« Return to all books

A Scientific Companion to Robert Frost

Virginia F. Smith

Mention Robert Frost and people instantly think of snowy woods and less-traveled paths and rural neighbors meeting to fix their stone fence. What does this rhyming grandfather have to do with science? You might be surprised. Born in 1874, Frost lived through a remarkable period of scientific progress, including the development of quantum mechanics and the theory of relativity, the Big Bang theory, the discovery of the structure of DNA, and the beginnings of space travel. Frost was highly knowledgeable about the science of his time and infused his poetry with imagery and language borrowed from science. But if we judged Frost only on how often he used scientific-sounding words, we would miss the fact that Frost also uses ordinary language to create sophisticated metaphors based on scientific concepts such as evolution and entropy. A Scientific Companion to Robert Frost is the first systematic attempt to catalogue and explain all of the references to science and natural history in Frost’s published poetry.

About the Author

Dr. Virginia F. Smith is a Professor of Chemistry at the United States Naval Academy where she maintains an active research program and has published over twenty scientific articles. Her interest in Robert Frost's use of scientific imagery and language has led to three publications and multiple speaking engagements at colleges, universities, and professional meetings. She has also served as president of The Robert Frost Society.

Purchase Globally

Details

Pages: 376 pages

Published: September 2018

Formats

Paperback
ISBN: 978-1-80085-958-6

Hardback
ISBN: 9781942954484

eBook
ISBN: 9781942954491

Subjects

Literature
Modernism