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The ease with which one reads Mr. Frost's ems is another specific characteristic. It is e to various causes, among them: (1) the servation of the normal order of words; the use of a limited but expressive vocabry; (3) the use of verb-forms contracted in familiar (but grammatical) conversa; (4) a flexible rhythm well suited to the ying ideas. In the last of these qualities— highly poetic one-Mr. Frost baffles the ic by the apparent ease of his technique. sunrimed iambic pentameter is so unlike blank verse of Shakespeare or Milton or nyson that one hesitates to call it blank se at all. Yet a careful study of this style presented in the first four of the selecs in this book) leaves no doubt that it is nirably suited to a variety of topicseed, to celebrate the amusing aspects of m life in the organ tones of Paradise Lost uld be a sin against art. Mr. Frost is so d of his easy, familiar style that he uses not merely when his characters speak but en he speaks himself in his own character author:

I like to think some boy's been swinging them. This tendency is a departure from the standard practice of most poets, and the future will doubtless show whether it is too colloquial or not.

The time is not ripe to attempt any comprehensive criticism of Mr. Frost's understanding of men and women or of his general philosophy of life. But even now, while he is still writing, one may give unstinted praise to his success in conveying the atmosphere of life in northern New England-a success epitomized in the oft-quoted statement that while other poets have written about New England, Mr. Frost is New England.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Mr. Frost's four volumes have been listed in the preceding account of his work. For biographical and critical comment, one should consult the works listed in the general bibliography for "The New Poetry," p. 1232, and an article by G. R. Elliott in the Nation, December 6, 1909.

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