FREE ESSAY ON STOPPING BY WOODS

STOPPING BY WOODS

The visible sign of the poet's preoccupation--the word is not too strong--is the recurrent
image, particularly in his earlier work, of dark woods and trees, Often, as in the lyric
with which we have begun, the world of the woods..., a world offering perfect quiet and
solitude, exists side by side with the realization that there is also another world, a
world of people and social obligations. Both worlds have claims on the poet. He stops by
woods on this darkest evening of the year to watch them fill up with snow, and lingers so
long that his little horse shakes his harness bells to ask if there is some mistake. The
poet is put in mind of the promises he has to keep, of the miles he still must travel. We
are not told, however, that the call of social responsibility proves stronger than the
attraction of the woods, which are lovely as well as dark and deep; the poet and his
horse have not moved on at the poem's end. The dichotomy of the poet's obligations both
to the woods and to a world of promises--the latter filtering like a barely heard echo
through the almost hypnotic state induced by the woods and falling snow-is what gives
this poem its singular interest.... The artfulness of Stopping by Woods consists in the
way the two worlds are established and balanced. The poet is aware that the woods by
which he is stopping belong to someone in the village; they are owned by the world of
men. But at the same time they are his, the poet's woods, too, by virtue of what they
mean to him in terms of emotion and private signification.
. . . .
What appears to be simple is shown to be not really simple, what appears to be innocent
not really innocent.... The poet is fascinated and lulled by the empty wastes of white
and black. The repetition of sleep in the final two lines suggests that he may succumb to
the influences that are at work. There is no reason to suppose that these influences are
benignant. It is, after all, the darkest evening of the year, and the poet is alone
between the woods and frozen lake. His one bond with the security and warmth of the outer
world, the little horse who wants to be about his errand, is an unsure one. The
ascription of lovely to this scene of desolate woods, effacing snow, and black night
complicates rather than alleviates the mood when we consider how pervasive are the
connotations of dangerous isolation and menacing death.
From From Woods to Stars: A Pattern of Imagery in Robert Frost's Poetry. South Atlantic
Quarterly. Winter 1959.
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Jeffrey Meyers
Like The Road Not Taken, it suggests vast thematic implications through a lucid
narrative. . . .
The most amazing thing about this work is that three of the fifteen lines (the last line
repeats the previous one) are transformations from other poems. He gives his harness
bells a shake comes from Scott's The Rover (in Palgrave): He gave the bridle-reins a
shake.: The woods are lovely, dark and deep comes from Thomas Lovell Beddoes' The Phantom
Wooer: Our bed is lovely, dark, and sweet. The concluding And miles to go before I sleep
comes from Keats' Keen Fitful Gusts: And I have many miles on foot to fare. Though these
three lines are variations from other poets, Frost, writing in the tradition of English
verse, makes them original and new, and integrates them perfectly into his own poem.
The theme of Stopping by Woods--despite Frost's disclaimer--is the temptation of death,
even suicide