ABE IV-2
Literary Criticism
Stomping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost Whose woods these are I think I know, His house is in the village though. He will not see me stopping here, To watch his woods fill up with snow. My little horse must think it queer, To stop without a farmhouse near, Between the woods and frozen lake, The darkest evening of the year. He gives his harness bells a shake, To ask if there is some mistake. The only other sound's the sweep, Of 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 is written in first person point of view where the speaker of the poem speaks for himself in a calm manner. To interpret the poem literally the poem illustrates a journey maybe of the poet whilst riding a horse on a winter night in a secluded area who stop for a while in the lovely scene. He tempted to stay longer, but because of obligations he has to travel a long distance before he can rest.
The poem is written in formal style and contains proper vocabulary, it is also not wordy. Sentence in the first line has an inverted structure. The poem has four stanzas. Each line is iambic tetrameter, with four alternating stressed and unstressed syllables.
The four lines of each stanza, first, second, third (for the last stanza), and fourth lines rhyme within the stanza. But the third line in the first three sentences does not, because the rhymes are place for the next stanza. For example, in the first stanza, knows, though, snow they all rhyme, but rhymes with “here” is place in the following stanza like “squeer”, “neer”, “year”.
Robert Frost used allusion to defamilliarized the possible meanings of the poem. The message might be referring to a journey of life and not just an ordinary journey. The speaker stops for a while in the woods to think and realize that he needs to keep on his journey all the way through the woods and life because he still have to finish his obligations or purpose in life before he rest or die. The ending line “And miles to go before I sleep” does not only refer to the distance of the trip but might also refer to his long journey in life.
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