¶ … poetical parallel of William Wordsworth and it is fairly widely believed that Wordsworth exerted a profound influence on Frost particularly on his poems of nature. Both Frost and Wordsworth share similarities and dissimilarities in philosophy and style.
For Frost, for instance, his poetry "begins in delight and ends in wisdom," whereas Wordsworth's poetry "begins in delight and ends in delight." Wordsworth occasionally seems more flat. Frost, sometimes, seems more egotistical.
Frost also does not always involve himself as subject matter in his poetry and dissimilarity in style from that of Wordsworth is that he is more conversational although both poets avoided the grandiloquent tone assumed by poets such as Shakespeare. Frost's poem, A Boy's Will, for instance, is extraordinary in its down-to-earth treatment of the subject and informal cadence of the lyrics. Wordsworth's poems are simple too. The main difference here, however, is that Frost's poems, though seeming simple on the surface, have a depth of philosophical meaning to them. Both refrain from being pretentious. Muslim (2010) compares Wordsworth to Whitman; Frost, he thinks, is less like Whitman due to his philosophical underpinnings. Both, in other words, approach nature from an unpretentious, direct manner. Frost's syllables however have layers of meaning to them and his simple words are loaded with symbolism.
The importance of nature to each is also different. To Wordsworth, nature and humans are intricately intertwined and dependent on one another. The two are inextricable. Frost, however, sees nature as subservient to humans with humans controlling it. In this way, Frost may have been, first and foremost, a 'people's poet than one of Nature. Particularly as compared to Wordsworth. For him, poems of nature always existed and people were paramount. The poem of "Birches," for instance, indicates how he managed to combine both delight in nature with insight and wisdom that the generated to life beyond.
Both poets, however, shared an intense delight and solace from nature.
Frost and Wordsworth also differ in the subjects of their poems. Like Thomas Hardy, Frost's subjects are more regional and local whereas Wordsworth's subjects are universal. Frost, a Romanticist per excellence, wrote about the common people of the land; the ordinary peasant / people / farmers. His other subjects were about the ordinary woods, flowers, birches, weeds, birds and trees. His was about the rural landscape of America. He became the American bard. Wordsworth, on the other hand, painted universal landscapes covering no one country in particular. He depicted the world.
Calls Frost an environmentalist, and Wordsworth a pantheist likely because Frost talks about the environment and has his poems on such, whilst Wordsworth sees Nature in all and all in Nature and takes a transcendentalist picture. For Wordsworth, Nature is supreme and dominates all. It is the omnipotent, omniscient, eternal and passionate god.
The poetry of both Wordsworth and Frost was optimistic. They both sought solace and protection in Nature. Nature, in effect, afforded them the sheerest delight.
In Birches, Frost tells us:
Earth's the right place for love,
I don't know where it's likely to go better
And in the poem 'Come In', Frost declares:
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