Frost: Troubled Romantic

Many authors before Robert Frost wrote through the lens of romanticism. Romantic writers offered their readers an interpretation of nature and the natural order of things as a means to comfort them when faced with life's difficulties. They proposed that nature could serve as a model, offer direction and allow humans to transcend their human condition. Another school of writers held that humans could not transcend nature or its order, they were the anti transcendentalists. Although they recognized nature as a model for human life, they did not believe humanity could rise above its inherent flaws and predestination for disaster. Frost's work reflects a troubled romantic view of the world. He attempts to reconcile these competing views of the world in his poems, "Mending Wall" and "Birches."

"Mending Wall" is a narrative of Frost and his neighbor mending the wall between their properties. However simple...