Deriving their literary inspiration from New England, Henry David Thoreau and Robert Frost indeed turn the Northeast Corner into a «poetic landscape». The natural, traditional countryside and habits of New England provided rich stimulus for their writing. Indeed, the rural area formed the focus of their individualism, abhorrence for state repression and early form of ecological awareness. This comparative study not only seeks to underline the affinities between these two «hard-headed Yankees»; it also aims to examine the individual nuances of each poet viewed against their common environmental and thematic background. By means of intensive text analyses, the real extent of Thoreau’s influence on Frost is revealed and the characteristic profile of each author is brought into a new light.

The Author: Astrid Galbraith was born in Trier in 1971. In 1999 she obtained her M.A. in English and Spanish philology from the University of Trier and worked there as an assistant in 1999/2000. In July 2002 she received her Ph.D. (Dr. phil.).