Hi guys! Sorry but I've been really busy and so it has been difficult for me to find a moment to write on this blog.. However, I'm back! :) Today I'd like to talk about a poem that we studied at school, "Stopping by woods on a snowy evening" by Robert Frost..I hope you'll like it!
This poem has a regular rhythm, with iambic tetrameter and a basilar rhyme scheme composed of four stanzas. Even though it seems to be an extremely simple structure, it is really important ‘cause it conveys to the reader the quiet, still and also hypnotizing, fascinating and a bit scary atmosphere described by the author. In the poem, in fact, we can find plenty of contrast between elements that belong to nature (like the woods, the snow, the lake, the silence, the wind..) and other ones belonging to civilization (such as the village, the farmhouse, the harness bells, the horse, which is a natural element that has been turned into something useful by the human beings..).
This poem has a regular rhythm, with iambic tetrameter and a basilar rhyme scheme composed of four stanzas. Even though it seems to be an extremely simple structure, it is really important ‘cause it conveys to the reader the quiet, still and also hypnotizing, fascinating and a bit scary atmosphere described by the author. In the poem, in fact, we can find plenty of contrast between elements that belong to nature (like the woods, the snow, the lake, the silence, the wind..) and other ones belonging to civilization (such as the village, the farmhouse, the harness bells, the horse, which is a natural element that has been turned into something useful by the human beings..).
The speaking voice chooses to stop there not to do anything, just to watch the woods filling up with snow. He’s on a little horse, which in fact is more similar to a human being because the writer says it can think and do other human actions. The life is far from the smooth scenery described, it’s in the village, away from the protagonist.
We can guess that, in the poet’s mentality, snow, cold and desolation are a symbol of death, which seems to be for the author something positive, warm, not so scary or negative as we are used to thinking. As a matter of fact, it can be considered also something attractive and charming for someone who wants to indulge in the course of events, not having troubles and responsabilities anymore, just letting himself rest, absorbed by the idea of deep, lovely and dark loneliness.
However, in the last part of the composition, the protagonist changes his point of view and reminds himself the promises that he has to keep and the things he has to do, choosing to return to face real life. I think the aim of the writer can be to make us realize the fact that it is normal to have bad moments with obstacles which seem too huge too and which sometimes can also make us wish not to suffer anymore, but we can notice that what can save us is the sense of responsibility, the awareness of having duties towards the others but especially towards ourselves, remembering that we mustn’t waste our sometimes full of pain, but anyway short, time.