Gebruiker:Tyneverum/Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

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1

This is a poem to be marveled at and taken for granted. Like a big stone, like a body of water, like a strong economy, however it was forged it seems that, once made, it has always been there. Frost claimed that he wrote it in a single nighttime sitting; it just came to him. Perhaps one hot, sustained burst is the only way to cast such a complete object, in which form and content, shape and meaning, are alloyed inextricably. One is tempted to read it, nod quietly in recognition of its splendor and multivalent meaning, and just move on. But one must write essays. Or study guides.

Like the woods it describes, the poem is lovely but entices us with dark depths—of interpretation, in this case. It stands alone and beautiful, the account of a man stopping by woods on a snowy evening, but gives us a come-hither look that begs us to load it with a full inventory of possible meanings. We protest, we make apologies, we point to the dangers of reading poetry in this way, but unlike the speaker of the poem, we cannot resist.

The last two lines are the true culprits. They make a strong claim to be the most celebrated instance of repetition in English poetry. The first “And miles to go before I sleep” stays within the boundaries of literalness set forth by the rest of the poem. We may suspect, as we have up to this point, that the poem implies more than it says outright, but we can’t insist on it; the poem has gone by so fast, and seemed so straightforward. Then comes the second “And miles to go before I sleep,” like a soft yet penetrating gong; it can be neither ignored nor forgotten. The sound it makes is “Ahhh.” And we must read the verses again and again and offer trenchant remarks and explain the “Ahhh” in words far inferior to the poem. For the last “miles to go” now seems like life; the last “sleep” now seems like death.

The basic conflict in the poem, resolved in the last stanza, is between an attraction toward the woods and the pull of responsibility outside of the woods. What do woods represent? Something good? Something bad? Woods are sometimes a symbol for wildness, madness, the pre-rational, the looming irrational. But these woods do not seem particularly wild. They are someone’s woods, someone’s in particular—the owner lives in the village. But that owner is in the village on this, the darkest evening of the year—so would any sensible person be. That is where the division seems to lie, between the village (or “society,” “civilization,” “duty,” “sensibility,” “responsibility”) and the woods (that which is beyond the borders of the village and all it represents). If the woods are not particularly wicked, they still possess the seed of the irrational; and they are, at night, dark—with all the varied connotations of darkness.

Part of what is irrational about the woods is their attraction. They are restful, seductive, lovely, dark, and deep—like deep sleep, like oblivion. Snow falls in downy flakes, like a blanket to lie under and be covered by. And here is where many readers hear dark undertones to this lyric. To rest too long while snow falls could be to lose one’s way, to lose the path, to freeze and die. Does this poem express a death wish, considered and then discarded? Do the woods sing a siren’s song? To be lulled to sleep could be truly dangerous. Is allowing oneself to be lulled akin to giving up the struggle of prudence and self-preservation? Or does the poem merely describe the temptation to sit and watch beauty while responsibilities are forgotten—to succumb to a mood for a while?

The woods sit on the edge of civilization; one way or another, they draw the speaker away from it (and its promises, its good sense). “Society” would condemn stopping here in the dark, in the snow—it is ill advised. The speaker ascribes society’s reproach to the horse, which may seem, at first, a bit odd. But the horse is a domesticated part of the civilized order of things; it is the nearest thing to society’s agent at this place and time. And having the horse reprove the speaker (even if only in the speaker’s imagination) helps highlight several uniquely human features of the speaker’s dilemma. One is the regard for beauty (often flying in the face of practical concern or the survival instinct); another is the attraction to danger, the unknown, the dark mystery; and the third—perhaps related but distinct—is the possibility of the death wish, of suicide.

Not that we must return too often to that darkest interpretation of the poem. Beauty alone is a sufficient siren; a sufficient protection against her seduction is an unwillingness to give up on society despite the responsibilities it imposes. The line “And miles to go before I sleep” need not imply burden alone; perhaps the ride home will be lovely, too. Indeed, the line could be read as referring to Frost’s career as a poet, and at this time he had plenty of good poems left in him.

2

Like most of Frost's poems, 'Stopping By Woods' can be read on several levels[1]. And, again like most of his poems, you can ignore them all, and still enjoy the surface meaning, which is beautifully evocative. Just below the surface there is the sleep/death metaphor, and the undercurrent of gentle longing for death tinges the surface with a melancholy that reinforces and plays off the night and winter images.

Formwise, note the predominance of soft, sibilant sounds, evoking the 'sweep of easy wind and downy flake'. Note also the lovely rhyme scheme[2], aaba bbcb, and the repetition of the final line, which provides closure at several different levels.

[1] some of them incredibly contrived and/or ingenious - load up <[broken link] http://faculty.millikin.edu/~moconner.hum.faculty.mu/e110/frost1.html> and search for Matthew Brown, e.g.

[2] yes, yes, he rhymed 'sleep' with 'sleep'. get over it :)

3

"Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" is a poem written in 1922 by Robert Frost, and published in 1923 in his New Hampshire volume. Imagery and personification are prominent in the work. In a letter to Louis Untermeyer, Frost called it "my best bid for remembrance".

Overview

Frost wrote this poem about winter in June, 1922 at his house in Shaftsbury, Vermont that is now home to the "Robert Frost Stone House Museum". Frost had been up the entire night writing the long poem "New Hampshire" and had finally finished when he realized morning had come. He went out to view the sunrise and suddenly got the idea for "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening". He wrote the new poem "about the snowy evening and the little horse as if I'd had a hallucination" in just "a few minutes without strain."

The poem is written in iambic tetrameter in the Rubaiyat stanza created by Edward Fitzgerald. Each verse (save the last) follows an a-a-b-a rhyming scheme, with the following verse's a's rhyming with that verse's b, which is a chain rhyme. Overall, the rhyme scheme is AABA-BBCB-CCDC-DDDD.

In popular culture

• Quasi-Romantic Composer Randall Thompson, a choral scholar from the early parts of the 20th century, included "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" as one of the seven pieces in his choral work, "Frostiana: Seven Country Songs," which was originally performed with Thompson conducting and with Frost in attendance. All of these pieces were based upon texts by Robert Frost including such other notable works of his as The Road not Taken and Choose Something Like A Star. Another Choral Interpretation of this poem entitled "Sleep" was written several decades later by Eric Whitacre, a contemporary American composer whose other choral works include Lux Aurumque, When David Heard, Winter and others. Due to copyright reasons, the text of the composition was re-written by Charles Antoni Sylvestri to comply with the wishes of the Robert Frost estate
• In the early morning of November 23, 1963, Sid Davis of Westinghouse Broadcasting reported the arrival of President John F. Kennedy's casket to the White House. As Frost was one of the President's favorite poets, Davis concluded his report with a passage from this poem but was overcome with emotion as he signed off.
• The poem is used in Quentin Tarantino's movie Death Proof.

External links

• University of Toronto Representative poetry online Text of the poem, along with the rhyming pattern
• Discussion and analysis of the poem

4

"Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," one of Robert Frost's most well-known poems, was published in his collection called New Hampshire in 1923. This poem illustrates many of the qualities most characteristic of Frost, including the attention to natural detail, the relationship between humans and nature, and the strong theme suggested by individual lines. In this poem, the speaker appears as a character. It is a dark and quiet winter night, and the speaker stops his horse in order to gaze into the woods. The speaker projects his own thoughts onto the horse, who doesn't understand why they have stopped; there's no practical reason to stop. The woods are ominously tempting and acquire symbolic resonance in the last stanza, which concludes with one of Frost's often-quoted lines, "miles to go before I sleep." One interpretation of this stanza is that the speaker is tempted toward death which he considers "lovely, dark and deep," but that he has many responsibilities to fulfill before he can "sleep."

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening Summary Line 1: In this opening stanza, the setting is clarified as a winter evening in a rural environment. The speaker desires to watch snow fall quietly in some woods. While these woods belong to someone, that person is not present and so will not protest if the speaker trespasses.

Lines 5-8: The speaker emphasizes that he has no practical reason to stop, that he is stopping for the beauty of the scene only. However, in line 8, an element of darkness appears, which can indicate that all is not well. Because the speaker also emphasizes the cold with "frozen lake," readers begin to understand that the poem may not be a simple light-hearted celebration of... » Complete Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening Summary

5

Vorige week las Joost Prinsen in het programma Kunstof TV van de NPS het gedicht Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening voor, een meesterwerk van Robert Frost.

Enige tijd geleden heb ik een poging gedaan dit gedicht te vertalen, me bewust van de onmogelijke opgave hetzelfde effect te bereiken als in het orgineel. Het volrijm heb ik soms moeten laten schieten en ik ben wat losser omgegaan met de structuur.

Het was Robert Frost die zei: "Poetry is what gets lost in translation."

Eigenlijk had ik niet gedacht het nog eens op te schrijven, maar hier is het, dank aan Kunstof TV.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Wiens bos dit is dat weet ik wel
Zijn huis staat in het dorp
Hij ziet niet dat ik stop op deze plek
En toekijk hoe zijn bos met sneeuw wordt bedekt

Mijn kleine paardje vindt het maar raar
Te stoppen zo ver van huis en haard
Tussen de bomen bij een bevroren meer
De donkerste nacht van het jaar.

Hij schudt zijn tuig en zijn bellen rink'len
Alsof hij vraagt of er iets is
Er zijn geen andere geluiden die klinken
Alleen de wind en sneeuwvlokjes die zachtjes zinken

De bossen zijn heerlijk, diep en verlaten,
Maar ik heb beloften waar te maken
En mijlen te gaan voor ik zal slapen
En mijlen te gaan voor ik zal slapen

[1]

6

Gestopt in een bos in de avondsneeuw (Stopping by woods on a snowy evening - Robert Frost)

Dit bos, ik weet van wie het wezen moet.
Het dorp waar hij moet wonen ken ik goed
Dus zal hij niet zien hoe ik stop en staar
Naar hoe de sneeuw zijn bos verdwijnen doet.

Mijn kleine paard, hij vindt het vast wel raar
Bij een bevroren meer te stoppen waar
Geen boerderij te zien is in de nacht,
De allerdiepste schemer van het jaar.

Hij schudt zijn tuig, zijn bellen klinken zacht,
Alsof hij vraagt waarop ik eigenlijk wacht.
Te horen is alleen nog hoe stilaan
Een lichte wind het bos met dons bevracht.

Diep is het bos en duister, aangenaam.
Maar ik moet nog achter beloftes aan,
En mijlen ver voor ik kan slapen gaan,
En mijlen ver voor ik kan slapen gaan.

[2]