Ezra Pound(1885-1972)The poet most responsible for defining and promoting a modernist aesthetic in poetry.

Biographical Factsborn in Idaho. US.educated mainly in PennsylvaniaLiving in London, Paris, and Rapallo.Died in Venice, Italy..

Life Experienceinvolved in Fascist politicsreturn to the United States until 1945arrested on charges of treason for broadcasting Fascist propaganda by radio to the United States during the Second World War. was acquitted in 1946, but declared mentally ill and committed to St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, D.C.

Life ExperienceWon Bollingen-Library of Congress Award for the Pisan Cantos (1948).Won his release from the hospital in 1958.Returned to Italy and settled in Venice.Died in 1972.

Contribution to LiteratureLaunching Imagism, a movement in poetry which derived its technique from classical Chinese and Japanese poetry--stressing clarity, precision, and economy of language

His Literary InfluenceHe advanced the work of major contemporaries, such as W.B.Yeats, Robert Frost, William Carlos Williams, Marianne Moore, H.D., James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway, and especially T.S.Eliot.

Major WorksThe Cantos (the encyclopedic epic poem)Hugh Selwyn Mauberley The Pisan Cantos

In a Station of the Metro

The apparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals on a wet, black bough.

Wallace Stevens(1879-1955)One of the most significant American poets of the 20th century

Biographical Informationborn in Pennsylvania, son of a prosperous country lawyer,enrolled in 1893 at Harvard College, began writing poems and plays,leaving Harvard without degree in 1900, entered New York Law School, graduated in 1903, and was admitted to the bar next year,named a vice president of an insurance company in 1934.

Literary CareerInfluenced by imagism and French symbolism, he wrote poems while working as a businessman. published his first collection of verse, HARMONIUM (1923), at the age of forty-four,From the early 1940s he entered a period of creativity that continued until his death.He turned gradually away from the playful use of language to a more reflective, though abstract style.

Important pointsHis work as a corporate lawyer did not much affect his role a lyric poetStevens managed to balance between the pressure of numbers and calculations and the poetic imagination, In 1946 Stevens was elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters, in 1950 he received the Bollingen Prize in Poetry, and in 1955 he was awarded both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.

William Carlos Williams

1883-1963American Author and Physician

Biographical Factsborn in New Jersey, U.S. 1883. received his M.D. from the University of Pennsylvaniasustained his medical practice throughout his lifeDied in Vienna, Austria, 1963.

Literary Career met and befriended Ezra Poundone of the principal poets of the Imagist movementsubject matter was centered on the everyday circumstances of life and the lives of common people.

Poetic FeaturesRelaxed colloquialismVivid PresentationEloquent passages of beautifully controlled rhythm and phrasing

Robert Frost(1874 - 1963) The most popular 20th Century American Poet, A four-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize.

Biographical InformationBorn in San Francisco in 1874, died in Boston in 1963.After his father's death in 1885, young Frost left California with his family and settled in Massachusetts. Attended high school in Mass., entered Dartmouth College, but remained less than one semester.

Map of the United States

Biographical InformationDid odd jobs: teaching school and working in a mill and as a newspaper reporter. Attended Harvard College as a special student but left without a degree. Over the next ten years he wrote (but rarely published) poems, operated a farm in Derry, New Hampshire, and supplemented his income by teaching at Derry's Pinkerton Academy.

Literary CareerAt 38, he sold the farm and took his family to England. In England, his efforts to establish himself as a poet was almost immediately successful. A Boy's Will was published 1913, followed a year later by North of Boston.Favorable reviews on both sides of the Atlantic resulted in American publication of the books.

The Frosts sailed for the United States in February 1915 and landed in New York City.Sales of his books enabled Frost to buy a farm in Franconia, N.H.; to place new poems in literary periodicals and publish a third book, Mountain Interval (1916); and to embark on a long career of writing, teaching, and lecturing.

Frosts poetic theoryHe emphasized on the dramatic qualities of poetry.He believed that all poetry is essentially metaphorical.He insisted that poetry cannot be forced into being.He thought that poetry serves as a means of giving patterns to mans existence.

Major Features of Frosts PoemsHe was an essentially pastoral poet often associated with rural New England.He used the rural world as a source of symbols, whose philosophical dimensions transcend any region. His adopts traditional verse forms, plain language and everyday speech to explore the complexity of human existence through treating seemingly trivial subjects.

Frost's most popular poems:

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy EveningThe Road Not Taken, After Apple-picking Mending WallBirches

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

- Robert Frost

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy EveningWhose woods these are I think I know.His house is in the village though;He will not see me stopping hereTo watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queerTo stop without a farmhouse nearBetween the woods and frozen lakeThe darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shakeTo ask if there is some mistake.The only other sounds the sweepOf easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,But I have promises to keep,And miles to go before I sleep.And miles to go before I sleep.

Points of the poem 1. The analogy between the specific experience of the rural travelerthe general experience of any individual whose life is so frequently described as a journey; a journey including pleasures and hardships, duties and distances. 2. Theme of the poem: The poem is primarily oriented towards the pleasures of the scene and the responsibility of life.

Understanding of the PoemMetaphors:Promises Our own promises or duties that we must fulfill. Miles - experience we must travel through before deathSleep - death

Interlocking enclosed rhyme The first stanza rhymes in aaba and b becomes the new repeated end rhymes in the second stanza. That makes stanza 2 rhyming in bbcb. Similarly, the third stanza rhymes in ccbc, whereas the very last stanza rhymes in a consistent d which brings the poem to a harmonious end.

The Road Not Taken

-Robert Frost

The Road Not TakenTwo roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that, the passing there Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: two roads diverged in a wood, and I -- I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.

Understanding of the poemRealistic nature descriptionPortrayal of basic qualities of human nature.

Fire and IceSome say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I've tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To say that for destruction ice Is also great And would suffice.

Scientific Interpretation of Fire and Ice Some think that the earth may be burnt up by the sun (fire), Others say Ice Age will kill life on the Earth.

Spiritual and Psychological meaning of the Symbols in the poemFire - a symbol of desire, or loveHelen of Troy Cleopatra, Egyptian queen The two beauties had wars fought over them.2. Ice - a symbol of hatred These are the two weaknesses of human beings that are as destructive as natural disasters

Questions for further discussionHow Frost display his poetic theories in the three poems we have learned?Sum up Frosts major poetic style in your words, and illustrate it.