On Frost and Eliot

Robert Frost and T.S. Eliot have received ample attention as major American poets of the last century. But they have usually been considered apart from one another, the homely all-American Frost assumed to have little in common with the sophisticated made-over English Eliot.

William Pritchard’s interest is to see what emerges if we juxtapose the two poets and consider their respective poetic careers as quasi-friendly rivals, in technique, in historical weight, and in relation to other twentieth century poets, predominantly English and American ones. They took the occasion more than once to poke fun at the odd poems the other had produced, although they were mutually admiring as they aged. Pritchard’s treatment of the pair takes its cue from Frost’s distinction between them: ＂I play Euchre; he plays Eucharist.＂ On Frost and Eliot explores the appropriateness of such a distinction.

William H. Pritchard is the author of several essay collections and literary biographies including Randall Jarrell: A Literary Life, Updike: America’s Man of Letters, and Ear Training (Paul Dry Books, 2023) . He is professor of English emeritus at Amherst College where he taught for sixty years. He lives in western Massachusetts.