Abstract
Robert Frost and Jesse Stuart are both known as regional artists.In fact, Frost’s use of his New England region was pointed out to Stuart as a model by a literary mentor at Vanderbilt shortly after the publication of the Southern Agrarian manifesto I’ll Take My Stand. Indeed, there are many similarities between the two men: both were farmers and nature writers, teachers and educators, and above all, regional writers who captured the flora and fauna and character of their respective regions.Despite their different regions, both men take an honest and authentic look at the unsettling and sometimes cruel ironies of nature and the human condition: the appearance of rustic simplicity that the Yankee and the Appalachian artist tease us into taking at face value nevertheless provokes the Truth of deep probing into the meaning of life. As successful regional artists, Appalachian Stuart and New England Frost claim their place not only in geography, but more importantly, in American literary tradition as each one uses his intimate knowledge of place and character to spin a wonderfully entertaining read, whether it be in prose or verse. Most similar when they are linked by the jarring effect of final lines (Frost) and the ironic disjunction between content and title (Stuart), both writers ultimately, often surprisingly, strike the reader with the hard edge of universal truth about what it means to be human.
