The absence of criticism on Robert Frost's \"The Draft Horse\" suggests that it is a challenge to Frost scholarship. This reading views Frost's strange and neglected poem as a return to a monomyth offered by James Frazer's hugely influential The Golden Bough. In \"The Draft Horse,\" Frost reconsiders the concept of ceremonial sacrifice that undergirds Frazer's encyclopedic study of world culture and, by performing ceremony as a kind of modem poesis, Frost complicates the hero/sacrificial object role and critiques the progressive ideology that grounds Frazer's account to fashion a troubling epic for modern America that implicates its national readers in a kind of savagery.
","abstract_html":"<p>The absence of criticism on Robert Frost's "The Draft Horse" suggests that it is a challenge to Frost scholarship. This reading views Frost's strange and neglected poem as a return to a monomyth offered by James Frazer's hugely influential <em>The Golden Bough</em>. In "The Draft Horse," Frost reconsiders the concept of ceremonial sacrifice that undergirds Frazer's encyclopedic study of world culture and, by performing ceremony as a kind of modem poesis, Frost complicates the hero/sacrificial object role and critiques the progressive ideology that grounds Frazer's account to fashion a troubling epic for modern America that implicates its national readers in a kind of savagery. </p>","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Boyle, Eugene Charles McGregor, III"],"institution":null,"degree_name":"Master of Arts (MA)","degree_level":"Masters Thesis","degree_discipline":"English","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Jonathan Barron","Martina Sciolino","Charles Sumner"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2013,"date_issued":"2013-08-01T07:00:00Z","date_published":"2013-08-01T07:00:00Z","updated_at":"2026-07-24T05:44:58Z","subjects":[],"languages":[],"rights":[],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://aquila.usm.edu/masters_theses/409","outbound_label":"Repository record","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Jonathan Barron","Martina Sciolino","Charles Sumner"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Boyle, Eugene Charles McGregor, III"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date.available","label":"Dc Date Available","values":["2018-10-29T07:00:00Z"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["English"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Masters Thesis"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Master of Arts (MA)"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["https://aquila.usm.edu/masters_theses/409"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description.abstract","label":"Abstract","values":["The absence of criticism on Robert Frost's \"The Draft Horse\" suggests that it is a challenge to Frost scholarship. This reading views Frost's strange and neglected poem as a return to a monomyth offered by James Frazer's hugely influential The Golden Bough. In \"The Draft Horse,\" Frost reconsiders the concept of ceremonial sacrifice that undergirds Frazer's encyclopedic study of world culture and, by performing ceremony as a kind of modem poesis, Frost complicates the hero/sacrificial object role and critiques the progressive ideology that grounds Frazer's account to fashion a troubling epic for modern America that implicates its national readers in a kind of savagery.
"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Why I Killed the Draft Horse: The Golden Bough, Robert Frost, and \"Progress\""]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Jonathan Barron","Martina Sciolino","Charles Sumner"],"dc:creator":["Boyle, Eugene Charles McGregor, III"],"dc:date.available":["2018-10-29T07:00:00Z"],"dc:description.abstract":["The absence of criticism on Robert Frost's \"The Draft Horse\" suggests that it is a challenge to Frost scholarship. This reading views Frost's strange and neglected poem as a return to a monomyth offered by James Frazer's hugely influential The Golden Bough. In \"The Draft Horse,\" Frost reconsiders the concept of ceremonial sacrifice that undergirds Frazer's encyclopedic study of world culture and, by performing ceremony as a kind of modem poesis, Frost complicates the hero/sacrificial object role and critiques the progressive ideology that grounds Frazer's account to fashion a troubling epic for modern America that implicates its national readers in a kind of savagery.
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