]
James E. Person, Jr. interviews Peter J. Stanlis Peter Stanlis’s groundbreaking work, Edmund Burke and the Natural Law (1958), forever changed the way scholars view Burke’s work. Mr. Stanlis (1919-2011) placed Burke firmly in the tradition of Western natural law reasoning. Mr. Stanlis has also published a number of essays and articles on Frost, including Robert Frost: [...]
Education by poetry is education by metaphor.—Robert Frost Robert Frost The older I get the more I am convinced that a young teacher can learn almost everything he needs to know about teaching by reading Robert Frost. He once said that “the three strands of my life” were “writing, teaching, and farming.” He [...]