Individualism and memory: Robert Frost and Tanure Ojaide

Abstract

This article examines individualism and memory in Robert Frost’s A Boy’s Will (1913) and Tanure Ojaide’s The Beauty I have seen (2010). The paper adopts existentialism as a critical approach. Previous studies on these poets, especially Ojaide, have neglected the individualistic nature of their poetry and stereotyped the poets. This article, thus, brings a new approach to the critical debates and scholarship on these poets. The aim of the article is to show the individualistic and existentialist nature of the poetry of Frost and Ojaide. In the analysis, individualism is examined at the level of form and content; starting with the use of the lyric form and poet-persona inclusion in the poems to the thematisation of gloom and the importance of memory, among others. The paper shows that, truly, these poets are largely individualistic in outlook, and they have expressed existentialist philosophy in their poetry.

Keywords: existentialism; individualism; Robert Frost; Tanure Ojaide