Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening.docx

Stopping By Woods on a Snowy EveningWhose woods these are I think I know.His house is in the village though;He will not see me stopping hereTo watch his woods fill up with snow.My little horse must think it queerTo stop without a farmhouse nearBetween the woods and frozen lakeThe darkest evening of the year.He gives his harness bells a shakeTo ask if there is some mistake.The only other sounds the sweepOf easy wind and downy flake.The woods are lovely, dark and deep.But I have promises to keep,And miles to go before I sleep,And miles to go before I sleep.Stopping by Woods on a Snowy EveningStopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening is apoemwritten in 1922 byRobert Frost, and published in 1923 in hisNew Hampshirevolume.Imageryandpersonificationare prominent in the work. In a letter toLouis Untermeyer, Frost called it my best bid for remembrance.1Contentshide 1Overview 2Use in eulogies 3In other media 4References 5External linksOvervieweditFrost wrote the poem in June 1922 at his house inShaftsbury, Vermont. He had been up the entire night writing the long poem New Hampshire and had finally finished when he realized morning had come. He went out to view the sunrise and suddenly got the idea for Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.1He wrote the new poem about the snowy evening and the little horse as if Id had a hallucination in just a few minutes without strain.2The poem is written iniambic tetrameterin theRubaiyatRub(Persian:rub, quatrain)1is a poetry style. It is used to describe aPersianquatrain(a stanza or poem of four lines), or its derivative form in English and other languages. The plural form of the word,rubiyt(), often anglicisedrubaiyat, is used to describe a collection of such quatrains.2There are a number of possiblerhyme schemesto the rubaiyat form, e.g. AABA, AAAA.3InPersianverse, the rubai is usually written as a four-line (or two-couplet) poem, with rhymes at the middle and end of each line.stanzacreated byEdward Fitzgerald. Each verse (save the last) follows ana-a-b-arhyming scheme, with the following verses as rhyming with that verses b, which is achain rhyme(another example is theterza rimaused inDantesInferno.) Overall, the rhyme scheme is AABA-BBCB-CCDC-DDDD.3The text of the poem describes the thoughts of a lone rider, pausing at night in his travel to watch snow falling in the woods. It ends with him reminding himself that, despite the loveliness of the view, I have promises to keep, / And miles to go before I sleep, / And miles to go before I sleep.The basic conflict in the poem, resolved in the last stanza, is between an attraction toward the woods and the pull of responsibility outside of the woods. What do woods represent? Something good? Something bad? Woods are sometimes a symbol for wildness, madness, the pre-rational, the looming irrational. But these woods do not seem particularly wild. They are someones woods, someones in particular-the owner lives in the village. But that owner is in the village on this, the darkest evening of the year-so would any sensible person be. That is where the division seems to lie, between the village (or society, civilization, duty, sensibility, responsibility) and the woods (that which is beyond the borders of the village and all it represents). If the woods are not particularly wicked, they still possess the seed of the irrational; and they are, at night, dark-with all the varied connotations of darkness.Use in eulogieseditIn the early morning of November 23, 1963,Sid DavisofWestinghouse Broadcastingreported the arrival of PresidentJohn F. Kennedys casket to theWhite House. As Frost was one of the Presidents favorite poets, Davis concluded his report with a passage from this poem but was overcome with emotion as he signed off.45At the funeral of former Canadian prime ministerPierre Trudeau, on October 3, 2000, his eldest sonJustinrephrased the last stanza of this poem in his eulogy: The woods are lovely, dark and deep. He has kept his promises and earned his sleep.6In other mediaeditInVladimir Nabokovs novelPale Fire, the narrator references the poem directly, calling it one of the greatest short poems in the English language, a poem that every American boy knows by heart.7In the season three episode ofThe Sopranos,Proshai, Livushka, Meadow attempts to help A.J. with his report on the poem. While A.J. mistakenly believes the poem to be about Christmas, Meadow tells him its about death.American composerRandall Thompsonincluded the poem in his choral workFrostiana: Seven Country Songs, which was originally conducted by Thompson with Frost in attendance. Another choral interpretation, titledSleep, was written by American composerEric Whitacre. Due to copyright, the text of the composition was re-written by Charles Anthony Silvestri to comply with the wishes of Frosts estate.89In the 1977Cold WarthrillerTelefon, the last stanza is used as a trigger phrase to activate brainwashed sleeper agents.10InQuentin Tarantinos 2007 filmDeath Proof, the final stanza of the poem is used by Jungle Julia as the secret phrase that her listeners must say to receive alap dancefrom Julias friend while they are out on the town.11Jawaharlal Nehruhad copied the last stanza of the poem in his own hand, sometime before his death, and always kept it by his side.12In the video gameThe Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, one of thequestsis named Promises to Keep, after that phrases appearance in the poem, which involves stealing a horse named Frost.In the video gameThe Walking Dead: Season Two, the player receives an achievement titled Miles to Go, for completing a chapter of the story in which the characters walk through a snowy wood.13In the TV seriesElementaryseason one episode Dean Mans Switch, Holmes is given a framed copy of the poem by Watson as an anniversary gift.Referencesedit1. Jump up to:abTuten, Nancy Lewis; Zubizarreta, John (2001).The Robert Frost Encyclopedia. Greenwood Publishing. p.347.ISBN0-313-29464-X. Retrieved9 December2011.2. Jump upFrost, Carol.Sincerity and Inventions: On Robert Frost.Academy of American Poets. Retrieved2010-03-04.3. Jump upPoirier, Richard (1977).Robert Frost: The Work of Knowing. London: Oxford University Press. p.181.ISBN0-19-502216-5.In fact, the woods are not, as the Lathem edition would have it (with its obtuse emendation of a comma after the second adjective in line 13), merely lovely, dark, and deep. Rather, as Frost in all the editions he supervised intended, they are lovely, i.e. dark and deep; the loveliness thereby partakes of the depth and darkness which make the woods so ominous.4. Jump upDavis, Sid (NovemberDecember 2003).My Brush with History - We Heard the Shots : Aboard the Press Bus in Dallas 40 Years Ago(PDF).American H. . p.Found in American H November/December 2003 issue. Retrieved30 June2013.5. Jump upDavis, Sid; Bennett, Susan; Trost, Catherine Cathy; Rather, Daniel Dan Irvin Jr (2004). Return To The White House.President Kennedy Has Been Shot: Experience The Moment-to-Moment Account of The Four Days That Changed America. Newseum (illustrated ed.). Naperville,IL: Sourcebooks. p.173.ISBN1-