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Robert Frost Wrote The Revered Poem, “Stopping By Woods

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Robert Frost wrote the revered poem, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” at his home in Shaftsbury, Vermont in 1922. It appeared in his fifth collection of poems entitled, “New Hampshire,” published in 1923, which won his first Pulitzer Prize. In this poem, the reader is privy to a few moments of the thoughts of a man who pauses in the silence and solitude of the winter woods. It’s a poem with such simplicity that a child can commit it to memory and such complexity that scholars repeatedly explicate it. “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” is a closed form, lyric poem that’s written in iambic tetrameter, containing a total of eight syllables in each line. It has four quatrains that follow the rhyme scheme aaba, bbcb, ccdc, dddd. The …show more content…

Having experienced his first success in London, he returned to New Hampshire where his work continued to reflect the scenes and values of nature he experienced there. In 1947, Frost spoke of the poem to a student at a reading he was giving at Bowdoin College. When asked which of his poems his favorite was, Frost replied, “I’d have to say ‘Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening’ is that poem” (Bleau 175). Continuing, he revealed the inspiration for the verse was a personal experience he had just before Christmas in 1905. Frost failed to sell his produce at the local market and had no money for gifts for his children. As he neared his home on that snowy evening, he stopped his wagon. Overwhelmed, he cried in frustration. Beginning with the title, Robert Frost sets the scene and topic for the poem: an informal, spontaneous “stopping by” a private wooded spot during a snowfall at the end of a day. The narrator’s progression of thought during his contemplation is seen in each stanza. In the first stanza, the speaker thinks about the owner of the woods. He considers he might know who the woods belong to, but he is not certain. Even though, he knows the owner lives in town and is not nearby. So, he won’t see the traveler, or trespasser. The narrator is safe and alone in his brief

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