Whilst researching the career of Robert Frost for my master’s thesis at a university that shall remain nameless (as they have threatened me with legal action if they are in any way attached to this web site), I was shocked to discover evidence for what I would later develop into the “Robert Frost conspiracy.” Quite simply, the discoveries I have made (and which were subsequently refused publication in all major journals) seem to show that Robert Frost — a Pulitzer Prize winner and beloved poet for generations now — had plagiarized significant portions of some of his poems, beginning no later than 1923.
The research I conducted for my thesis focused on Frost’s 1923 and 1928 collections — New Hampshire and West-running Brook. New Hampshire was the collection that finally gained the Pulitzer Prize for Frost and also contains one of his most well-known poems, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.” Yet, these were the two collections in which I found evidence of possible plagiarism.
I should make it clear from the outset that there is no doubt that Robert Frost is a talented poet. He had already established himself as a major talent before the 1920s, and his past collections had included such long-remembered pieces as “Mending Wall” in North of Boston and “The Road Not Taken” in Mountain Interval. My subsequent investigations — hampered though they have been by academia in general and defenders of Frost in particular — have revealed no indication that any of his work before 1920 was anything but completely original. Indeed, the source of the works that Frost seemingly plagiarized were the countless manuscripts of amateur poets received by the Henry Holt and Company publishing concern, for whom Frost acted as a consulting editor. His relationship with the Holt Company only began in 1920.
The possibility of Frost’s plagiarism first presented itself to me while examining some of the volumes of poetry that he had edited. These were all printed with very small print runs and most went nowhere. They were written by aspiring poets, largely anti-modernist like Frost himself, and most of the poets were only able to muster the imagination to fill one slim book. I hardly mean to suggest that any of these writers were greater than Frost — however, the similarities between some of their poems and his are frankly too striking to ignore.
I should add, by way of a final note, that the Holt Company did indeed own the copyrights to all of the poems that Frost apparently reworked. There may have been some sort of agreement between Frost and the company regarding this. Yet, even if Frost never broke the law, he certainly misled a great many of his readers of all generations.
This poem appears in Hallowed Eves, a collection of poetry written by Cordwainer Jupe and published in 1920. Upon reading this piece, chills ran up and down my spine — for elements of it too closely resemble Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” for comfort. Perhaps because Frost’s version is so well known, I instantly recognized this as what seemed to be a strong influence for the poem. Reading this poem was the first time that I even considered that some of Frost’s poems may have been rewrites rather than entirely original. Until I discovered other similar “influences,” I refused to believe this was anything more than a coincidence.
Forest deep and
quiet dark,
Groomed like
ancient hunting park,
Who is thy owner? Where is he?
Does he mind
that thou please me?
He likely visits once a year
And brings his
braying foxhounds here;
Then spends the winter in fire’s glow
And never sees
thy drifting snow.
No city man
should own such wood,
I hardly think
it does him good.
It should belong to traveling men
Who come this
way both now and then.
For we see thee
instead of sleep,
And we thy
midnight vigil keep.
Clearly, Jupe’s version is less well crafted than Frost’s by several orders of magnitude — on an artistic level, there is no comparison at all. Jupe’s lines scan poorly and his rhymes are hardly challenging. The scene is hardly as luscious nor as lovingly painted as Frost’s, and the traveler barely seems to exist as a person. In short, this was indeed a poem that needed serious rewriting.
It is not difficult to find the undeniably similar themes between this and Frost — the ownership of woods by someone who lives in a town, the traveler who muses upon the scene, and the explicit mention of both nighttime and wintertime. Most damning, however, is the sleep/keep rhyme in the closing couplet of the poem, which mirrors the keep/sleep construction of Frost’s final quatrain.
This poem is the influence to a rather more obscure piece by Frost. It was first written by Samson Bounderby and collected in Adirondack Walking Songs in 1922. Compare to Frost’s “Fire and Ice” from New Hampshire.
What grim
apocalypse has need of fire
When glacial
rivers lay hillsides to waste?
Unless the Lord
has need somehow of haste
No better
engine to could He aspire.
What cloud can
shower fire in any storm
To sow the
earth with godly wrath and harm?
Yet falling ice
has stricken ev’ry farm —
And does more
damage cold than fire can warm.
Admittedly, the similarities here rely upon the use of both fire and ice to destroy the world, which is likely not a unique concept in the first place. Indeed, Frost takes the conceit much farther than Bounderby does — comparing fire to love and ice to hate. This example is far less obviously plagiaristic, but the influence seems to be there. Frankly speaking, poets steal ideas like this from one another all the time and nobody (including myself) thinks any of them the worse for it. Still, it seems to fit well with the pattern I’m trying to establish here.
To my mind, this poem is the big one — the real evidence for the theory. Collected by William Heep in First Time Out and Other Poems in 1920, the piece notably compares sand dunes with the waves of the ocean. Frost would do the same in “Sand Dunes” in West-running Brook several years later.
The sea’s
waves, wet and green,
Billow and die
on the land,
Where others
can be seen,
Brown and dry,
and made of sand.
Like water
lifted from the seas
And dried upon
the beach,
Dunes are
driven by the breeze,
But keep what
shapes they reach.
And when the
wind dies once more
The dunes do
not lie down;
Instead they
bulge along the shore,
Headstones for those
who drown.
In this case, Frost’s meter and rhyme — quatrains of iambic trimeter — seem to be based on Heep’s original. Indeed, Frost does not deviate significantly from the form that Heep selected, as he does with the other two poems shown above. Moreover, specific descriptive phrases (especially “wet and green” and “brown and dry”) are duplicated almost verbatim in “Sand Dunes.” The remaining three stanzas of Frost’s poem do depart widely from the original, but only to make more prominent Heep’s closing theme of drowned sailors.
It is my hope that the reader will take the sections above as nothing more than evidence humbly presented for examination. I have tried to make no categorical statements about the findings and their relation to Frost — but it is singularly difficult not to draw conclusions from the similarities in the poems. I have nothing but encouragement for anyone who is considering doing more research on this topic. However, I would recommend that you keep your motives secret if you’d like to have access to any of the necessary documents. The academic world is understandably resistant to the notion that one of the greatest poets of the twentieth century may have been anything less than entirely original. Yet, even though Frost may have been influenced or inspired by some of the poems shown above, it is clear that he always brought his own particular mark to anything that bore his name.
I am not — I repeat — I am not attempting to discredit Frost or sully his name. I only feel that these extraordinary connections are historically important and should be brought to light, rather than suppressed. If you’d like to discuss this topic further (or have more information on one of the minor poets above) please feel free to contact me at [email protected].