I am Daniel Ingram, a junior at East Tennessee State University.
                                                   This web page was made for the class of American Literature.  I chose
                                                   Robert Frost to research and write a web page about him. The web page has
                                                   a selected poem that Robert Frost  wrote called Good Hours.  The
                                                   web page also contains biographical  information and comments on the poem.
 
 

                                                                             Robert Frost. 1874–1963

                                                                                    Good Hours    1915

                                                                                    I HAD for my winter evening walk-
                                                                                    No one at all with whom to talk,
                                                                                    But I had the cottages in a row
                                                                                    Up to their shining eyes in snow.

                                                                                    And I thought I had the folk within:
                                                                                    I had the sound of a violin;
                                                                                    I had a glimpse through curtain laces
                                                                                    Of youthful forms and youthful faces.

                                                                                    I had such company outward bound.
                                                                                    I went till there were no cottages found.
                                                                                    I turned and repented, but coming back
                                                                                    I saw no window but that was black.

                                                                                    Over the snow my creaking feet
                                                                                    Disturbed the slumbering village street
                                                                                    Like profanation, by your leave,
                                                                                    At ten o'clock of a winter eve.

                                                                                 Frost, Robert. 1915. North of Boston
 
 

                   A Biography

                                         Robert Frost was a  New England farmer who had a passion for writing
                        poetry.  Even though he was born in San Francisco, California, and spent most of his
                        young life in the western states, he was labeled a New England writer by many people.  In
                        1885, Frost's father died, so he and his mother moved east, to New Hampshire, to live
                        with his grandparents.  He was the valedictorian of his high school class of 1892.  He went
                        on to attend Dartmouth College.   He did not enjoy the college atmosphere and thus left
                        the establishment.  He started working small jobs and wrote poetry on the side.  After
                        working for two years he attempted college again, this time at Harvard. He stayed there
                        for  two years but left due to his satisfaction with the conventional ways of education.

                   Start of Career

                                         After leaving his college career for good, he began farming in New Hampshire.
                         Even though farming was a full time occupation, he still wrote poetry in his spare time.  In
                         1912, he left the area and sailed to England to continue his passion for writing poetry.  He
                          was hoping to have people to accept and enjoy his poetry for its uniqueness.  While in
                         England, he published his first book, A Boy's Will  (1913).  This book brought the
                         attention of the public and many influential critics.  The American expatriate Ezra Pound
                         said that Frost was an authentic poet ( Mc Michael, George 1615 ).

                   The Beginning in New England

                                         After he returned home to New Hampshire in 1914, he published the book North
                            of Boston (1914).  Frost was now gaining financial support from his attempts to gain
                            recognition.  He read his poetry  in many colleges and throughout the United States. He
                            went on to published several more books, Mountain Interval (1916), New Hampshire
                            (1923), West-running Brook (1928), A Further Range (1936), A Witness Tree (1942),
                            Steeple Bush (1947), and In the Clearing ( 1962).  Frost finally received the recognition he
                            yearned for and eventually even received a Pulitzer Prize four times.  Yale and several other
                            universities gave him honorary english degrees.  The government also recognized him by
                            passing resolutions on his birthday, and asking him to read his poetry at the inauguration
                            of John F. Kennedy.

                   Frost's Poems

                                         Frost added an old fashioned aspect to his poetry.  He used very plain speech in
                            his writing.  He did this in order to gear his poetry towards the average blue collar
                            American.  He used very traditional forms of narrative speech that are blunt and to the
                            point.  In his poetry, he wrote about nature and how it affects a person.  His writing
                            makes people analyze the emotions  with hiding down within them, and causes them to
                            visualize the moral uncertainties of this world.  Frost's writings always put the readers
                            out in the nature alone so that they can think unbiased about it, no distractions.
 

                   Comments on Good Hour

                                          Good Hours was another poem that draws the reader into nature.  It gives the
                            reader the idea of being alone, having quiet thinking time.  This allows the reader to sit
                            down and examine his or her soul.  The poem makes a point of showing the power with
                            which a person can affect the world by saying, “my creaking feet/Disturbed the slumbering
                            village street/Like profanation.”  The word “profanation” tells how the actions of the one
                            walking in the snow is a corruption of the snow by putting footsteps in it.  The snow is
                            pure with no defects or sin related to it.  The  footsteps being put into the snow by one guy
                            adds defects which gives the out look of sin being in the pure snow.  “Profanation” shows how
                            the character is disturbing the people by corrupting their world. Good Hours is another
                            poem which helps one to examine one's soul.
 

                    Bibliography

                            Primary Source:

                            Frost, Robert. “Good Hours.” North of Boston  New York: Hewy Holt and Company.
                            1914.  pg. 137.  This poem was first  published in North of  Boston.

                            Secondary Source:

                            Frost, Robert. “Good Hours.”  The Road Not Taken; an introduction to Robert Frost. A
                          selection of Robert's Frost's poems with a biographical pref. and running commentary by
                            Louis Untermeyer. Illus. by John O’Hara Cosgrave II .  Eds. Louis Untermeyer. New
                            York: Rinchart and Winston.  1962.  pg. 224-225. This book gave commentary on
                            Frost where I got ideas for the web page.

                            Mc Michael, George. Concise Anthology of American Literature.  Prentice-Hall, Inc.
                            Simon & Schuster / A Viacom Company Upper Saddle River, New Jersey   1998.  pg.
                            1615. This literature book gave me ideas and thoughts on Frost's life for the web page.
                            The page that I used was the introduction to a section of his writings.

                            http://bartleby.com/118/17.html    March 29, 2000    This web page  is where I got the
                            poem from to place it  on the web page.

                            http://www.ketzle.com/frost/frostbio.htm  March 29, 2000    This web page gave the
                            life of Frost from year to year throughout his life.

                            http://www.tnr.com/classic/lowell022015.html   March 29, 2000  This web page
                            gave more commentary on  Frost's life and his work.