Robert Frost: The Ethics of AmbiguityRobert Frost: The Ethics of Ambiguity examines Frost's ethical positioning as a poet in the age of modernism. The argument is that Frost constructs his poetry with deliberate formal ambiguity, withholding clear resolutions from the reader. Therefore, the poem itself functions as metaphor, inviting the reader into a participation in constructing meaning. Furthermore, the ambiguity of ethical positioning was intrinsic to Frost himself. Nonetheless, by holding his poetry up to several traditional ethical views -- Rationalist, Theological, Existentialist, Deotological, and Social Ethics -- one may define a congruent ethical pattern in both the poetry and the person. |
Contents
| 7 | |
Introduction | 9 |
Abbreviations | 13 |
Aesthetics and Ethics | 17 |
Personal Ambiguities Suspended Action | 38 |
Rationalist Ethics | 62 |
Theological Ethics | 93 |
Existential Ethics | 110 |
The Undeniable Ought Deontological Ethics | 129 |
Ethics in Society | 146 |
Conclusion | 168 |
Notes | 174 |
| 188 | |
| 196 | |
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actions aesthetic Alcuin Amy Lowell appears argues artistic beauty belief biblical characters choices conflict context dark deontological ethics divine Edward Connery essay evil existential ethics fact Faggen faith Fireside Poets freedom Frost's ethics Frost's Masques Frost's poems Frost's poetry Harriet Monroe Heidegger human Ibid imagination individual intuition Jay Parini Jonah laborer Lawrance Thompson Lesley Literature living loneliness Lowell Mark Richardson Masque of Mercy Masque of Reason meaning Mending Wall metaphor modern modernist moral Mowing narrator narrator's nature nonetheless observes one's Oven Bird pattern perhaps philosophy Plotinus poem poet poetic Poetry of Robert precisely quest question rationalist ethics reader relationship revelation rhyme Road Not Taken Robert Frost Santayana scythe Selected Letters Selected Prose sense simply sound-sense stanza star poems suggests teleology theological ethics thing Thyatira tion tree understanding University Press values York