PowerPoint by: Gabe Umsted

Although known for his mainly rural poems, Frost was born in the city of San Francisco, but moved to Lawrence, Massachusetts after his father’s death. In 1894, he sold his 1 st poem, “My Butterfly. An Elegy”. For 9 years, he lived on an inherited farm in New Hampshire, where he would write many poems. This part of his life helped contribute to the setting of the poem. In 1912, he took his family to Great Britain. They returned in 1915 when WWI broke out. His time in the UK also influenced his rural poem style. Only 2 of his children outlived him. He died in 1963 of complications from a surgery he had around a month or so before his death.

Frost uses 4 stanzas & 16 lines for this poem. (That would be 4 lines per stanza) He has an odd rhyme scheme. Lines have been grouped by stanza. This rhyme scheme creates a quality that makes the reader focus on the details of the poem, moving them slowly to the end of it. Since it has such an odd & intricate rhyming pattern, it must have taken Frost awhile to write the poem.

The speaker seems to be walking through someone else’s woods in the poem. The speaker seems to be contemplating on the beauty of the snowy woods. Perhaps the speaker is either on run or of old age?

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End Rhyme— every line has a paired rhyme throughout the entire poem. Rhythm— This rhyme scheme creates a slow rhythm in the poem. Repetition— Frost is repeating the end line of the poem to put emphasis on it, & keep it in the reader’s mind. Alliteration— The repetition of the consonant “d” has the reader see the emphasis put on how dark & deep the woods are. Personification— The speaker’s horse is shaking his bells to ask if there is a mistake. Also, he says that the horse must think his decision queer. AABABBCBCCDCDDDDAABABBCBCCDCDDDD

The literal meaning of Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” is of a man riding a horse through a wooded area during a snowstorm. The man stops to enjoy the snowfall. The horse wants to continue forward, but the man doesn’t want to go, eventually realizing he should continue his journey.

The man feels the “lovely, deep & dark” allure of death, but the horse, most likely his conscience or some other force, reminds him to not give up & die, since he has “miles to go before he sleeps”, which means he has a whole lot more to accomplish & “promises to keep” before he finally “goes to sleep”, or to put it bluntly, dies.

Frost’s purpose for writing this poem was most likely his telling himself to keep going on, don’t give in to death, since shortly before he wrote this poem, he had lost family members close to him, and attempted suicide at one point. It was him telling himself to keep to his duty of living his life out with his wife & other family members, hence the “promises to keep” line in stanza 4.