New Hampshire

Abstract

Frost earned his first of four Pulitzer Prizes for the collection New Hampshire, which was published in 1923. In the years preceding this volume, Frost endured personal heartache, including family deaths and illnesses, as well as increasing professional success. This collection contains many references to geology, astronomy, and exploration, as well as traditional nature themes. The astronomical poems are becoming more theoretical and less observational, incorporating references to new theories about the universe (“Fire and Ice” and “A Never Naught Song.) In a continuation of themes from Mountain Interval, Frost also describes man’s destruction of nature in such poems as “The Census-Taker.” The beauty and challenges of rural life are addressed in poems such as “The Star-Splitter,” “Good-by and Keep Cold,” and “The Need of Being Versed in Country Things.”