Background of Robert Frost

Born in San Fransisco, Robert Frost lost his father at a very young age. Following this, he and his remaining family moved across the United States to the east coast, arriving in Lawrence, Massachusetts to live with his grandfather. As his grandfather was the overseer of a local mill, Frost was able to focus upon his education, graduating from Lawrence High School in 1892. He attended Dartmouth following his graduation, but dropped out after just two months. At this point he returned home to a variety of jobs, including teaching, newspaper delivery and factory work. It was at this point in his life that he began to truly feel drawn to poetry. After selling his first poem, "My Butterfly: an Elegy," he married his wife and began attending Harvard University. Due to his burgeoning family, he left his studies at Harvard to support them. Following his Grandfather's death and the obtainment of a farm, Robert Frost spent nine years working in the rural environment in which many of his most famous poems were written. From there, his poetic career took him abroad, garnering for him many awards and honorary degrees from various colleges. His poem "Fire and Ice" was written during the Great War, a period that had a significant effect on Frost's mentality, resulting in the shift that "Fire and Ice" is to his body of work as a whole.