It sounds to me like Lionel Trilling was indulging in imaginative criticism.
I put the following forward as a possibility, but it is not necessarily my opinion.
If it is first necessary to be familiar with Frost's private notebooks before realising that his poems were really meant to present a vertiginous vision of perspectival relativism, then the poems--taken on their own--have failed to achieve what Frost intended.
This interpretation seems especially possible when you remember that Frost was alive both before and after this astonishing hermeneutic revelation was made. In the case of a poet who died before "being discovered", this sort of conjecture is reasonable. But Frost was in a position to influence, engineer and reject the reception of his poetry and his vision. Why didn't Frost ever avail himself of the opportunity to tell his readership that he was "terrifying" ? Why had he not before strongly rejected the prevailing perception of his poetry which, if Trilling's view is correct, was incorrect?
It reminds me of people who argue over whether reading Kafka is a terrifying experience or a hoot. In the end, he is both, and neither, and more besides, and the attempt to reduce an artist to a single word is puerile.
Ergo, perhaps the most pressing question becomes not "Is Frost a terrifying poet?" but "What alcoholic drinks were served at Frost's 85th birthday?"
Last edited by Hydra; 02/19/2007 5:16 AM.
