Robert Frost Quiz

Frost published "A Boy's Will" in 1913. "North of Boston" and "Mountain Interval" followed shortly afterwards, in that order.

Frost was born in San Francisco in 1874. His stay in the city, however, would not last for long.

Frost's father perished from tuberculosis when the boy was only 11, so his mother packed up the kids and headed back East. They reportedly only had $8 when his father died.

His first poem appeared in a newspaper in 1894, when the poet was 20 years old.

"My Butterfly. An Elegy." was his first published poem. The verses contrast the joys of life with the sorrows of death.

He may not have been a blacksmith, but he did cobble shoes, teach, and of course, he worked as an editor.

Published in 1916, "Mountain Interval" was the first collection to include "The Road Not Taken," which is probably Frost's best-known poem.

Frost's grandfather died and left the farm to him, along with a good chunk of money. Those resources helped give him time to sharpen his prose.

After a decade on a farm, they gave up on farming and went to England, where Frost was heavily influenced by poets such as Robert Graves and Edward Thomas, among others.

Frost went to both Dartmouth and Harvard, although he never received a degree from the latter.

Elinor was attending St. Lawrence University and wanted to get her degree. She accepted his proposal after she graduated.

He was distraught over Elinor and contemplated suicide. He did some traveling, returned, and then the two were reunited for the rest of their lives.

The Frosts had six children together, beginning with Elliot, who was born the year after the couple was married.

The Frost family was struck by one tragedy after another -- he outlived four of his six children, three of whom died when they were very young.

For more than 40 years, he taught at the college, which is located in Ripton, Vermont. He also taught frequently at Amherst College.

At the inauguration of JFK, Frost recited "The Gift Outright." He was 86 years old at the time.

He was named after Robert E. Lee, the famous general of the Confederacy during the Civil War.

He said that the poem's theme was more slippery than most readers imagined, but that indecision was definitely part of the inspiration for writing it.

Frost was struggling to find American publishers willing to take a chance on his work. In England, he found a more receptive audience.

Mental illness plagued the family. He was prone to bouts of depression, just like his mother.

Frost was widely recognized as a brilliant poet during his lifetime -- he received four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry.

The onset of WWI meant that Europe was a place of turmoil. The Frosts returned to America to escape the conflict.

Carol killed himself. Frost's daughter Irma was committed to a mental hospital in 1947. And his wife, Elinor, also struggled with depression throughout her life.

He bought five acres in Miami so that he'd have a place to warm his aging bones during the cold winters up north.

In 1960, he was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, which is the highest civilian honor presented by Congress.

Elinor was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1937, but she actually died in 1938 after suffering multiple heart attacks.

He was elected as poet laureate of Vermont by the Vermont State League of Women's Clubs.

He didn't graduate from Dartmouth, but he still wound up getting two honorary degrees from the college.

He was 86 when he had surgery for prostate cancer, but he never fully recovered. He died two years later.

The epitaph reads, "I had a lover's quarrel with the world," a phrase that sums up Frost's willingness to engage the world in spite of his hardships.