Poetry and personality of Robert Frost, a highly-acclaimed 20th century American poet, are still favored topics for debate among literary critics even half a century after his death. While a group of critics call him a modernist poet, another group denounce him just as a rural poet of New England, while another group sets him at a crossroad and finds assorted elements in his poetry. Frost’s personality too lobbed biographers and critics at varied directions. While one group of critics termed him as a quiet, loner gentleman, the other one portrayed him as jealous, mean-spirited and misogynist career-builder. The third group of critics certified him as a complex man who juggled uncommon fame with an uncommonly difficult private life. Jay Parini, a Frost biographer, said, “You see there are so many Frosts”. This paper runs a review of criticism on Robert Frost’s poetry and personality for a deeper insight into the tug of war and tries to locate the real Frost among “so many Frosts”.
Keywords: American Colloquialism, Critique, Modernist Poetry, Personality, Poetry, Sympathetic Humor
