I really love this (because I love Frost), and I also think an underrated quality of his is how tricky he can be, like deliberately trying to dupe his readers (like in 'The Road Not Taken.') I'd stop short of saying he has a "mean streak," but in Frost's case I love his mean streak. I think of a poem like Mending Wall and how he saw if he were building a wall he would ask what he was walling in or walling out...and then doesn't ask that question! He knows readers will miss this and the trick is played.
I like that idea of a mean streak. That's a good way to describe it. "Evil" is wrong. "Cruel" is too far. But "mean" fits. Frost is the opposite of whatever "nice" means. :)
I really love this (because I love Frost), and I also think an underrated quality of his is how tricky he can be, like deliberately trying to dupe his readers (like in 'The Road Not Taken.') I'd stop short of saying he has a "mean streak," but in Frost's case I love his mean streak. I think of a poem like Mending Wall and how he saw if he were building a wall he would ask what he was walling in or walling out...and then doesn't ask that question! He knows readers will miss this and the trick is played.
I like that idea of a mean streak. That's a good way to describe it. "Evil" is wrong. "Cruel" is too far. But "mean" fits. Frost is the opposite of whatever "nice" means. :)
Ha! True. He is Fire and un-nice