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On a Snowy Evening A Poem by Robert Frost (1874-1963) A Study Guide [email protected] |
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Study
Guide Prepared by Michael J. Cummings...©
2005
“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening ” is a lyric poem. It was first published in the New Republic on March 7, 1923, and republished later that year in a collection of Robert Frost's poems entitled New Hampshire. This collection won Frost a Pulitzer Prize and widespread recognition as an important American writer. 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. 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.
By Robert Frost .
. Figures of Speech Following are examples of figures of speech in the poem. For definitions of figures of speech, see Literary Terms. Alliteration His house is in the village though (line 2)Hyperbole To watch his woods fill up with snowMetaphor He gives his harness bells a shake,Personification/Metaphor My little horse must think it queer .
End Rhyme The end rhyme in the poem is as follows: First stanza, aabaInternal Rhyme Here are examples of internal rhyme in the poem He will not see me stopping here (line 3)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.
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 the woods 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:
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. 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. 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.
Whose WOODS..|..these ARE..|..I THINK..|..I KNOW
.......1.............2....
.......3...................4
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.
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
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