6 - “Across Spaces of the Footed Line”

Summary

Robert Frost was an immensely skillful and conscientious poet, and he was fascinated by the technical aspects of versification. The magical paradox of fine verse is that it marries fixed measure with fluid idiomatic speech, and no poet more keenly relished and embodied this paradox than Frost. For more than sixty years, he wrote in a manner that was both utterly conventional and brilliantly idiosyncratic. Further, he was a thoughtful analyst of his art and made many just and original observations about it.

Unfortunately, however, Frost's talents and insights as a craftsman have seldom been adequately acknowledged. There are two reasons for this neglect. First, Frost is a poet's poet. His art conceals art. It is easy to overlook his dexterities because he appears to achieve them effortlessly. Second, though Frost made many sparkling perceptions about versification, they are not conveniently accessible in any one place, but are scattered here and there in his correspondence, in the handful of short essays and prefaces he published in his lifetime, and in transcripts of interviews with him and of public lectures he delivered.