“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost, on the surface appears to be a straightforward poem illustrating the monologue of a tired traveler passing by the woods on a winter evening who captures the scenery of his journey and comes to a realization that he has quite a bit of traveling ahead of him before he can rest. The simplicity of this poem is apparent, but at closer inspection there is vast complexity entailed in the wording of Frost’s poem. His words are of two minds in which Frost uses artless objects to connote implied metaphors and uses these objects for further making comparisons throughout the piece.
The simplicity and contrasting complexity of this poem is first apparent in its form. The poem consists of four, four-lined stanzas that all are iambic and contain four stressed syllables. Each stanza is structured almost identically, with exception to the final stanza. The first, second, and fourth lines rhyme, while the last word in the third line sets up the rhyme scheme for the first, second, and fourth lines of the next stanza. The rhyme scheme and sound of the poem at first seem simplistic, but Frost’s achievement of creating a poem by this method is intricate and difficult since the rhythm flows effortlessly and nothing seems to be a forced rhyme. The idea of contrast can be further discovered throughout Frost’s poem as it is analyzed in the first stanza.
In the first stanza the most evident contrast is made between nature and civilization. The speaker of the poem is passing by woods on the darkest evening of the year. He is enchanted by the darkness and beauty of the woods as he is traveling and stops his horse drawn sleigh to watch the snow fall and take in this sight. The first stanza connotes ...
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...tcome or when taking it a step further can indicate much deeper meanings. The contrast between simplicity and complexity is evident in each stanza through the use of ordinary objects, sounds, and visible imagery to represent something much greater for the speaker and audiences as well. In an interview when questioned about the hidden meanings in his poetry Frost replied, "If I wanted you to know I'd had told you in the poem,” (Keiller). His intention is to allow readers to speculate for themselves the true implications of his poetry.
Works Cited
Frost, Robert. “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.” An Introduction to Poetry. 13th ed. Ed. X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. New York: Longman, 2010. 418. Print.
Keiller, Garrison. "Robert Frost- Poetry Everywhere." PBS. PBS, 3 Mar. 2011. Web. 01 May 2012. .
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.."
... ice are, after all, the inextricable complementarities of one apocalyptic vision: that endlessly regenerative cycle of desire and (self) hatred that necessarily brings the productive poet to scourge his own voice as he mocks both the poetic vocation and the state to which poetry - and if poetry then all language - has come. Frost anticipates modernism's lament and, it may be said, prefigures in his dualism its dubious palliative of self-referential irony. The lyric birds and the weary speakers tell us the genuine Frostian wisdom of achieving a commonsensical accommodation with the fallen world, while inciting at another, and ineffable, level a profound disquiet.
Frost’s sentence structure is long and complicated. Many meanings of his poems are not revealed to the reader through first glance, but only after close introspection of the poem. The true meanings contained in Frost’s poems, are usually lessons on life. Frost uses symbolism of nature and incorporates that symbolism into everyday life situations. The speaker in the poems vary, in the poem “The Pasture”, Frost seems to be directly involved in the poem, where as in the poem “While in the Rose Pogonias”, he is a detached observer, viewing and talking about the world’s beauty. Subsequently, the author transfers that beauty over to the beauty of experiences that are achieved through everyday life.
The poem’s diction is fairly simple so that educated and uneducated people alike would be able to read and understand the poem somewhat easily. Because Frost prided himself upon being accessible and relatable to all people,
Robert Frost's Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening is about a person the speaker, who stops near the woods when it is snowing out to take a break and look around. He notices how beautiful it is to look at the snow falling in such a peaceful way out of the dark sky.
Robert Frost's “Birches” is written in blank verse and in mostly consistent iambic pentameter. The dependable rhythm of this poem can be likened to the reliability and purity of a child. This poem is not broken into stanzas, rather it is compact with his message and vivid images. This may be due to the fact that—in addition to Frost's desire for this poem to be read conversationally—the compact nature of this poem is attempting to explain the speaker's thoughts and observations in as little space as possible. “The Road Not Taken” is a poetic quintain consisting of four stanzas with five lines in each stanza. Each quintain's rhyme is a dependable ABAAB scheme. The rhyme scheme is comparable to the petrarchan sonnet and the rhyming couplets appear to provoke a sense of focused reflection. The rhythm of this poem is slightly more challenging. It is written in an iambic tetrame...
The setting takes place in the daylight of the woods. I felt that Frost set the poem in the woods because it helps reader imagine trees, leaves, and bushes. Therefore readers know that the speaker is alone without any road signs or knowledge of any direction on which road to take. The “yellow wood”(1) means that its somewhere in the fall when the leaves are changing colors. The “yellow” brings out a beautiful image of the autumn to readers. The “yellow wood” means there is a continuous decision one makes in li...
Lynen also states that “the struggle between the human imagination and the meaningless void man confronts is the subject of poem after poem” (6). On speaking of Frost’s nature poetry, Gerber says, “with equanimity Frost investigates the basic themes of man’s life: the individual’s relationships to himself, to his fellow man, to his world, and to his God” (117). All of these...
Imagery is one of the most notable elements in the poem due to the fact that Frost is describing the setting and scenery for the majority of the poem. His word choice is quite specific, clearly painting a picture for readers to visualize the scene he is describing. Frost describes the paths the narrator is considering as “two roads diverged in a yellow wood…” (1). Frost later goes on to describe the path the narrator is considering by stating, “…it was grassy and wanted wear” (8). The imagery is perhaps used as a means to demonstrate the fact that the way a path may look is not entirely representative of what lies ahead. Choices in life should be made with a great deal of thought, going beyond the superficial appearances. The narrator considers both paths before making an informed decision. The outward appearance of a path is not nearly as important as knowing what is best for an individual overall. The imagery in Frost’s poem sheds light the importance of making a choice by the narrator considering both paths in great detail because he or she recognizes the lasting influence a decision can have throughout his or her
1. Frost, Robert. Robert Frost’s Poems. Ed. Louis Untermeyer. New York: Washington Square Press, 1968. 194.
Frost’s use of comparisons helps the reader to better interpret the meaning of this poem. The picture created, with his use of imagery allows the reader to view his work from various perspectives. His analogies are very pragmatic. The reader is able to relate to the speaker’s feelings. After reading this poem it gives the reader a sense of understanding why the speaker wished he could go back to his past so much.
strengthens his viewpoint and regards Frost as ―one of the most intuitive poets [. . . h]e sees
...uses his poetry to celebrate, compare, and contrast the beauty of nature and rural living. Throughout Frost’s poetry he draws upon the beauty of nature to build up vast amounts of scenery. To contrast from nature, Frost also uses the integration of industrialized rural life. Frost uses nature to build the beauty in his poetry, but also uses it to say things that cannot be said with words alone. Heller once wisely spoke: “Maybe freedom really is nothing left to lose. You had it once in childhood, when it was okay to climb a tree, to paint a crazy picture and wipe out on your bike, to get hurt. The spirit of risk gradually takes its leave. It follows the wild cries of joy and pain down the wind, through the hedgerow, growing ever fainter. What was that sound? A dog barking far off? That was our life calling to us, the one that was vigorous and undefended and curious.”
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.”
Frost was a rural Yankee whose writings reflect everyday experiences-his own experiences, but was one who saw metaphorical dimensions in the everyday things he encountered. These everyday encounters held ground in his subject matter, combined with the rural setting of New England nature, seasons, weather and times of day. Frost’s goal was to write his poetry in such a way that it would cover familiar ground, but in an unfamiliar way or uncommon in expression. Works Cited and Consulted Frost and Nature, www.frostfriends.org.