Leader
Sean McCannProfessor of English, Wesleyan University
National Humanities Center Fellow
About the Seminar
The popularity of Robert Frost’s poetry stems in large part from its apparent accessibility. The Yankee wisdom Frost dispenses is as solid and dependable as a stone wall. At least so it seems. Upon close inspection accessibility yields to ambiguity, and we find gaps in the wall. Through close reading of several Frost poems, including the Common Core exemplars “The Road Not Taken” and “Mending Wall,” this seminar will examine the technique and meaning of Frost’s poetry to discover how it can be at the same moment both reassuring and disturbing.Online Evaluation
Online evaluation for seminar participants.Seminar Recording
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Assigned Readings
Poems by Robert Frost
"The Road Not Taken”
“The Mending Wall”
Robert Frost reads "The Road Not Taken."
Audio recording: listen online or download for later use.
Suggested Additional Resources
- Sites that offer helpful background, secondary source material, and a lesson:
- Robert Frost, The Poetry Foundation.
- A Robert Frost Exhibit, Modern American Poetry.
- Robert Frost's "Mending Wall": A Marriage of Poetic Form and Content. Edsitement, National Endowment for the Humanities.