The Interpretation of Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening was written in 1923 by Robert Frost in his New Hampshire volume. Imagery and personification are prominent in the work.
Robert Frost is a well-known American pastoral poet. For his achievement, Frost got awarded the Pulitzer Prize four times in his life. Nature and his rural surroundings were for him a source to create, that’s why he made a great many pastoral poems. Frost’s poems show deep appreciation of natural world and sensibility about the human aspirations and realizations. The images like woods, stars, roads, houses, brooks are usually taken from everyday life. Readers always find it is easy to follow the poet into deeper truths about life or the author himself. Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening is generally regarded as Frost’s masterpiece one which he viewed as his “best bid for remembrance.”
The poet expressed the symbolic meaning by describing nature. In his poems, a theme: of using natural scenery as a symbol to display some feelings; emotions; interests and liking of readers and feelings of the poet can be reflected and the plain of ultra-naturalism and the aesthetic sense of symbolism can be shown by the poet.
The poem is written in iambic tetrameter. It consists of four identically constructed stanzas. The poet employs the drawing back the rhyme, i.e. in the first stanza the third line is b, while in the second stanza the poem draws back to continue the rhyme b. Within the four lines of each stanza, the first, second, and fourth lines rhyme. The third line does not, but it sets up the rhymes for the next stanza. For example, in the third stanza, queer, near, and year all rhyme, but lake rhymes with shake, mistake, and flake in the following stanza. The notable exception to this pattern comes in the final stanza, where the third line rhymes with the previous two and is repeated as the fourth line. It gives the poem a tone of hesitation, which shows the poet's deliberate consideration.
On the surface, this poem is simplicity itself. The speaker is stopping by some woods on a snowy evening. He or she takes in the lovely scene in near-silence, is tempted to stay longer, but acknowledges the pull of obligations and the considerable distance yet to be traveled before he or she can rest for the night. Like the woods it describes, the poem is lovely but entices us with dark depths--of interpretation, in this case.
The first stanza leads us to a piece of beautiful woods filled up with snow. The speaker is captivated by the beauty and stops in such a fascinating pastoral landscape. In the deep mind of him, perhaps the woods means wealth, beauty or other attractions, and he just cannot refuses these allure. He is fed up with the routine duties, and wants to rest forever. The woods happens to provide an ideal place. The second stanza depicts the surroundings of the woods through the speaker’s little horse’s eye. “The darkest evening of the year” tell us that the snow is cold and the evening dark, all of which indicate that the poet is depressed inside. And now is the darkest time of the speaker’s life, so when he meets the good views in the traveling, he couldn’t help to enjoying the world of fair allure and loneliness. In the third stanza, the little horse wonders why the poet stops when he should have go on. He cannot understand why the speaker—his owner stops there and gazes at the woods. The extreme quietness actually reflects the speaker’s confusing mind. The little horse actually represents another self of speaker and the two speakers have the conversation in heart to decide what he should do. The last stanza is the speaker’s decision and conclusive idea. Finally, the speaker makes his mind to go back to the world with responsibilities. “The promise” could be an obligation or a goal. It represents responsibilities in the human world. The last two repeated lines emphasize the speaker’s determination and he has to keep all the promises and takes the responsibilities. “Sleep” means death, the end of one’s life. The speaker has to deal with chores and promises in the rest of his life.
In this poem, Robert Frost gives the effect of sighting. The narrator wants to rest but he cannot, and the horse is reminding him to come back. And he discusses the relation between mortal obligations and the eternal rest. One leaves no regrets after he dies, as long as one has reached his goal. The speaker is tempted toward death which he considers “love, dark and deep”.
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