Poet Laureate

Robert Frost: The Poet as Philosopher, by Peter J. Stanlis (ISI, 452 pp., $28)

ROBERT FROST remains one of the best-loved poets of the American people-and for a time that was his curse. An outspoken foe of much that passes for stylishly up-to-date in American poetry, he was despised by some within the critical establishment of his day, who grudgingly acknowledged the poet’s work as memorable, textured, and superbly crafted, but tended to mentally file it under the heading “Suitable for Middle School Readers and Sentimental Seniors.”