Modernism and Imagism are the two significant literary movements that emerged from the early 20th century. It was a time of major change in American society. Both movements sought to break away from traditional forms of literarure. Modernism took on themes of alienation, disillusionment, and the loss of traditional values. It experimented with form and language using fragmentation, stream of consciousness, and non-linear narrative structures. Robert Frost 1874-1963 is a modernist writer whose work shows the characteristics of the movement. 

In The Road Not Taken there is a theme of alienation. It is also told from a stream of consciousness point of view “I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-I took the ones less traveled by,  And that has made all the difference. 

Again in  Birches there is a theme of disillusionment and the writing style is in a stream of consciousness. “I’d like to get away from earth awhile And then come back to it and begin over. May no fate willfully misunderstand me And half grant what I wish and snatch me away.”

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening also has this theme of alienation where the subject is  alone in the woods on the darkest night of the year. “My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen lake The darkest evening of the year.” There is also an emphasis on individualism and subjective experience. 

Robert Frost took on modernism and broke away from traditional form in his work.  We see it in the themes of alienation and disillusionment, but also in his form of language. Many of his poems are the subjective experience of the individual subject in the poem.

Frost, Robert. “The Road Not Taken.” The Norton Anthology of Literature, edited by Robert S. Levine. Norton, 2022, p 253.

Frost, Robert. “Birches.” The Norton Anthology of Literature, edited by Robert S. Levine. Norton, 2022, p 254. Frost, Robert. “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.” The Norton Anthology of Literature, edited by Robert S. Levine. Norton, 2022, p 256.