Poetic Strategies As Resistance To Modern Anxiety In Frost’s Poetry

This thesis is a study on modern anxiety and poetic strategies as resistance to modern anxiety in Robert Frost’s poetry.It is comprised of three parts,including introduction,body and conclusion.The introduction part argues that the previous studies on Frost’s poetry and poetics mainly investigate modern themes or the modernist poetics in Frost’s poems,however,most of these studies separate the two from each other.The thesis aims to make a profound and comprehensive interpretation of Frost’s poetry and poetics through a connection of the modern theme in his poetry and his modernist poetics.The three chapters in the body part discuss the poetic strategies,the poetic effects and poetic strategies as resistance to modern anxiety in Robert Frost’s poetry respectively.The first chapter probes into the poetic strategies in Frost’s poetry,including metaphor and “the figure of a poem” theory.Metaphor in Frost’s poetry is ironic with its ulterior meaning inconsistent with the literal meaning and creates the ulteriority of Frost’s poetry.And Frost’s “the figure of a poem” theory contends that a poem is a relatively complete process of exploration centering on a certain subject matter: it begins in the delight of exploring something in confusion and ends in the temporary balance of the opposing forces related with the subject matter.The second chapter elaborates the poetic effects of Frost’s poetic strategies.The ironic metaphor motivates the absorption of the sentence sound into Frost’s poetry,which makes the deep sound of his poetry inconsistent with the surface sound.And the juxtaposition of the two inconsistent sounds generates the tragic-comic effect of his poetry and the refinement of the subject’s sentiments and thus makes the poetic subject have a temporary transcendence of the existential dilemma.The poetic effect of “the figure of a poem” theory is momentary stay against confusion.Through the imagination of human labor and sound,the speaker achieves a momentary stay against the chaotic reality in the external world.And through a complete exploration of something leading to the internal confusion,the speaker draws a conclusion to achieve a temporary clarification of the internal confusion.The third chapter analyzes the poetic strategies as resistance to modern anxiety in Frost’s poetry.Firstly,with the absorption of sentence sound into his poetry,the ironic metaphor has the surface sound and the sound in deep to resist against anxiety about the interpersonal relationship and anxiety about the absolute knowledge.Secondly,“the figure of a poem” theory,with its stress on a relatively complete exploration and momentary stay against confusion,resists against anxiety about disorder in modern life and anxiety about totality in modern poetry.Through a close reading and contextual analysis of Robert Frost’s poems and poetics,the thesis draws a conclusion that through the ironic metaphor and “the figure of a poem” theory,Frost’s poetry provides strategies to resist against the existential anxiety of modern people in his poetry and to temporarily release their modern anxiety.