100% satisfaction guarantee Immediately available after payment Both online and in PDF No strings attached
logo-home
Previously searched by you
Previously searched by you
logo
Summary Poem Analysis of 'Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening' by Robert Frost £4.49
Add to cart
Quickly navigate to
Preview
  2.  
  3. CIE
  4.  
  5. English - Literature
  6.  
  7. Poetry

Summary

Summary Poem Analysis of 'Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening' by Robert Frost
 0 purchase
  • Institution
  • CIE

Here’s a detailed analysis of Robert Frost’s poem ‘Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening’; it’s tailored towards students taking the CIE / Cambridge A-Level syllabus but will be useful for anyone who’s working on understanding the poem at any level. Great for revision, missed lessons,...

[Show more]

Preview 2 out of 7  pages

Document information

  • February 8, 2022
  • 7
  • 2021/2022
  • Summary

Subjects

Written for

All documents for this subject (160)

Seller

avatar-seller
natashatabani

Reviews received

Content preview

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 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.




STORY / SUMMARY

A man is travelling at night on a horse during the winter solstice (‘darkest evening of
the year’). He is on his way home, heading for a village as he travels through a
snowy landscape. He stops by a frozen wood, observing that he thinks he knows the
owner. The man who owns it lives far away, in the same village as the speaker, so he
knows he could trespass and enter the woods if he wanted as there’s no one around
to notice. He feels an impulse to go into the woods, and he is torn for a moment
between losing himself in there and carrying on home. The horse becomes impatient,
and shakes his harness to snap the man out of this state of mind. At the end of the
poem, he decides to go home because he has ‘promises to keep’, and sleep is a long
way off.

, SPEAKER/VOICE

The speaker uses clear, simple vocabulary to illustrate a complex psychological
problem. He is talking about the call of nature, the longing in humans to return to a
purely natural way of living outside of the existence that we’ve made for ourselves in
villages and cities. Alternatively, the poem has often been interpreted as an exploration
of suicidal thoughts or tendencies, and so in this sense the speaker is also arguably
talking about a death drive, the idea that we are enticed by the idea of our death and
we have a longing to return back to a state of inert matter (see context for more info).



LANGUAGE

● Sleep as a metaphor for death - quite common in Frost’s poetry (possible
exploration of suicidal urges) - the line ‘And miles to go before I sleep’ is
repeated twice at the end, giving the feeling of a lullaby or nodding off, but also
perhaps suggesting obsession or fixation on this idea of ‘sleep’, which is often
used symbolically in literature to represent the idea of death.

● An alternative interpretation that is not quite so bleak would be to interpret the
state of ‘sleep’ as passive, peaceful and calm, and the journey of the man as
active - requiring energy and effort. He is compelled to lose himself in the
woods because he is enticed by the passivity of that choice, sitting or slowly
wandering around the forest requires a lot less effort than the obligations and
‘promises’ he has to others to get back home soon. He convinces himself that he
really needs true rest rather than a short break, so he decides to go home as
‘sleep’ will be more beneficial than the short trip into the woods in the long
term.

● Extended metaphor - the whole poem and the voyage of the man on the horse
could be considered as an extended metaphor for life, the journey we must all
take with its ups and downs, the work we must do and the obligation we have
to others. This interpretation is particularly compelling if you interpret the ‘sleep’
in the final lines to mean death, as it allows us to understand that one of the
messages in the poem is that life is a constant struggle against the desire to
lose yourself, or to give in to death.

● Personification - The horse is given a character in the poem, and is therefore
personified. The speaker remarks that his ‘little horse must think it queer’ - the

The benefits of buying summaries with Stuvia:

Guaranteed quality through customer reviews

Guaranteed quality through customer reviews

Stuvia customers have reviewed more than 700,000 summaries. This how you know that you are buying the best documents.

Quick and easy check-out

Quick and easy check-out

You can quickly pay through credit card for the summaries. There is no membership needed.

Focus on what matters

Focus on what matters

Your fellow students write the study notes themselves, which is why the documents are always reliable and up-to-date. This ensures you quickly get to the core!

Frequently asked questions

What do I get when I buy this document?

You get a PDF, available immediately after your purchase. The purchased document is accessible anytime, anywhere and indefinitely through your profile.

Satisfaction guarantee: how does it work?

Our satisfaction guarantee ensures that you always find a study document that suits you well. You fill out a form, and our customer service team takes care of the rest.

Who am I buying these notes from?

Stuvia is a marketplace, so you are not buying this document from us, but from seller natashatabani. Stuvia facilitates payment to the seller.

Will I be stuck with a subscription?

No, you only buy these notes for £4.49. You're not tied to anything after your purchase.

Can Stuvia be trusted?

4.6 stars on Google & Trustpilot (+1000 reviews)

66184 documents were sold in the last 30 days

Founded in 2010, the go-to place to buy revision notes and other study material for 15 years now

Start selling
£4.49
  • (0)
Add to cart
Added