by Chris Alexion, Copyright January 23, 2007, all rights reserved. 294 views
Bradstreet and the Colonials were succeeded by poets like Poe and Emerson. Generally speaking, these poets are described as "postcolonial," but Poe may be further categorized as "Gothic," and Emerson as "Transcendentalist." As with the Puritans, Frost's unique voice doesn't fit neatly into this group.
Unlike Frost, Poe is dark and melancholy. Lost love and death are common themes in Poe's Gothic, sometimes nightmarish, world. For instance, he loses the woman he loves in "Annabel Lee": "The angels, not half so happy in heaven, / Went envying her and me– / Yes! That was the reason (as all men know, / In this kingdom by the sea) / That the wind came out of the cloud by night, / Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee." Poe's creepy and cool poem "The Raven" carries an even more despairing note. When the eerie black bird settles over his door, it returns only one answer to all Poe's fevered questioning: "Nevermore!"
Neither the early Frost (who is pastoral and optimistic) nor the later Frost (whose work is edged with skepticism) is quite this dark. Frost's "The Pasture" is quite a contrast with Poe, and perhaps the darkest at which we see Frost is in "Design" or his cold depiction of tragedy in "Out, Out–"
Emerson, the voice of Transcendentalism, is eminently idealistic and even, perhaps, preachy. Like Frost, Emerson employs short poems, including his well-known "Concord Hymn." Also like Frost, Emerson is close to nature. Yet here a difference emerges. Emerson follows the pantheistic tack of Transcendentalism and, like Wordsworth, seeks moral and theological truths in syruppy impulses from vernal woods Emerson defends the apparent un-studiousness of his trade in "An Apology":
Think me not unkind and rude,
That I walk alone in grove and glen;
I go to the god of the wood
To fetch his word to men.
Tax not my sloth that I
Fold my arms beside the brook;
Each cloud that floated in the sky
Writes a letter in my book.
While Emerson goes to nature to learn the word of the "god of the wood," Frost often enjoys nature for its own sake, and to reflect on deeper issues, as in "The Tuft of Flowers" and "The White-Tailed Hornet" (discussed below). Further, while Emerson addresses ethical and theological issues directly, Frost prefers to do so subtly and less frequently. Even the debate-filled atmosphere of "A Masque of Mercy" is somewhat oblique and even sarcastic in its treatment of religious ideas.
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