Human and Nature
Robert Frost’s poem, “Stopping by Woods in a Snowy Evening,” explicates the journey of a man in the woods. The man is admiring the natural scene; although, he knows his personal goals have been neglected. He admires the cold evening and wants to stay in woods. However, he realizes that he has to go to fulfil his desires. So, he neglects his wish of watching the beautiful scene of a snowy evening. Fagan states: “The poem is not simply a description of a natural scene but is about a person experiencing the scene” (Fagan 1). Robert Frost’s poem illustrates the relationship between human and nature. Despite of the fact, Nature grabs mankind’s attention to its beauty; human beings prefer their worldly responsibilities and repel the nature's attractions.
The beauty of nature acts like a barrier in human’s ways. It attracts the man towards itself and delays his personal goals. In this poem, the man is attracted to a snowy evening, which forces him to stop and admires the magnificent insight of woods. Imagine trees cover with the white snow, the silence in woods, whistles of wind, and falling snow flakes touches the earth. As he stops in woods, he thinks about the owner of woods. He thinks of the land owner who is not present to see him trespassing. He feels safe as the owner “will not see” him “stopping” in woods “to watch his woods fill up the snow” (lines 3-4). It explains his careless behavior and desire to admire the natural beauty. According to Thomas March, it is not an important fact the man knows the owner, but he is far away from woods. His description of the scene deals with the privacy at that time (March 1). The man loves to stay in woods in spite of a fact that his destination is somewhere else.
Mea...
... middle of paper ...
...ld, ed.
Robert Frost, New Edition, Bloom’s Modern Critical Views. New York: Chelsea House
Publishing, 2010. Bloom’s literature. Facts on File, Inc. Web. 19 May. 2014.
Fagan, Deirdre. “‘Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening’.” Critical Companion to Robert
Frost: A Literary Reference to His Life and Work, Critical Companion. New York: Facts
On File, Inc., 2007. Bloom’s Literature. Facts On File, Inc. Web. 19 May. 2014.
Frost, Robert. “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening.” Anthology of American Literature
10 ed. George McMichael, James S. Leonard, et al. Vol. 2. 2011. 1136. Print.
March, Thomas. “ The Poetry of Robert Frost and the Creative Genius of Everyday Life.” in
Bloom, Harold, ed. Robert Frost, Bloom’s BioCritiques. Philadelphia: Chelsea House
Publishing, 2002. Bloom’s Literature. Facts on file, Inc. Web. 19 May. 2014.
Gerber, Philip L. Robert Frost. Ed. Kenneth Eble. Boston: Twayne Publishers, Inc. 1982. The. 124-125 Lentricchia, Frank.
Selected Poems by Robert Frost, New York: Barnes and Noble, 2001 3.Graham, Judith, ed. Current Biography Yearbook Vol. 1962, New York: The H.W Wilson Company, 1993 4.Kesey, Ken. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, New York: Penguin Group, 1962 5.Weir, Peter. Dead Poets Society, 1989
Frost, Robert. “The Road Not Taken.” Literature and the Writing Process. Ed. Elizabeth McMahan et al. 8th ed. Upper Saddle River: Pearson, 2007. 695-696. Print.
The poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”, also considered Frost’s masterpiece, not only has the theme of isolation and nature but it was also his first Pulitzer Prize winning poem. “Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening” is about a man traveling through the woods on a snowy night. He pauses to look at the beauty of nature on private property, but is not able to look at nature for long because he has an extensive distance to travel. As Karen Hardison explains, “"A Soldier" is composed around an extended metaphor that is introduced in the first line: "He is that fallen lance.."
“Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words,” Robert Frost once said. As is made fairly obvious by this quote, Frost was an adroit thinker. It seems like he spent much of his life thinking about the little things. He often pondered the meaning and symbolism of things he found in nature. Many readers find Robert Frost’s poems to be straightforward, yet his work contains deeper layers of complexity beneath the surface. His poems are not what they seem to be at first glance. These deeper layers of complexity can be clearly seen in his poems “The Road Not Taken”, “Fire and Ice”, and “Birches”.
Robert Frost wrote poetry about nature and it is that nature that he used as symbols for life lessons. Many critics have been fascinated by the way that Frost could get so many meanings of life out of nature itself. Frost‘s poetry appeals to almost everyone because of his uncanny ability to tie in with many things that one is too familiar with and for many, that is life in itself. “Perhaps that is what keeps Robert Frost so alive today, even people who have never set foot in Vermont, in writing about New England, Frost is writing about everywhere” (294).
Waggoner, Hyatt H. "A Writer of Poems: The Life and Work of Robert Frost," The Times Literary Supplement. April 16, 1971, 433-34.
Frost, Robert. “The Road Not Taken”. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. 7Th Ed. Nina
rhyme and meter similar to that of normal speech; he is also known to explore fundamental aspects of the human experience with his works. Frost combines these two characteristics in “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” giving the outwardly simple poem a breadth and depth that allows readers to interpret it in different ways on different levels. This complexity creates some difficultly in coming to a conclusion regarding the piece, but the reader may also use it to form a holistic opinion about the meaning behind the work. This can be done by analyzing each layer of the work symbolically and stylistically, both as a separate entity and as a lens to a deeper interpretation. Two layers seem to stand out, ultimately working together to reveal a sad commentary on blind busyness.
1. Frost, Robert. Robert Frost’s Poems. Ed. Louis Untermeyer. New York: Washington Square Press, 1968. 194.
Robert Frost’s love of nature is expressed in the setting of his poem "Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening." His elaborate description of the woody setting brings vivid images to the reader’s mind. Frost explains the setting so descriptively that the reader feels he is in the woods alsoThe setting is a very important tool Frost uses in writing this poem. The setting is obviously in the woods, but these are not just any old woods. Something caught the speaker’s eyes in these woods making them a special place for the speaker. It seems as if the speaker has associated these woods with an aspect of his "personal paradise". The peacefulness, tranquillity, darkness, and silence are all important parts of this "paradise".
New York: Henry Holt, 1999. Print. Richardson, Mark. The Ordeal of Robert Frost: The Poet and His Poetics.
Then in the last stanza Frost mentions woods again. Even though the narrator has a long way to go he always has enough time to stop and watch the small thing in nature in detail. This goes to show that Frost’s interest in nature is very large, and he portrays this through his characters.
Frost uses nature as a reflection of human experiences; just like humanity it can have seasons and life cycles. He uses different scenes to depict a certain mood for readers to step into the psychological happening of a man. The idea of how seasons change, Frost compares it through the life cycles that humans encounter. Contrary to popular opinion, I believe that nature is not Frost’s central theme in his poetry; it is about the relationship that man has with nature in which can be seen from “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”, “The Road Not Taken”, and “An Old Man’s Winter Night.”
Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” and “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” show the readers similar struggles of life. “The Road Not Taken” is about taking control of one’s life and living it aside from how others live theirs. While “Stopping by Woods on Snowy Evening” shows the desire for rest. Sometimes people regret the possibilities of the road not chosen, sometimes people feel proud about the road that they