1. Good Morning
Please have your typed questions out and your Frost poetry packet open to the essay.
Today:
“Stopping by a Wood…”

2. “Poetry is merely one more art of having something to say.”
Robert Frost ( )
“Poetry is merely one more art of having something to say.”

3. Robert Frost (1874-1963) Born in San Francisco
Father died when 11 years old
Moved to New England
Accepted to Harvard, went to Dartmouth for one semester
Jobs included news writer, teacher, farming, etc.
Known for poetry about New England, nature, death, life, etc.

4. “How does a Poem Mean” by John Ciardi
How does the poem move from specific to general?
Who is the “foil”? How does he operate as foil?
Why is rhyming easier in French and Italian, than in English?
What does Frost mean about “moving easy in a harness”? What is the harness? How does this apply to his poems?
How is Frost’s poetry like juggling?

5. Read Characteristics of Frost’s poetry (pg. 8)

6. (We’ll look at them in more detail later)
Form
(We’ll look at them in more detail later)
Lyric poem
Dramatic monologue
Dramatic narrative with dialogue
Sonnet
Which one is “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”? Mark this on the poem.

7. Meter Unaccented (u), Accented (/) = iambic Tonight, away
u / u / u / u /
Whose woods these are I think I know.
u / u / u / u /
His house is in the village though;

8. Rhyme scheme (end rhyme)
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.

9. Rhyme Whose woods these are I think I know. a
His house is in the village though; a
He will not see me stopping here b
To watch his woods fill up with snow. a
My little horse must think it queer b
To stop without a farmhouse near b
Between the woods and frozen lake c
The darkest evening of the year. b

10. Literary Terms Review “literary terms” page
Using this and the “Characteristics” sheet, return to “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.”
Add to your notes until you feel you have noted everything, including meter, rhyme scheme, syllables, stanzas, repetition, etc.
Approx. 7 minutes on this.

11. “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”
Meter?
Rhyme Scheme?
How many stanzas?
Form?
Topic?
Themes?
Let’s not beat it up; moving on…

12. Who is feeling brave?? Three volunteers…
Annotations
Literal Meanings
Possible Interpretations/Metaphoric meaning backed with evidence from annotations

13. “The Road Not Taken” (p. 15)
Not having read it recently, what do you think this poem is “about”?
Frost called this “a very tricky poem”; forget what you think you know about it and read it with new, innocent curiosity…
Mark it up…

14. “The Road Not Taken”

15. “The Road Not Taken” (p. 15)
Volunteers to discuss: Literal meaning, annotations, and figurative meaning explaining how form contributes to this.
Label “form” (narrative, dramatic monologue, sonnet, lyric?)
Setting?
Topic(s)?
Meaning/Themes?
Does it have the same meaning as you thought, before?

16. Points to Know
Past tense through last stanza future tense “I shall be…”
Symbols of paths/roads/woods
Themes: choice vs fate; regret; nostalgia; freedom to choose but not know
Ambiguity with the title
Is “the road not taken” “the road less traveled”? = not taken by most people?
Or “the road not taken” “the first” one, the one that the speaker did not take?
Ego

17. Do you see the contradictions? Do you agree with Frost that this is a
“very tricky” poem?
“I’m always saying something that’s just the edge of something more” (Frost).

18. Homework Read/mark “The Woodpile” (p. 17).
This poem tends to be the hardest of the lot- so use your handouts for specifics and include possible interpretation. DO NOT RUSH!
Finish marking “Stopping by Woods…” and “The Road Not Taken”

19. Main ideas in “The Figure a Poem Makes”
“Poetry as merely one more art of having something to say.”
Wildness within restraints
“It begins in delight and ends in wisdom.”
Poetry offers a “clarification of life,” “a momentary stay against confusion.”
“the surprise of remembering something I didn’t know I knew.”

20. Main ideas in “The Figure a Poem Makes”
“We are always
hurling experience ahead of us
to pave the future with[,]
against the day when we may want to
strike a line of purpose across it…”