Cummings
Guides Home..|..Contact
This Site
.
.
Setting
 .......Frost
wrote “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” while residing in the village
of Franconia in the northwestern corner of New Hampshire. It seems likely
that woods near Franconia inspired him to write the poem and that Franconia
is the village mentioned in line 2. The time is “the darkest evening of
the year.” If by this phrase the speaker/narrator means the longest night
of the year—that is, the night with the most hours of darkness—then the
day is either December 21 or 22. In the northern hemisphere, the winter
solstice occurs each year on one of those days. The solstice is the moment
when the sun is farthest south.
Characters
The
Observer (Speaker/Persona/Narrator): A person traveling by a horse-drawn
wagon (or cart or carriage) on a rural road. The traveler stops to observe
snow piling up in woods.
The
Horse: A small horse with a bell attached to its harness. It shakes
its head, ringing the bell, to signal that it does not understand why its
master has stopped.
Owner
of the Woods: A man who lives in a nearby village. He is mentioned
in the first stanza of the poem.
Type
of Work and Publication Information
.......“Stopping
by Woods on a Snowy Evening ” is a lyric poem. It was published in 1923
in a collection of poems entitled New Hampshire. This collection
won Robert Frost a Pulitzer Prize and widespread recognition as an important
American writer.
Stopping by Woods
on a Snowy Evening
By Robert Frost
.
| The
Text (Rhyming Lines in Color) |
Notes and Comments |
1
Whose
woods these are I think I know,
His house is in the village
though.
He will not see me stopping
here,
To watch his woods fill
up with snow. |
1
Alliteration: This
figure of speech helps rhyme to maintain cadence. The main alliterative
sound is "H"–whose, his,
house,
he,
here,
his.
Alliteration also occurs in "W" sounds (woods,
will,
watch,
and woods) and "S" sounds (see,
stopping,
snow).
Rhyme: Rhyme occurs
at the end of lines 1, 2, and 4 (know,
though, snow)
and within lines 1-4 (these, see,
me; village,
will, fill;
is,
in,
his).
Notice that here establishes the end
rhyme for lines, 1, 2, and 4 of the second stanza.
Comment: The traveler
appears worried that he is committing an offense by looking upon woods
owned by another man. Nevertheless, he steals a look, for the other man
"will not see me stopping here." |
2
My little horse must think
it queer,
To stop without a farmhouse
near,
Between the woods and frozen
lake,
The darkest evening of the
year. |
2
Alliteration: my,
must;
little,
lake;
horse,
farmhouse;
farmhouse,
frozen.
Use of Little: Here,
the poet bids for the sympathy of the reader. The word little suggests
that the speaker/narrator is a humble, ordinary citizen who cannot afford
a more imposing horse.
Rhyme: Rhyme occurs
at the end of lines 1, 2, and 4 (queer,
near,
year) and within lines 1-4 (little,
it,
without; without,
house; between,
evening).
Notice that lake establishes the end
rhyme for lines, 1, 2, and 4 of the third stanza.
Comment: This stanza
says that the location is remote (without nearby farmhouses), that the
weather has been cold enough to freeze a lake, and that the evening is
the darkest of the year. Darkest here could have more than one meaning—that
is, the traveler could be depressed, downcast. However, the horse probably
thinks it odd that his master has stopped between the woods and lake on
a dark evening, the speaker says. This observation suggests that the darkness
is external only, for the speaker is using the word darkest to explain
the horse's reaction. |
3
He gives his harness bells
a shake,
To ask if there is some
mistake.
The only other sound's the
sweep,
Of easy wind and downy flake. |
3
Alliteration:
he,
his,
harness;
ask,
some,
mistake,
sound's,
sweep
Personification:
The horse "asks" a question.
Comment: Sounds are
important in this stanza—namely, the sounds of the bells, the wind, and
the snowflakes. All of the sounds are gentle, contrasting with the cacophony
of everyday life in a town. |
4
The woods are lovely, dark
and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I
sleep,
And miles to go before I
sleep. |
4
Alliteration:
dark,
deep
Line 1 of Stanza 4: Not
Entirely Original? Thomas Lovell Beddoes (1803-1849) wrote a poem entitled
"The Phantom Wooer," in which a ghost who loves a beautiful lady stands
at her bedside one evening and invites her to join him in his quiet tomb,
where "Our bed is lovely, dark, and sweet." (Compare lovely, dark, and
sweet with lovely, dark and deep.) Critics have cited this line
to support their arguments that the traveler in "Stopping by Woods" considers
entering the deep, dark woods to end his life.
Comment: The traveler
would like to stay awhile and perhaps even enter the woods to absorb their
ambience and ponder the mystery of life and nature. However, he has obligations
and responsibilities. Therefore, he decides to move on. But the poem does
not say whether he in fact moves on. One presumes that he does. |
.
Meaning
of the Poem
.......“Stopping
by Woods on a Snowy Evening” presents one person’s momentary encounter
with nature. We do not know whether the speaker (narrator) is a man or
a woman. In fact, we know nothing at all about the person except that he
or she has been traveling on a country road in a horse-drawn wagon (or
cart or carriage) on "the darkest evening of the year." If
by this phrase the speaker/narrator means the longest night of the year—that
is, the night with the most hours of darkness–then the day is either December
21 or 22. In the northern hemisphere, the winter solstice occurs each year
on one of those days. The solstice is the moment when the sun is farthest
south. However, if by "darkest evening" he means most depressing, bleakest,
or gloomiest, he may be referring to his state of mind.
.......Let
us assume that the speaker is a man, the poet Frost himself, who represents
all people on their journey through life. When he sees an appealing scene,
woods filling with snow, he stops to observe. Why does this scene appeal
to him? Because, he says, the woods are “lovely, dark, and deep.”
.......Perhaps
he wishes to lose himself in their silent mystery, away from the routine
and regimen of everyday life—at least for a while. Maybe the woods remind
him of his childhood, when he watched snow pile up in hopes that it would
reach Alpine heights and cancel school and civilization for a day. Or perhaps
they represent risk, opportunity—something dangerous and uncharted to be
explored. It could be, too, that they signify the mysteries of life and
the afterlife or that they represent sexual temptation: They are, after
all, lovely, dark, and deep.
.......The
traveler might also regard the woods as the nameless, ordinary people who
have great beauty within them but are ignored by others. This interpretation
recalls a theme in Thomas Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard,”
in which Gray writes:
Full many a gem of purest
ray serene,
The dark unfathom'd caves
of ocean bear:
Full many a flow'r is born
to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness
on the desert air.
Here the gem in the bottom of
the ocean and the flower in the desert symbolize neglected people with
much to offer the world if only someone would take time notice them. The
woods in Frost’s poem are just as lovely as the flower and just as dark
and deep as the cave holding the gem, but civilization pays little heed
to the gem, the flower, and the woods.
.......Perhaps
Frost sees the woods as a symbol of the vanishing wilderness consumed by
railroads, highways, cities, shopping centers, parking lots. A man in the
village owns the woods now. What will he do with them?
.......In
1958, poet John Ciardi (1916-1986) suggested in Saturday Review
magazine that the woods in Frost's poem symbolize death . He further wrote
that the speaker/narrator wants to enter the woods—that is, he wants to
die, commit suicide. Frost himself scoffed at this interpretation in public
appearances and in private conversations. But is it possible that Frost's
subconscious mind was speaking in the poem, revealing thoughts and desires
unknown to his conscious mind?
.......Maybe,
in the end, the woods and the snow are what they are: quiet, peaceful,
beautiful. Although the traveler wants to stay to look at them, he has
promises to keep, and miles to go before he sleeps.
Structure
and Meter
.......The
poem consists of four stanzas, each with four lines. (A four-line stanza
is called a quatrain.) Each line in the poem has eight syllables (or four
feet). In each line, the first syllable is unstressed, the second is stressed,
the third is unstressed, the fourth is stressed, and so on. Thus, the poem
is in iambic tetrameter. An iamb is a foot containing an unstressed syllable
followed by a stressed syllable. A tetrameter is a line of poetry or verse
containing four feet. (If you need detailed information on meter, click
here.) The following example—the first two lines of the poem–demonstrates
the metric scheme. The unstressed syllables are in blue; the stressed are
in red capitals. Over each pair of syllables is a number representing the
foot. Also, a black vertical line separates the feet.
.......1.......
.......2..... .......3.............4
Whose.WOODS|.these.ARE|.I.THINK.|.I.KNOW...........
....1...../......2...........3.......
...4
His.HOUSE.|.is.IN|
the.VILL|.age.THOUGH
Author
Information
.......Robert
Frost (1874-1963) was born in San Francisco, California, where he spent
his childhood. In 1885, after his father died of tuberculosis, the Frosts
moved to Massachusetts. There, Robert graduated from high school, sharing
top honors with a student he would later marry, Elinor White.
.......Frost
attended Dartmouth and Harvard, married Miss White in 1895, worked farms,
and taught school. In his spare time, he wrote poetry. Disappointed with
the scant attention his poems received, he moved with his wife to Great
Britain to present his work to readers there. Publishers liked his work
and printed his first book of poems, A Boy’s Will, in 1913, and
a second poetry collection,
North of Boston, in 1914. The latter
book was published in the United States in 1915.
.......Having
established his reputation, Frost returned to the United States in 1915
and bought a small farm in Franconia, N.H. To supplement his income from
the farm and his poetry, he taught at universities. Between 1916 and 1923,
he published two more books of poetry—the second one, New Hampshire,
winning the 1923 Pulitzer Prize. He went on to win three more Pulitzer
Prizes and was invited to recite his poem “The Gift Outright” at President
John F. Kennedy’s inauguration in January 1961. Frost died in Boston two
years later. One may regard him as among the greatest poets of his generation.
.
Study
Questions and Essay Topics
.
1..It
is extremely important to select the right word, with the most appropriate
connotation, to present a thought or an image. Why do you suppose Frost
chose to use woods instead of the forest? Why did he choose
easy
instead of
gentle in the fourth stanza?
2..Write
a short profile of the speaker/narrator/traveler. True, the poem provides
little information about him (or her). However, we do know that (1) ....he
apparently does not want to be seen observing the woods by the man in the
village; (2) he owns a little horse; (3) he is a keen observer and reporter,
who tells us what the horse may be thinking and describes the sounds of
the wind and snowflakes; (4) he appreciates nature; (5) he ....keeps
his promises—or at least tries to do so.
3..Why
did Frost end the poem repeating the same line?
4..Recall
and write about the thoughts going through your mind during a snowstorm
(or another weather event).
.
.
|