21 pages • 42 minutes read
Robert FrostPutting in the Seed
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1916A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Literary Context: An American Formalist Amidst a Wave of Free Verse
Robert Frost was as famous as any of his American contemporaries—including Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, William Carlos Williams, and Gertrude Stein—but he was not like them. While these poets wrote in free verse and eschewed traditional forms, Frost was a formalist. Frost’s first book employed meter, rhyme, and traditional forms; his second book, North of Boston, is written mostly in blank verse. “Putting in the Seed” is a further example of Frost’s use of traditional forms because the poem is written in regular iambic pentameter and follows the rhyme-scheme ababababcdcdee. In fact, the poem is a sonnet, a traditional form. (For more on the form of the poem, please see the Literary Devices section.)
“Putting in the Seed” was first published in the journal Poetry and Drama in December of 1914, then later published in Frost’s third collection, Mountain Interval, in 1916 (Frost, Robert. The Poetry of Robert Frost, edited by Edward Connery Lathem, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1969, p. 541). At this time, most American poets were, like Frost, writing in traditional forms, but that was all about to change. T. S. Eliot published his seminal work of free verse “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” in Poetry in 1915. In 1922, Eliot published “The Wasteland”—another influential work of free verse. These poems both came later to be seen as prototypical modernist works and spurred many poets to break with traditional meters and forms in startling ways.
Frost, however, remained steadfast in his adherence to formal poetry. His last book, like his first, employs meter and rhyme; Frost famously quipped, “Free verse is like playing tennis without a net.”
Authorial Context: Frost, Pound, and Modernism
The relationship between Frost and Ezra Pound helps to illustrate Frost’s simultaneous connection to and divergence from an important literary movement of his day: modernism. Pound was one of the founders of modernism and his work as an editor and critic helped to shape and advance the movement: For example, Eliot’s “The Wasteland”—an influential modernist poem—is dedicated to Pound who Eliot calls “the better maker.”
Just as he did with Eliot and many other famous 20th century poets, Pound had a hand in establishing Frost’s career and reputation. The two met shortly after Frost moved his family to England to jumpstart his career. At the time, Pound was already a well-established and well-respected literary critic, whereas Frost was relatively unknown. Despite this disparity in reputation, Pound agreed to review Frost’s first book, A Boy’s Will. Pound wrote an extremely positive review and helped establish Frost as an important new literary voice.
There were, however, elements of Pound’s assessment that annoyed Frost. First, Pound characterized Frost’s work as simple and direct, an assertion Frost felt denied his poetry subtlety and power. Second, Pound erased some of Frost’s words when he quoted lines from A Boy’s Will in his review. Eliminating words was a tool Pound used to teach poets; for example, Pound assigned one of his students to go through Shakespeare’s sonnets and eliminate all the unnecessary words and the student complied. Frost, however, did not enjoy seeing his lines pared down and his meter ruined in Pound’s review (Sokol, B. J. “What Went Wrong Between Robert Frost and Ezra Pound.” The New England Quarterly, vol. 49, no. 4, 1976, pp. 521-541).
Pound clearly felt an affinity for Frost’s work, otherwise he would not have agreed to review an obscure new poet; Frost’s letters at the time indicate that he liked and admired Pound. Yet this affinity was not complete and Frost’s assessment that Pound’s review mischaracterized and damaged his work is evidence of this.
Frost’s work regularly challenges the values and conceptions of earlier generations—a hallmark of modernist poetry. Yet Frost’s use of meter and rhyme and his frequent employment of a rural setting does not fit with the larger modernist movement, which broke with traditional forms and veritably focused on city life. Critics debate how to characterize Frost in relation to modernism. Is Frost a modernist poet or simply a modern poet? is very much an open question.
Frost both quickly established a friendship with Pound (one of the fathers of modernism) and just as quickly had a falling out with Pound. Similarly, there are elements of Frost’s work that have a deep affinity with modernism and elements that have a deep conflict with the movement. Thus, though he knew and admired Pound and Pound helped to start Frost’s career, Frost’s relationship with the movement Pound help found and shape is shaky at best.
Even so, the rupture between Frost and Pound was not a complete one. Following WWII (decades after Frost and Pound first met), the U.S. military jailed Pound as a prisoner of war, and Frost wrote a letter that played a large role in setting Pound free.
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