Carrol,
I did not wish to imply that I was particularly approving of Frost's politics.
With respect to his politics, however, I've become particularly interested
in the personal crisis caused him in the early thirties when the New Deal
confronted his "rugged individualism" with the threat that America might
go communist/socialist.  Put simply: What Pound yawped openly, Frost hid in
allegory.
==Dan

At 10:21 PM 12/21/2001 -0600, you wrote:
>Jack Savage wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > a superficial body of work hardly requires more
> > than a "superficial understanding"
> >
>
>Oh come now. Frost, admittedly, was a jerk, and I'm no sure why Dan
>thinks his politics were all that better than Pound's. And Frost also, I
>think, had utter contempt for his readers. It's been almost 40 years
>since I read through his collected works, but my impression at the time
>(reinforced more recently by some browsing) was that he had mastered a
>certain tone in some of his best poems -- and then in poem after poem he
>deliberately aped that tone as it were: that one could almost see a
>parenthetical sneer, "Those stupid readers can't tell the difference."
>
>But still -- you really ought to look again. Try reading "The Subverted
>Flower."
>
>Carrol

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