Robert Frost and the Challenge of Darwin

by Robert Faggen

Combining both intellectual history and detailed analysis of Frost's poems, Robert Faggen shows how Frost's reading of Darwin reflected the significance of science in American culture from Emerson and Thoreau, through James and pragmatism. He provides fresh and provocative readings of many of Frost's shorter lyrics and longer pastoral narratives as they illustrate the impact of Darwinian thought on the concept of nature, with particular exploration of man's relationship to other creatures, the conditions of human equality and racial conflict, the impact of gender and sexual differences, and the survival of religion. A forceful, appealing study of the Frost-Darwin relation, which has gone little noted by previous scholars, and a fresh explanation of Frost's ambivalent relation to modernism, which he scorned but also influenced. -- William Howarth, Princeton University

363 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 1997

Reviews

[Mike Freeman · Rating 5 out of 5]

As good as literary criticism can be. Issues familiar thoughts on Frost but refracts them through Darwin's influence on his poetry and philosophy. This not only informs a great deal of both the poetry and the poet, but tells much of just what Darwin did to subsequent generations, shock waves still nowhere near played out.