Open Access
American Research Journal of English and Literature
ISSN (Online): 2378-9026
DOI: 10.46568/arjel
A Comparative Analysis of Robert Frost and Emily Dickinson’s Vision of Nature
Abstract
Since the closing decades of the eighteenth century, ‘Nature’ has been one of the most recurrent themes of English and
American Poetry. The chief exponent of this subject, William Wordsworth, explored its utmost philosophical limits and
in doing so, set a trap of convention for the succeeding generations of poets. From him down to the Victorian poets
in England and through them to Bryant and Emerson in America, every poet, faithfully and at times exasperatingly
echoed some of the notable aspects of his attitude towards nature. From Wordsworth up to Hardy, each poet spiritualized
or personified Nature. To them, nature spoke a significant language and stirred within them, profound philosophical
reflections. In this group, can also be placed writers like Poe, Melville and Henry James. But the American poet Robert
Frost’s (1874 - 1963) approach to nature was a fusion of all these. Sometimes he simply observed and recorded beauties
of nature, at times he found spiritual echoes in it, and still at some other times he found nature to be a mirror of human
soul. But he never saw nature away from nature. Frost’s treatment of nature better can be assessed by comparing his
stance with that of another nature poet.
In this paper Robert Frost’s realistic approach to ‘Nature’ has been compared with another American nature poet
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886).She was “the most perfect flower of New England Transcendentalism”, an anticipator of
metaphysical poetry, a smeller of modernity, and an upholder of romanticism. A religious poet with keen sensibilities and
a Puritan’s thorough knowledge of the Bible, she could not help being intensely aware of Nature’s glory.
