Who was Robert Frost?
A: Robert Lee Frost was an American poet.
His work was initially published in England before it
was published where?
A: In the United States.
He was known for what?
A: His realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American
colloquial speech.
Frost frequently wrote about settings from what?
A: Rural life in New England in the early 20th century.
He used them to examine what?
A: Complex social and philosophical themes.
Frequently honored during his lifetime, Frost is the
only poet to receive what?
A: Four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry.
He became one of America's rare what?
A: "Public literary figures, almost an artistic institution".
He was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in 1960 for
what?
A: His poetic works.
On July 22, 1961, Frost was named what?
A: Poet laureate of Vermont.
Where was Robert Frost born?
A: In San Francisco, California.
Who were his parents?
A: Journalist William Prescott Frost Jr. and Isabelle Moodie.
His father descended from whom?
A: Nicholas Frost of Tiverton, Devon, England, who had sailed to
New
Hampshire in 1634 on the Wolfrana, and his mother was a Scottish immigrant.
Frost was a descendant of Samuel Appleton, one of the
early settlers of what?
A: Ipswich, Massachusetts.
Frost's father was a what?
A: A teacher and later an editor of the San Francisco Evening Bulletin
(which later merged with The San Francisco Examiner), and an unsuccessful
candidate for city tax collector.
After his death on May 5, 1885, the family moved across
the country to where?
A: Lawrence, Massachusetts, under the patronage of Robert's grandfather
William Frost, Sr., who was an overseer at a New England mill.
Frost graduated from Lawrence High School in what year?
A: 1892.
Frost's mother joined the Swedenborgian church and had
him what?
A: Baptized in it, but he left it as an adult.
Although known for his later association with rural
life, Frost grew up where?
A: In the city, and he published his first poem in his high school's
magazine.
He attended Dartmouth College for two months, long
enough to be what?
A: Accepted into the Theta Delta Chi fraternity.
Frost returned home to teach and to work at various
jobs, including helping his mother do what?
A: Teach her class of unruly boys.
He also delivered newspapers and worked in a factory
maintaining what?
A: Carbon arc lamps.
He did not enjoy these jobs, feeling his true calling
was what?
A: Poetry.
"I had a lover's quarrel with the world", an excerpt
from his poem "The Lesson for Today", is what?
A: The epitaph engraved on Frost's tomb.
In 1894, he sold his first what?
A: Poem, "My Butterfly.
Proud of his accomplishment, he proposed marriage to
whom?
A: Elinor Miriam White, but she demurred, wanting to finish college (at St.
Lawrence University) before they married.
Frost then went on an excursion to where?
A: The Great Dismal Swamp in Virginia and asked Elinor again upon his
return.
Having graduated, she agreed, and they were married
where?
A: At Lawrence, Massachusetts, on December 19, 1895.
Frost attended Harvard University from 1897 to 1899,
but he left voluntarily due to what?
A: Illness.
