Question

What literary devices does Robert Frost use in "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening"?

Accepted Answer

There are a couple of poetic devices used in this poem by Frost. In the first line, Frost inverts the normal sentence structure of the line: "Whose woods these are I think I know" instead of "I think I know whose woods these are." This switching of regular word order first helps with the rhyme scheme that he keeps throughout the poem, but since it is the first line of the poem, it also catches the reader's attention. Frost could have started the poem in any fashion and matched the rhyme to that first line; he chose to invert it from the start.
There is also personification of the speaker's horse, who "must think it queer" (5) that the speaker has stopped so suddenly, and who "gives his harness bells a shake / To ask if there is some mistake" (9-10).  
Finally, Frost uses alliteration to create the sense and sound of snow falling in line 11: "The only other sound's the sweep." The "s" sound created by the repetition gives the sense of quiet that a snowfall would bring.

Answer

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 with the traveler "between the woods and frozen lake" on a dark night far from any farmhouse. We can see the white snow falling against a black night in this spot just as the narrator does. Frost also conveys sound: both the shake of the horse's harness bell, and

the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

In other words, it is largely silent.
 
"Downy flake" is a metaphor, a comparison that does not use the words "like" or "as." Here, the snow is being compared to down: the soft, small feathers of a young bird. We can visualize the big white flakes falling, the kind of snow that forms when it is not too cold.
 
The rhyme scheme creates a comforting sense of rhythm. In the first three stanzas, three of the four ending words rhyme, whereas in the fourth, all the end words rhyme. The seeming effortlessness of the rhymes—Frost never seems to strain to find the right word—lends the poem a sense of peace and harmony that mirrors the peaceful scene.
 
Finally, Frost uses repetition in the final two lines of this compact poem, emphasizing the speaker's regret that he most move on and leave this perfect moment behind:

And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

What literary devices does Robert Frost use in "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening"?

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