Explication of "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening."
When I heard that we were going to read "Stopping by woods on a Snowy Evening" by Robert Frost, I was extremely pleased, as I was very familiar with this it. I first read it as a child and it has ever since been my favorite poem. Explicating this poem gives a much deeper meaning than the words first indicate. The main underlying theme the poem explores is the wonder and sereneness of nature, while at the same time subtly pulling the reader away and towards the hustle and bustle of the modern world.
The denotative meaning this poem is a man with his horse and carriage stopping by woods on a snowy night. Just the title of this poem gives the reader a sense of calmness that comes with the image of a snowy evening in the woods. Frost could have used a different wording for his title of this poem, such as "Stopping the Carriage in a Forest During a Snowstorm on a Dark Night," but he chose the words snowy evening and woods for his title instead. I think that snowy is possibly the softest derivative for snow in the English language, it has no hash syllables. Evening is another word that is very soft and peaceful sounding, especially when combined with snowy.
In the first stanza, the man driving the horse describes stopping near another man 's woods whose house is in the village. The man is watching the woods fill up with snow. In the first line he first mentions the wood which immediately gives the reader an outdoor and a rural feeling. This is followed in the next line by the narrator saying he knows the man who lives in the village that owns these woods. This mention of the village leads the reader away from the peacefulness of the woods filling up with snow and back into the village. I think that the purpose of frost mentioning that the man who owns the woods is to illustrate the irony of how something so peaceful and natural can be owned by someone who lives away in a bustling city. Line three, "He will not see me stopping here," implies that the narrator knows that
The denotative meaning this poem is a man with his horse and carriage stopping by woods on a snowy night. Just the title of this poem gives the reader a sense of calmness that comes with the image of a snowy evening in the woods. Frost could have used a different wording for his title of this poem, such as "Stopping the Carriage in a Forest During a Snowstorm on a Dark Night," but he chose the words snowy evening and woods for his title instead. I think that snowy is possibly the softest derivative for snow in the English language, it has no hash syllables. Evening is another word that is very soft and peaceful sounding, especially when combined with snowy.
In the first stanza, the man driving the horse describes stopping near another man 's woods whose house is in the village. The man is watching the woods fill up with snow. In the first line he first mentions the wood which immediately gives the reader an outdoor and a rural feeling. This is followed in the next line by the narrator saying he knows the man who lives in the village that owns these woods. This mention of the village leads the reader away from the peacefulness of the woods filling up with snow and back into the village. I think that the purpose of frost mentioning that the man who owns the woods is to illustrate the irony of how something so peaceful and natural can be owned by someone who lives away in a bustling city. Line three, "He will not see me stopping here," implies that the narrator knows that
Cited: Frost, Robert. "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening." Literature A Pocket Anthology. Comp. R.S. Gwyn. New York: Penguin Academics, 2005. 616-617.