STOPPING BY WOODS ON A SNOWY EVENING

Reading the title I expect the poem is about a person who is travelling trough woods on a snowy evening and she or he stops by a wood. I don't understand if the protagonist is a man or a woman.

The title consists in seven words: one verb, two nouns, an adjective, an article and two prepositions. But four words highlight and they are: stopping, woods and snowy evening. Maybe they are the most important elements in the poem. The title creates curiosity, because it is compound by a strange succession of words.

The lay-out is very simple and it consists of four identically stanzas. Each line has stressed syllables. Within the four lines each stanza, the first, the second and fourth lines rhyme. The third doesn't, but it sets up the rhymes for the next stanza. The exception comes in the final stanza, where the third line rhymes with the previous two.

I think the poem is divided in three parts: the first part is the first stanza, the second part is the second and the third stanzas and the third part is the fourth stanza. In the first part the speaker speaks about the wood and says that he or she is stopping by a wood and it intrigues the speaker and it stimulates speaker's curiosity. In the second part is the entry in the wood and the discover of fantastic landscapes like frozen lake and the snow covers the wood. Finally in the third part the speaker chooses to exit from the wood. So before there is the mystery, after there is curiosity to test new feelings and emotion and in the end reason intervenes.

This poem seems easy, but it has a complex meaning. Like the woods it describes, the poem is difficult to interpretate. Every element has a particularly meaning, the woods represents wildness, madness. The horse represents reason and the village the society. The division is between the village, that is the responsibility and the woods, that is irrational things. An other important element is the attraction to danger, to death.

In this case he or she decides to exit from the wood, but she or he was attracted to stay there. This poem teaches that to hazard isn't always bad, there are maybe beautiful things.