Robert Frost 2

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Robert Frost

� "All poetry is a reproduction of the tones of actual speech."



� 1.Born in San Francisco in 1874, he movedto New England at the age of eleven and became interested in reading and writing poetry during his high school years inLawrence, Massachusetts. He was enrolledat Dartmouth College in 1892, and later at

Harvard, but never earned a formal degree.Frost drifted through a string of occupationsafter leaving school, working as a teacher,cobbler, and editor of the Lawrence Sentinel .

His first professional poem, "My Butterfly,"was published on November 8, 1894, in the New York newspaper The Independent .



� In 1895, Frost married Elinor Miriam White, who became a major inspiration in his poetry until her death in 1938. The couple moved to England in1912. By the time Frost returned to the UnitedStates in 1915, he had published two full-lengthcollections, A Boy's Will and North of Boston, and

his reputation was established. By the nineteen-twenties, he was the most celebrated poet inAmerica, and with each new book²including

New Hampshire (1923), A Further Range (1936),

Steeple Bush (1947), and In the Clearing (1962)² his fame and honors (including four Pulitzer Prizes) increased.



� Though his work is principally associated with thelife and landscape of New England, and though he

was a poet of traditional verse forms and metricswho remained steadfastly aloof from the poeticmovements and fashions of his time, Frost isanything but a merely regional or minor poet. Theauthor of searching and often dark meditations on

universal themes, he is a quintessentially modern poet in his adherence to language as it is actuallyspoken, in the psychological complexity of his portraits, and in the degree to which his work is

infused with layers of ambiguity and irony. RobertFrost lived and taught for many years inMassachusetts and Vermont, and died on January29, 1963, in Boston.



Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.

His house is in the village though;He will not see me stopping hereTo watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queerTo stop without a farmhouse near

Between the woods and frozen lakeThe darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shakeTo ask if there is some mistake.

The only other sounds the sweepOf easy wind and downy flake.

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.



Stopping by Woods on a Snowy

Evening We can trace the emotional resonance of Frost's poem

back to the concrete situation that helped engender it.

Shortly before Christmas of 1905, Frost had made an

unsuccessful trip into town to sell eggs in order to raise

money for his children's Christmas presents. "Alone in the

driving snow, the memory of his years of hopeful but

frustrated struggle welled up, and he let his long-pent

feelings out in tears." The intensity of this tearful moment

translates into the affective content that permeates but never

overwhelms "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening."



character � The characters involved in this poem are the man

and his horse. The man could be just an ordinary person stopping by the woods to enjoy the snowyevening. Or maybe the person isn't a man at all.

The poem never mentions his gender so therecould be a chance that the speaker is a woman.

The poem could also be understood in a

different way. The speaker could be dreamingabout the woods in the wintertime. If this is true,only in the last stanza is it revealed that he isdreaming when he says, "And miles to go before Isleep."



� Another theory could be that Robert Frost was

writing about Santa Claus. The evidence supporting

this is as follows:1.) In the second stanza, the first two lines say,

"My little horse must think it queer/ To stop

without a farmhouse near." That would mean that

the horse is accustomed to stopping beside houses,so Santa could deliver his presents.

2.) In the last stanza, the second and third

lines say, "But I have promises to keep/ And miles

to go before I sleep." The speaker says that because

he knows all the little children are waiting for him

and he can't disappoint them by being late.



Theme� The theme of "Stopping by Woods"--despite Frost's

disclaimer--is the temptation of death, even suicide,symbolized by the woods that are filling up withsnow on the darkest evening of the year. Thespeaker is powerfully drawn to these woods ,wantsto lie down and let the snow cover and bury him.The third quatrain, with its drowsy, dream-like line:"Of easy wind and downy flake," opposes the

horse's instinctive urge for home with the man'ssubconscious desire for death in the dark, snowywoods. The speaker says, "The woods are lovely,dark and deep," but he resists their morbid

attraction.



Transformations� "He gives his harness bells a shake" comes from

Scott's "The Rover" (in Palgrave): "He gave the bridle-reins a shake.: "The woods are lovely, dark and deep" comes from Thomas Lovell Beddoes'"The Phantom Wooer": "Our bed is lovely, dark,and sweet." The concluding "And miles to go before I sleep" comes from Keats' "Keen FitfulGusts": "And I have many miles on foot to fare."

Though these three lines are variations from other poets, Frost, writing in the tradition of Englishverse, makes them original and new, and integratesthem perfectly into his own poem.



1.The brain is a wonderful organ. It starts

working when you get up in the morning,

and doesn't stop until you get to the office

2.The best way out is always through .

3.By working faithfully eight hours a day

you may eventually get to be boss and

work twelve hours a day.

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