The Poetry of Robert Frost

by Woods on a Snowy Evening" provides one of the more interesting and revealing examples. Consideration of the process of Frost's creativity in the writing of this poem must take these two major factors into account: the simple pastoral scene used as the poem's "setting" and the idea or thought of the poem itself.

In "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" the poet-as-narrator draws the reader into the world of his experience on two levels, and it is the conjunction and relationship between these two levels that the meaning of the poem derives. He begins the poem and continues for the majority of its length describing a particular wintry scene he once encountered. And by means of the way he describes the scene and the approach he utilizes in talking about it, he adds detail upon detail not solely to the physical description, but to the revelation of what is going on in the mind of the poet as well.

In the introductory lines of the poem, although there is no direct, verbal indication of it made, the sense communicated is that the "spea

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n the first four lines of the poem there is a suggestion that the woods not only "belong" to some absent "owner," but that the owner is not so much a physical as a metaphysical being. In the first line, "Whose woods these are I think I know, "there is more an apprehension of a power beyond men than some human individual owning the woods but living in the village. "His house is in the village though," further contributes to this through the allusion to the New England House of Worship, the church. Thus, the first lines of the poem begin by creating a mystical, almost metaphysical feeling in the reader through the combination of the beauty and majesty of the natural scene, and the suggestion that some higher power may be at work in its "ownership" and creation. From this rather abstract concept, in the next stanza the poet changes his focus to the more concrete: "My little horse." In a sense, however, this change of focus further contributes to the totality of the feeling and thought of the poem. In the first stanza the man found himself confronted with the effects of forces at work to influence his life and environment which were beyond his full understanding. In the second stanza a similar situation is presented: the horse, sud
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1933
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)

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