Robert Frost: the "Terrifying Poet" and the woes of popularity

A four times Pulitzer Prize winner, laureate poet Robert Frost could hardly have been more popular in his life-time, becoming a truly American icon, who represented the essence of the good old values of pastoral, bucolic New England. Yet, as his art escaped the "clutches of the academics"—breaking free from the narrow boundaries of an elite readership, and reaching out to the general public—something went lost. Once his work triumphantly entered mainstream culture, the understanding of his poetry greatly diminished: famous verses of his best works passed down amongst his readers as simplified, lame mantras. However, the waters of his art are the farthest from shallowness, but deep, troubled, and often dark.
    It is well remembered how, in 1958, at a celebration for the poet's 85th birthday at the Waldorf-Astoria, the featured speaker, literary critic Lionel Trilling, shocking the audience, proclaimed: ''I regard Robert Frost as a terrifying poet." Old Frost did not appear the least bothered; intimately, he might as well have nodded with satisfaction.

    In the lecture presented below,  Professor of English Kevin Murphy (Ithaca College, 1992), brings to light some of Frost poetry's inner implications that, surprisingly enough, had been long overlooked.

A glimpse of America, through the greatest on-the-road novels. Open discussion on Literary Joint.

Amerika, (original title: Der Verschollene), the incomplete first novel of  Franz Kafka , written 1911-1914.

Isn't it often striking how little is generally understood of America? The rolling, omniscient, and eminently  powerful country, and its dwellers, seem perfectly designed to be stereotyped, thus we can all feel free to wallow, free of regrets or embarrassment, in our ignorance and misconception of it. Yet, as  reading (along perhaps with traveling) is undoubtedly the perfect antidote for our lack of knowledge and understanding, wouldn't it make sense turn to the greatest on-the-road American novels, to unveil the mysterious land and its folks, seeking for answers and discernment? For instance, many great ones occur to me: from Steinbeck's little known "Travels with Charley: in Search of America" and his dramatic, tantalizing "Grapes of Wrath," to Kerouac's classic and often misread "On the Road," to Nabokov's controversial "Lolita," to Twain's (on-the-river) "Huckleberry Finn," that recedes even further back in time...

At Literary Joint, we would love to spark a debate, or at least a humble literary chit-chat, around this, counting on your comments and contribution. What do YOU reckon? What are the (well known or less known) greatest on-the-road American novels that may help us unravel the very core of America?

A few words on "An Old Man's Winter Night," by Robert Frost, and a version in Italian

U.S stamp celebrating Robert Frost's Centennial birth anniversary, 1974

There is more than solitude and dejection to "An Old Man's Winter Night," as Frost forces the reader to look inwardly; the way the poem is construed, there's no apparent possibility to establish a connection of empathy, or companionship, with the old guy's workings of the mind. Is it more, other than tenacity and sheer willingness of survival, what is conjured before our eyes? Arguably, more than the burden of death and absolute loneliness, what is being questioned is the human inability of let go of oneself, even when there's little, if anything at all, to be let go of; it is the probe into the missing alliteration: obliviousness and obliteration. In Frost's words "One aged man -- one man --" (this repetition is, perhaps, the key) "can't keep a house, a farm, a countryside," (keep going, maintain, certainly, yet most notably "keep") "or if he can, it's thus he does it of a winter night." Yet, it is some of the initial lines that struck most: "What kept his eyes from giving back the gaze/Was the lamp tilted near them in his hand." The human's lamp itself, the fire of sheer existence, these are possibly the barriers to our reconnection with  the powerful forces of nature, and the beyond world, that of ancestry. 

Original English Version, by Robert Frost, from the collection Mountain Interval, 1916. 

 An Old Man's Winter Night

All out of doors looked darkly in at him
Through the thin frost, almost in separate stars,
That gathers on the pane in empty rooms.
What kept his eyes from giving back the gaze
Was the lamp tilted near them in his hand.
What kept him from remembering what it was
That brought him to that creaking room was age.
He stood with barrels round him -- at a loss.
And having scared the cellar under him
In clomping there, he scared it once again
In clomping off; —and scared the outer night,
Which has its sounds, familiar, like the roar
Of trees and crack of branches, common things,
But nothing so like beating on a box.
A light he was to no one but himself
Where now he sat, concerned with he knew what,
A quiet light, and then not even that.
He consigned to the moon, such as she was,
So late-arising, to the broken moon
As better than the sun in any case
For such a charge, his snow upon the roof,
His icicles along the wall to keep;
And slept. The log that shifted with a jolt
Once in the stove, disturbed him and he shifted,
And eased his heavy breathing, but still slept.
One aged man—one man—can't keep a house,
A farm, a countryside, or if he can,
It's thus he does it of a winter night.

by Robert Frost, from the collection "Mountain Interval," 1916

A version in Italian, by LiteraryJoint:

Notte d'inverno di un vecchio

Quel che stava fuori oscuramente lo guardava
Attraverso il sottile ghiaccio, quasi in stelle separate,
Che si forma sul vetro in stanze vuote.
Quel che impediva ai suoi occhi di ricambiare lo sguardo
Era la lampada che nella sua mano si piegava vicino a loro.
Quel che gli impediva di ricordare cosa fu
Che lo condusse in quella stanza scricchiolante era l'età.
Stava in piedi con barili attorno a lui -- perso.
E spaventata la cantina che stava di sotto
Battendovi il piede, la spaventò un'altra volta
Con quel suo battere; —e spavantò la notte là fuori.
Che ha i suoi suoni, familiari, come il ruggito
Di alberi e lo spezzarsi di rami, cose comuni.
Ma niente simile al battere su una scatola.
Una luce che era a non altri che sé stesso
Dove ora sedeva, preoccupato con ciò che sapeva,
Una luce quieta, e poi nemmeno quello.
Si consegnò alla luna, cosí com'era,
Sorta cosí tardi, alla luna spezzata
Sempre meglio del sole in ogni caso
Poiché un tal peso, la sua neve sul tetto,
Le sue lingue di ghiaccio teneva lungo il muro;
E dormí. Il ceppo che si rimosse con un sobbalzo
nella stufa, disturbandolo, lo fece rigirare,
E ne alleviò il respiro pesante, ma senza destarlo.
Un vecchio uomo—un uomo—non può badare a una casa,
Una fattoria, una campagna, o se può,
E' questo che ne fa di una notte d'inverno. 

Robert Frost, dalla raccolta "Mountain Interval", 1916. 
Traduzione in italiano a cura di LiteraryJoint.  Copyright © LiteraryJoint by Alessandro Baruffi

Poesia, by Umberto Saba, a version in English, by Literary Joint: Poetry, by Umberto Saba

Cover of a first edition of Umberto Saba's Poesie, 1911, Duke University Library

What is poetry? In this humble, powerful allegory, Umberto Saba compares it to a warm nook amidst the wintry storm: a cherished place that is not contaminated by the material struggle of existence, but nurtured by love and dear memories. The consciousness of this - the role of poetry itself -, unveils the hidden beauty around us, and an intrinsic goodness in things otherwise unnoticed, or that, even worse, would appear just grim, terrible, or mundane.

Poetry

It is like when to a man pounded by the wind,
blinded by snow - all around paints
the city an infernal wintry world -
along the wall, a door opens.
He enters. Finds the goodness not dead,
the sweetness of a warm nook. Lays a name
that was forgotten, a kiss on
smiley faces, that he would only portray

as obscure in threatening dreams.
He returns
to the street, even the street is different.
The weather is fine again; the ice
is broken by industrious hands, the light blue
peeks back in the sky and in his heart. And he thinks
that dire times may foretell good ones.

by Umberto Saba, from the collection "The Songbook," 1933 
Translation in English by LiteraryJoint, Copyright © LiteraryJoint by Alessandro Baruffi 

Available as e-book on Amazon Kindle, iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch , NOOK Book and on Lulu. 

Original text in Italian:

Poesia

E' come a un uomo battuto dal vento,
accecato di neve - intorno pinge
un inferno polare la città -
l'aprirsi, lungo il muro, di una porta.
Entra. Ritrova la bontà non morta,
la dolcezza d'un caldo angolo. Un nome
posa dimenticato, un bacio sopra
ilari volti, che solo vedeva
oscuri in sogni minacciosi.
Torna
Alla strada, anche la strada è un'altra.
Il tempo al bello si è rimesso; i ghiacci
spezzano mani operose, il celeste
rispunta in cielo e nel suo cuore. E pensa
che un estremo di mali un bene annunci.

Umberto Saba, da "Il canzoniere", 1933