2021 Fiscal Year Research-status Report
The Art and Letters of Robert Frost
| Project/Area Number |
17K02568
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| Research Institution | Doshisha University |
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Principal Investigator |
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| Project Period (FY) |
2017-04-01 – 2023-03-31
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| Keywords | Robert Frost / American poetry / letters |
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
During the 2021-2022 Academic year, I transcribed and annotated several hundred letters by Robert Frost, dating to 1937-1947. This work advances progress on what will be volume four of "The Letters of Robert Frost" (Harvard University Press). (Volumes one, two, and three have already appeared, the last in spring 2021.) I am also at work now on what will become the appendix to volume four (a chronology of Frost’s life during the years covered in the volume), and I am preparing the front matter for the book (including a Statement of Editorial Principles). Over the course of the summer I will begin writing the introduction to the new volume; I will voice-verify transcriptions of the letters; and I will begin the work of annotating the letters, in a way consistent with the practices that governed volumes one, two and three. I will also travel to the United States to work in the archives at Dartmouth College, where the largest single collection of Frost’s literary manuscripts is held. I need to re-canvas the collections there, in order to locate and obtain good quality digital scans of letters the archive has acquired in recent years (the last time I canvassed it was in 2015). Of course, while undertaking these tasks, I will also begin work on other components of the front-matter for the volume (including a preface), and of the back-matter (in addition to the chronology there will be, as there has been in all previous volumes, a biographical glossary of all recipients of letters, the better to help our readers navigate the volume).
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| Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
3: Progress in research has been slightly delayed.
Reason
My work on the Fost Letters Project has been delayed and hampered by the pandemic, because work on it requires that I visit archives in the United States.
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| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
During the present academic year (2022-2023), I will continue work on volume four of "The Letters of Robert Frost," with the goal of getting it ready to go into production in the fall of 2023.
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| Causes of Carryover |
I have been delayed somewhat by the COVID-19 pandemic. I am conferring with colleagues in the U.S. to establish possible routes whereby we can work remotely, and still cooperate (Google Docs, Zoom, etc.). My hope is to resume research in archives in the United States this summer, so as to make up for such shortfalls as the pandemic has occasioned.
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