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What
is Regionalism? In Robert’s Frost Poems
Regional
art is a that plays on or gives prominence to the peculiarities of a particular
region an art that inhabits a particular locale and seldom reaches the heights
of universality. An artist of this genre illustrates and uses the physical
features, peoples. life, customs. habits. manner. traditions. dialect, etc. of
a particular region: In a lesser artist. cinematographer reproduction. But as
in all art, in regional art too. a real artist constantly combs and orders his
material.
An artist does not claim to represent life in all its vividness and subtle shades
and hues. Art is at the most a slice of life. In art, there is the essence of
life. The regional artist. too, emphasizes only the unique, interesting and significant
features of a particular region. But paradoxically enough, this point of
divergence links it up with the rest of the world. In light of differences,
similarities also come into prominence. The particular region becomes a
microcosm of the world, it is particular that leads one to the universal. Frost
is a regionalist not in a narrow derogatory sense, but in a creative sense.
Frost's
regionalism is a creative imparting finesse to his work.
The particular region that Frost has chosen to describe. represent and interpret is
New England and he does this accurately and precisely in poem after poem. But
he does not interpret the whole of New England. He deals only with that part of
Boston with which he is particularly familiar.