KLS Fundraiser Hosts EngelDr. Elliot Engel returned to Kosciusko County Thursday for the Kosciusko Literacy Services' Author Dinner.
The presentation at the Center Lake Pavilion was Engel's eighth consecutive.
This year, Engel spoke on "The Cold Genius of Robert Frost."
According to Engel, with most authors, when you read what they write, you can probably figure out what their childhood was like. When you turn to Robert Frost, you read him and probably think he grew up in New England.However, Frost was born in 1874 in San Francisco, Calif. He didn't leave there until he was 11-1/2 years old, Engel said.
Frost never used his full name as an author. He was born Robert E. Lee Frost because his father fought briefly under General Robert E. Lee for the South.
Both of Frost's parents were born in New England. Both were school teachers in New Hampshire, which is how they met. Married in 1873, Frost's parents decided the future was in the West and they went to California.
Engel said Frost's father was feckless. His mother wanted to teach her children about morality, so she would tell Frost and his sister stories with very contrasting images. Those stories impacted Frost's writing as he wrote more than 60 poems based on contrasting images, Engel said. Engel read Frost's "Fire and Ice" as an example.
When Frost was 11 years old, his father died. His mother moved the family back to her parents' home in New Hampshire in August. Frost hated it until he experienced a 13-inch snowfall on Nov. 3, 1885.
"He was hooked for the rest of his life," Engel said.
At 15, he met his future wife. Up until then, he was only interested in baseball. Since Elinor Miriam White was interested in poetry, Frost became interested in poetry.
He eventually gets into Dartmouth, but quits because he didn't like the stuffiness of academia. He wins his first poetry contest and $15 with "My Butterfly". The poem, Engel said, was dreadful.
Frost and White marry, but he struggles with teaching as a career. He keeps writing poetry every day to himself, keeping them away from everyone else.
At 3 years old, their son, Elliot, dies. Frost writes "Home Burial" about the death of a child. Though they have three other children, as a result of the loss of Elliot, the Frosts' marriage is in trouble. So they pack up the family and move to England because Elinor always wanted to live under a thatch roof.
While in England, Frost gets his first volume of poetry published. "It is a smash hit," said Engel. The English eat up the poetry about New England. With the great reviews it receives, even Americans begin to eat it up.
Frost's second volume features poems like "Home Burial," and all are brilliant, Engel said.
The Frost family moves back to New England. Robert tries farming, but it doesn't go well. He tries teaching again, but he doesn't like that either. Even though he writes "The Road Not Taken," and it's a big hit, Frost still can't make a living as just a poet.
He creates and becomes a "poet in residence." But Frost wants to get away from academia eventually, and writes a new volume titled "New Hampshire." While his friends like the poems, they tell them there's no great work in it.
His deadline is Aug. 15. During a heat wave in Ann Arbor, Mich., on Aug. 14, needing to write the perfect poem, Frost walks through the cornfield. He pretends he's walking through a New England village. Only rhyming words come to him, and he claimed he went into a trance.
In 12 minutes, Engel said, Frost writes "Stopping By Woods in a Snowy Evening". Engel said it's one of the greatest poems of all time.
While it seems like a simple poem, Engel said it's one of the most profound poems in the English language.
The first stanza only has images of passive ideas. The second stanza, all the images are active, Engel said. Like his mother, Frost uses contrasting idea. The third stanza is half active and half passive. The final stanza are about death. Engel said they are the exact same theme as William Shakespeare's "To be or not to be, that is the question."
The last four lines of "Stopping by the Woods in a Snowy Evening" are:
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
By repeating the last two lines, Engel said the reader can't tell if Frost will go on with life or not.
The poem is so powerful, Engel said, that Frost wins the Pulitzer Prize at 50 years old. He will win it four more times, but never win the Nobel Prize, which Frost wanted.
When Frost is 65 years old, Elinor dies. In 1959, Frost announces that a man from Boston will become the next U.S. president. John F. Kennedy goes on to win, and Frost reads a poem at Kennedy's inauguration.
At 88, Frost dies of bladder cancer. Kennedy pays him a beautiful tribute, Engel said.
