2018 Fiscal Year Research-status Report
The Art and Letters of Robert Frost
| Project/Area Number |
17K02568
|
|---|
| Research Institution | Doshisha University |
|---|
Principal Investigator |
|
|---|
| Project Period (FY) |
2017-04-01 – 2022-03-31
|
| Keywords | Robert Frost / American poetry / letters |
|---|
| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
During the 2018-19 academic year, health problems in my family (involving my parents) prevented me from making as many research trips as I typically do (this is why I used less money from the fund).
I need funds to support work on the following project. I must travel to archives scattered up and down the east coast (and so need funds for airline tickets and associated travel costs). I also will use funds to purchase such computer equipment as I may need to complete the project.
My purpose is to publish all existing letters of the American poet Robert Frost (1874-1963), one of the most significant figures in American literature. I am working with three co-editors on the project. The result will be a five-volume scholarly edition, published by Harvard University Press (for which we have fully executed contracts). This project is unprecedented: no comprehensive edition of Frost’s letters has ever before been attempted, and such (highly selective) volumes as have appeared long ago went out of print. Two volumes of the letters have already appeared, and they will invigorate not only Frost studies, but scholarship on 20th poetry in English more generally.
|
| Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
2: Research has progressed on the whole more than it was originally planned.
Reason
Together with my co-editors Henry Atmore, Robert Bernard Hass & Donald G. Sheehy, I have collected digital scans and copies of about 3,200 letters written by Frost, largely from archives at Dartmouth College, Amherst, Harvard University, Boston University, the Library of Congress, the University of Virginia, a number of other university libraries, and from private collectors. We have already completed and published: "The Letters of Robert Frost, Volume 1: 1886-1920" (Harvard University Press, 2014), and "The Letters of Robert Frost, Volume 2: 1920-1928 (Harvard University Press, 2016). Both volumes received excellent reviews in such periodicals as the Times Literary Supplement, The London Review of Books, The New Yorker, and the New York Times (among other periodicals).
|
| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
At present I am competing work on The Letters of Robert Frost, Volume 3: 1929-1936 (together with my co-editors). We expect to have it ready to go into production this fall (2019), for publication in 2020. I have also begun work on what will become volumes 4 and 5 (as I have indicated, we expect the edition to fill five volumes).
|
| Causes of Carryover |
I will use all funds for travel expenses (largely for trips to the USA), computer equipment, books, and subscriptions.
|
