20 pages 40 minutes read

Robert Frost

West-Running Brook

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1928

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Background

Historical Context

The poem is very much a poem of the Roaring 20s. People were exhausted emotionally and spiritually by the trauma of the Great War (it was not yet known as the First World War). Many in this generation felt that the Judeo-Christian notion of an all-knowing, all-wise Creator was absurd. They explored and delighted in the material world and sensory experience.

Frost, in forties, was too old to be an entirely convincing modernist. “West-Running Brook,” explores the existential dilemma about how to live knowing you have to die and the inability to entirely abandon the concept of a spiritual universe. Frost reflects two towering philosophers, that of existentialism and Christianity. Both inform poem’s metaphor of a brook able to move in contrary directions. The wife’s romantic and tender perception of a universe of profound emotion and deep spiritual significance reflects the influence of Ralph Waldo Emerson (1802-1874), particularly his conviction that the material universe revealed an all-embracing spiritual essence that unified and animated the material universe. His was an optimistic philosophy that celebrated how the material universe transcends the limits of what the senses can register. The husband Fred, however, reflects the philosophy of William James (1842-1910), another New Englander.

Related Titles

By Robert Frost

Study Guide

logo

Acquainted with the Night

Robert Frost

Acquainted with the Night

Robert Frost

Study Guide

logo

A Time To Talk

Robert Frost

A Time To Talk

Robert Frost

Study Guide

logo

Dust of Snow

Robert Frost

Dust of Snow

Robert Frost

Study Guide

logo

Fire and Ice

Robert Frost

Fire and Ice

Robert Frost

Study Guide

logo

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Robert Frost

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Robert Frost

Study Guide

logo

Once by the Pacific

Robert Frost

Once by the Pacific

Robert Frost

Study Guide

logo

Out, Out—

Robert Frost

Out, Out—

Robert Frost

Study Guide

logo

Putting in the Seed

Robert Frost

Putting in the Seed

Robert Frost

Study Guide

logo

Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening

Robert Frost

Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening

Robert Frost

Study Guide

logo

The Death of the Hired Man

Robert Frost

The Death of the Hired Man

Robert Frost

Study Guide

logo

The Gift Outright

Robert Frost

The Gift Outright

Robert Frost