Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

One theme central to "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" is the contrast between society and nature. From the first stanza, the speaker is on a journey between two places. He decides to "stop"...

In the first stanza the speaker tells why he is stopping by the woods. It is "To watch his woods fill up with snow." It is a cold night but apparently not too cold for the speaker to stop for a few...

Whose woods these are I think I know. AHis house is in the village, though; AHe will not see me stopping here BTo watch his woods fill up with snow. A My...

This poem by Robert Frost could be read completely literally as the story of a man stopping in a quiet wood, with his horse, to appreciate the beauty of the snowy evening. However, it could also be...

Figures of speech are words used in a non-literal sense. In this poem, Frost is using literary devices or figures of speech to try to make a larger point about life. When he says, for instance,...

Frost has been quoted as saying the following: Everything written is as good as it is dramatic. It need not declare itself in form, but it is drama or nothing. "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy...

The first image Frost constructs is visual (sight): the speaker stops "To watch [the owner's] woods fill up with snow" (line 4). We can imagine, based on this sensory description, what the scene...

Many critics have opined that this poem contains a conscious or unconscious death wish. The very common interpretation is that the speaker, presumably Frost himself, finds the woods so "lovely,...

There is a mistaken assumption built into this question—that poets are preachers or philosophers or moralizers in every poem they write. Here, Frost is an observer, a contemplater, and (even if...

The final two lines of Frost's poem "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" convey the sheer distance the narrator still has to "go before I sleep." By repeating the line "And miles to go before I...

The horse is shaking his harness bells to ask if stopping is a mistake. This poem describes a person that is driving a horse-drawn carriage on a snowy evening through some woods. The clue to why...

Frost's poem is one that is near bittersweet in its reminiscent quality. As the rider pauses to reflect, we experience the beauty of the wintertime imagery made by snow, the jingle of the harness...

In the first stanza of the poem, the mood is one of wonder and admiration because the speaker has stopped in the woods to watch the snow fall. This is clearly an enjoyable and interesting activity...

The horse thinks it is "queer" or odd to stop in the middle of the woods because it seems his owner never does this. We know this because the speaker tells us that his "little" horse is used to...

Frost uses imagery, which is description involving the five senses of sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell, to put us at the scene. His focus is on sight and sound. As for sight, he locates us...

The rhyme scheme seems intended to suggest very subtly the look and feel of falling snow. For example, the first stanza's rhymes are AABA. Then the B is caught up in the second stanza and becomes...

The speaker in this poem gives no identifying details about himself, except the fact that he is on a journey with his horse and that he has made "promises" to others and still has "miles to go"...

The poem "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" was written in 1922 by Robert Frost. It was included in his Pulitzer Prize–winning collection New Hampshire: A Poem with Notes and Grace Notes in...

Robert Frost wrote this poem, along with many other of his most famous compositions, at his house in southern Vermont. The house sat on seven acres of wooded land, and Frost himself apparently...

The narrator gives us very little information about the owner of the woods in the poem, as the main subject is the narrator's own experience of the snow and isolation of the area. The narrator of...

Frost's poem "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" is a tender poem that relies heavily on imagery to reveal the vulnerability of its speaker. Imagery is commonly defined as descriptive language...

In the poem, an individual is briefly arrested by a beautiful winter scene. Despite the fact that he has so much work to do and obligations to which he must attend ("promises to keep"), he feels...

The first sound mentioned in the poem occurs when the narrator's horse "gives his harness bells a shake." The narrator suggests the noise of the bells indicates the horse's impatience with standing...

The first line reading "And miles to go before I sleep" is probably intended literally. The speaker is traveling some distance in a horse-drawn sleigh and still have some distance to cover before...

In response to the answer posted above, a different construction could be put upon the phrase 'miles to go before I sleep'. Instead of referring literally to the speaker's journey home, it could...

The setting of the poem is the forest during the winter. The speaker refers to the "woods" that seem to be set at quite a distance from "the village," where the owner of the land on which the...

This poem uses imagery, language that conveys sensory information, in order to help us understand how solitary the speaker is, and how dark and beautiful the woods are. The second stanza is most...

Robert Frost answers this question himself. He does so in the first stanza. He stops To watch his woods fill up with snow. Frost was extremely sensitive to the beauty of nature. He is similar to...

An interesting question! I think it can certainly be argued that the speaker in this poem is filled with regrets at the end for a number of reasons. The speaker observes that the woods are "lovely"...

Frost uses these descriptive terms to create a sense of atmosphere. The word "darkest" is applied to the evening: this term is a superlative, meaning that something that is "darkest" is darker than...

In "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," by Robert Frost, the speaker of the poem (which of course is not necessarily Frost himself) stops his horse-drawn carriage (or sled, since it is snowing)...

As mentioned in other posts, the horse is unused to stopping in this open space—"Between the woods and frozen lake"—as there is no sense of purpose in doing so: no building, no capacity for work on...

In "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," the man and his horse seem to have an understanding that they will perform their duties with no lollygagging. Thus when the man stops to watch the woods...

In the poem "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," the speaker shares a precious moment with us. On the way to keep some promises, he stops his ride briefly to take in the beauty of the frozen...

In the famous poem "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" by Robert Frost, a rider on a journey stops his horse in somebody else's woods and watches the snow as it falls. Several different moods...

Frost uses alliteration in this poem, which is repeating the same consonant at the beginning of words in close proximity. Examples of this include "sound’s the sweep" in stanza two, with its...

When we discuss a poem’s structure, what we are talking about is how the poem is set up, how it conveys information and experience to the reader. In the case of “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy...

The primary and most evident conflict for the narrator (or overall "man" as indicated in the question) is between his responsibilities and desires. That is, the narrator (and his horse) have...

Robert Frost once answered a similar question with the statement: "If I wanted you to know I'd had told you in the poem." Feelings from poetry are intensely personal, and a poem that creates deep...

This question has already been answered here on eNotes. Here is a comprehensive link for you: http://www.enotes.com/stopping-by-woods-snowy-evening/q-and-a/tags/summary

By the phrase "fill up with snow," the speaker wishes to convey that it is snowing, and heavily enough to "fill" the woods with snow. By this he means both that the sky is full of snowflakes and...

The main role of the horse in the narrative of the poem is to emphasize, first, how unusual it is for the narrator to stop and watch a snowfall, second, to emphasize how long the narrator stays...

The meaning of "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" is generally personal, depending on the reader's perception. Attempts to read more into the poem than is visible on the surface, or more than...

Robert Frost has been quoted as saying: Everything written is as good as it is dramatic. It need not declare itself in form, but it is drama or nothing. This explains a lot about his poetry. In...

"Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" is a melodic poem by Robert Frost that focuses on the captivating power of nature. As he rides his horse, he encounters an especially lovely area of woods and...

The adjective "downy" does seem to suggest that the snowflakes are being compared to "down," which is defined as a noun meaning the soft, first plumage of many young birds or the soft under-plumage...

The meaning of the line "and miles to go before I sleep" has been contested for decades by readers and scholars alike. The most obvious meaning is literal: the traveler is talking about literal...

I'm not sure I would call Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" allegorical in any sense. One might say it's symbolic or that it involves an extended metaphor, but I don't see it as an...

The speaker of the poem, who is presumably Robert Frost himself, thinks he knows who owns the woods he has stopped to look at. The first stanza reads: Whose woods these are I think I know. His...

One way to look at this poem is through the theme of the contemplation of life. In the poem, the speaker has paused in the middle of the woods to look at the landscape and admire its beauty. Note...