Stopping by Wood on a Snowy Evening and the Road Not Taken
Steve Pedersen “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening ': A Burkean/Ecocritical Reading”
Man is the symbol-using (symbol-making, symbol-misusing) animal ........................................... separated from his natural condition by instruments of his own making ...................................................... and rotten with perfection. (Burke 1, 2, 4, 5, 7)
Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” elucidates Burke’s theory of “Man” as being “rotten with perfection” and shows how “perfection” (16), as an internal motive, is an ecocritical disease in the mindset of twentieth-century modern man1, an era marked by advancements in technology and industry. Few scholars have analyzed Robert Frost’s poetry from a Burkean perspective; the last to do so was Richard Poirier who, in 1982, examined the Emersonian influence in Burke’s theory of words and their relation to reality. My paper instead, uses a combined approach of ecocriticism and Burke’s theory of man in his essay “Definition of Man.” Kenneth Burke (1897 – 1993) was a literary and social critic of the twentieth century. During the Depression, Burke experienced first-hand the devastating effects of a society unchecked by its own technological and industrial advancements. Within Burke’s early works, such as Counter-Statement and Permanence and Change, William Rueckert and other Burkean scholars have argued that ecocriticism as a field of study was founded. Reading this poem from the vantage of Burke’s theory of man, the unnamed speaker is driven by “perfection.” It is an internal will and force that keeps the speaker unsettled in the few moments that he stops to watch the woods fill up with snow. This internal will is made evident as he consciously strives after the “promises” of tomorrow — “promises” he has “to keep.” From an ecocritical standpoint, this pastoral poem reveals modern man’s indifference and detachment from nature; the poem is symptomatic of humanity’s materialistic relationship
Man is the symbol-using (symbol-making, symbol-misusing) animal ........................................... separated from his natural condition by instruments of his own making ...................................................... and rotten with perfection. (Burke 1, 2, 4, 5, 7)
Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” elucidates Burke’s theory of “Man” as being “rotten with perfection” and shows how “perfection” (16), as an internal motive, is an ecocritical disease in the mindset of twentieth-century modern man1, an era marked by advancements in technology and industry. Few scholars have analyzed Robert Frost’s poetry from a Burkean perspective; the last to do so was Richard Poirier who, in 1982, examined the Emersonian influence in Burke’s theory of words and their relation to reality. My paper instead, uses a combined approach of ecocriticism and Burke’s theory of man in his essay “Definition of Man.” Kenneth Burke (1897 – 1993) was a literary and social critic of the twentieth century. During the Depression, Burke experienced first-hand the devastating effects of a society unchecked by its own technological and industrial advancements. Within Burke’s early works, such as Counter-Statement and Permanence and Change, William Rueckert and other Burkean scholars have argued that ecocriticism as a field of study was founded. Reading this poem from the vantage of Burke’s theory of man, the unnamed speaker is driven by “perfection.” It is an internal will and force that keeps the speaker unsettled in the few moments that he stops to watch the woods fill up with snow. This internal will is made evident as he consciously strives after the “promises” of tomorrow — “promises” he has “to keep.” From an ecocritical standpoint, this pastoral poem reveals modern man’s indifference and detachment from nature; the poem is symptomatic of humanity’s materialistic relationship
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