A RESTLESS SPIRIT: The Story of Robert Frost

by Natalie S. Bober ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 17, 1981

Bober's Frost is an amiable, simple-living man devoted to family and students, though ultimately dedicated to his poetry--a commitment that kept his family poor for decades. Bober tends not to question the medical diagnoses of the time, the 19th-century values that drove young Rob to prove his ""courage,"" Frost's own decisions and actions, or the image he encouraged of the wise, benign, and reasonable poet-farmer. She does report, without comment, his persistence in persuading his intellectual wife-to-be to drop out of college to marry him, and his jealousy of her promising attempts at poetry, which moved her to give them up. But Bober tends to gloss over family conflicts and to ignore the personal and professional mean streak revealed in Thompson's definitive three-volume biography. Except for occasionally quoting one of Frost's poems and relating it to events in his life--an approach that works better here than with some poets--Bober doesn't treat the poetry. As for the life, she gives us a readable but conventional version.

Pub Date: April 17, 1981

ISBN: 0805060758

Page Count: -

Publisher: Atheneum

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1981

Categories: NONFICTION