Emerson and Frost: A Parallel of Seers

Abstract

YVOR Winters' reference to Frost as Emersonian Romantic who celebrates minor incident, the eccentric attitude and the fleeting perception does not begin to distinguish between Emerson and Frost in either the differences or the similarities in temperament, doctrines, modes of thinking, and relationship to their times.' Physically, temperamentally, and ideologically, the differences are greater than the similarities. The tall, thin, slope-shouldered Concord Yankee, the benignity of whose face with its clear blue and silently smiling mouth so impressed Whitman, contrasts sharply with the more rugged and big-framed Frost with dreamy blue and aggressive nose and chin. In temperament, the contrast is more marked. Emerson, habitually reserved, courteous and cheerful, was incapable of communicating himself readily. There were fences between himself and friends. He did have a fine sonorous voice with shoulders in it, as N. P. Willis said, and his eyes perceived beauty in its intimate and various forms. But he lacked the musical ear and the useful hand. Frost, on the contrary, has no fences. He is accessible, outgoing, friendly; a wonderfully companionable, tough-minded, sharp-witted, cautious and perky poet. One of Emerson's men who could think on his legs, he is a ready talker who relaxes in the fields of conversation like an athlete on the playing field. And he is a thinker without a desk. I never had a desk in my life, he says2 (July 28, 1952). He shares the Emersonian trait of stand-