Between Reason and Faith: Robert Frost’s Heaven

Abstract

Frost did not merely sing about the superficial beauty of landscape in his so-called nature poetry. The depiction of nature was, after all, a framework providing a clue for exploring the fundamental problems of humanity. Although he used conflicting ironies as a means of keeping himself in a neutral stand, that does not mean that he is an agnostic or a cynic. Contrary to what modern Gothic readings might assert, Frost’s poetry never shows any absence of faith. Rather, faith occupies a central position in the text of his poetry as a product of a complex and often ambivalent aesthetics rooted in dualism. His was a faith that acknowledged human limitations, not an institutionalized one that blindly clings to the doctrines and rejoices in the assurance of mundane successes. It was an ever-maturing faith, that of the agonizing sufferer who endures, learns, and moves forward. As he gradually accepted the “roughly zones” beyond human understanding, Frost showed a development from reason to faith, insisted on the courage to surrender to the absurd, and sought mercy instead of justice as a way to salvation. However, he did not want to completely ignore existential reality, even while he assumed the existence of heaven. Frost, having amalgamated these opposing elements, must be recognized as not just a nature poet, but as a courageous spiritual poet with an honest critical intelligence. His various seemingly ambiguous statements, inevitably derived from the conflict and tension between reason and faith, were not his poetic flaws, but were actually his greatest aesthetic achievements.