2022 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 – 2024-03-31
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| Keywords | Robert Frost / American poetry / letters / American literature |
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
During the last academic year (2022-2023), I continued work on the Frost Letters Project. I completed transcriptions of some 230 letters in the date range for what will be volume four of The Letters of Robert Frost (1937-1947). (Volumes 1~3 have already been published by Harvard University Press.) I made two trips to the US to work with my American co-editors (one in August 2022, the second in early March 2023). Working together, we were able to sort out a number of problems to do with dating letters which Frost did not date (and for which no postmarked envelope survives). We also voice-verified transcriptions of several hundred letters. During October, November, and December 2022, I worked with my co-editor here in Japan (Henry Atmore), voice-verifying all of my own transcriptions. Over the course of 2022 I also reviewed all previous, and now outdated, editions of Frost’s letters, to assure that we had obtained fresh copies of manuscripts for every one of them. I also re-read the relevant parts of the most notable biographies of the poet to insure that we had caught all letters quoted therein but not collected in a proper edition of "letters." And where I located such letters, I sought to obtain copies of them in manuscript for fresh transcription.
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| Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
3: Progress in research has been slightly delayed.
Reason
I have now assembled what will become the final, working typescript of volume four. I have incorporated into it all of my own voice-verified transcriptions. I’ve worked out the structure of the book, dividing it into six chapters, each of which marks a phase of Frost’s life and career during the decade spanning 1937-1947. I have drafted a “Statement of Editorial Principles” for the book. Each volume includes such a Statement, tailored to its unique contents. The one I have prepared for volume four, for example, addresses the fact that in autumn 1938 Frost for the first hired a full-time personal secretary to assist him in managing his correspondence and lecture engagements. One result of this is that a large proportion of the letters in this volume originated as dictated manuscripts, which his secretary would then type for him to sign. This presents certain problems that did not crop up in volumes 1~3, and I address them. I have also begun work on a draft of what will become the Introduction to volume four (essentially, a long essay in literary criticism), completing the section of it that will cover the death of the poet’s wife in March 1938, and the letters associated with it.
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| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
During the present academic year (2023-2024), I will complete work on volume four of The Letters of Robert Frost, and ready it for submission to Harvard University Press (with which we have a contract). This will involve: a) completion of the Introduction to the volume; b) completion of back-matter for the volume (a biographical glossary of recipients of letters, and a chronology of Frost’s life from 1937~1947); c) completion of voice-verification of transcriptions of all letters not yet verified (there will be about 600 letters in the book); d) coordination of tasks with my three co-editors, such that we do no duplicative labor; e) and, importantly, annotation of the letters (each of the three volumes already published contain more than a thousand separate annotations, identifying persons and events Frost alludes to or mentions in the letters, cross-references (where needed: Frost often revisits, in a letter, themes touched on in previous letters). Once all that work is completed, I will begin working on what will be the fifth and final volume of the edition, covering the years from 1948 until the poet’s death early in 1963. All of this work will require that I make several trips to the US, to work with my American co-editors, and to revisit archives holding Frost’s literary manuscripts.
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| Causes of Carryover |
Owing to the pandemic, I was only able to make two short research trips to the US last year. Ordinarily, I would make three trips per year, one of which would be fairly long (about ten days or more). So, I reserved unused funds from last year to be used in the current year.
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