Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening Notes

* One characteristic that many of Robert Frost's poems have is the appearance of simplicity. Stopping by woods on a snowy evening is an excellent example of this.

* On first read, this poem simply appears to be about the poet stopping by some woods during a journey on one snowy evening. The scene is beautiful, something that he feels he should stop to admire, so he does. He'd like to stay a while longer, but with a gentle reminder from his horse, he knows that he cannot because he has obligations to fulfill, not to mention he still has a long way to travel before he can settle down for the night.

* The structure of the poem also appears to be simple. Each line is iambic with four stressed syllables, which gives the poem a conversational style to it. The rhyming scheme is very easy to spot. The 1st 2nd and 4th lines of each stanza rhyme, while the 3rd line rhymes with the 1st, 2nd, and 4th lines of the following stanza. The only stanza that does not follow this pattern is the fourth and final, with the 1st second and third lines rhyming, and the last line is the third line repeated, therefore all four lines rhyming. Even though the words may seem simple, this rhyming scheme is very difficult to achieve in the English language in a manner in which the words used are those that have not been forced. It is later found out that the difficulty of the structure mirrors the difficulty of the deeper meaning of the poem itself.

* On re-read of the poem - we find that its deeper meaning, is that the narrator is contemplating suicide, and this woods appears to be the perfect place to do this.

* The narrator stops in the woods. These woods belong to somebody, but they live in the village, and they are nowhere around, and as the narrator says "he will not see" him "stopping here". This means that he is completely isolated.

* Again at first that could mean anything... good or bad. But the personification of the horse in the next stanza acts as a foil. As far we are concerned, horses don't think in this manner. Furthermore, the narrator is saying what he thinks the horse must be feeling, this allows for him to hint that there is something strange going on.

* Then we are introduced to darkness, with the "frozen lake" and "the darkest evening of the year" This emphasizes the fact that something more than appreciation of nature is going on here. What better time to pay attention to depression then on the darkest night of the year, which is the winter solstice.

* Again, in the third stanza, the horse is personified. It is unusual for people to take the time out to stop and admire nature, and even the horse realizes this, asking if this is some mistake. Of course, again as far as we're