The Life of Robert Frost: A Critical Biography

Henry Hart s The Life of Robert Frost, draws from Frost biographies of the past, but goes further than previous portrayals to present a unique and rich approach to the poet that includes original genealogical research concerning Frost s ancestors in New England, England, and Scotland. Hart also includes new information about Robert Frost s father, who died from consumption when Frost was 11. Past biographies have tended to discount the traumatic effect of his father s death; but Hart reveals how the death haunted both Frost and his sister (Jeanie) who died in a mental hospital, demonstrating how mental illness ­­ especially depression and schizophrenia plagued the Frost family, and heavily influenced Frost s state of mind and, as a result, his poetry. 

Hart places great emphasis throughout the biography on Frost s turbulent marriage and family life, revealing how they provided important inspiration and material for his poems. Since Frost periodically described himself as a mystic, there is also essential discussion on the effect of his mother s Swedenborgian mysticism and mysticism in general on Frost s writing. The result is a fascinating portrayal of a brilliant poet who persevered through repeated family tragedies to eventually receive iconic status around the world.

Henry Hart is currently the Mildred and J.B. Hickman Professor of Humanities at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. He has published several books of literary criticism about modern poets, including The Poetry of Geoffrey Hill (1986), Seamus Heaney: Poet of Contrary Progressions (1991) , Robert Lowell and the Sublim (1995), and The James Dickey Reader (1999). His biography, James Dickey: The World as a Lie (2000), was runner–up for a Southern Book Critics Circle Award.  Hart has also published books of poetry: The Ghost Ship (1990), The Rooster Mask (1998), Background Radiation (2007) , and Familiar Ghosts (2014). From 1984 to 2004, he was an editor of VERSE, an international journal of contemporary poetry.