It makes you feel as though a friend or neighbor is talking to you.

There is something comforting about the absence of fancy language. The poem is readily accessible all its words would be easily understood by the average high school student. In other words, not much happens – or so it seems. Then he decides to get back into the carriage and head on to his destination. He stops and stands by the roadside and looks at the snow falling into the woods. In four short stanzas of four lines each Frost tells the story of a man riding through the countryside in a horse-drawn carriage on a snowy evening. On the surface, the poem may seem simple. For example, it came in at number 31 in a 1995 survey of Britain’s favorite poems. Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening is certainly pleasant to read, but what makes it such a great favorite? Experts routinely list it as one of the greatest poems of the 20th century, and it is also popular with the general public. Here is his rendition:Īnalysis | What makes Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, by Robert Frost such a great favorite? Here is the poem: Stopping by Woods on a Snowy EveningĪnd for those of you who might like to hear how it sounds when somebody else recites it, my son Josh offered to record it when we were out walking together in the snow. What could I say to her to make a difference? It might seem strange that I would think about this person in connection with Robert Frost’s classic lyrical poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.” She had preselected a site in downtown Washington DC where she could drive off a bridge without her seatbelt on and have an accident that was sure to kill her and nobody else.

Yet, as we spoke about her feelings of depression and hopelessness, none of that seemed reason enough to stay alive. She was highly accomplished, well-liked by family and colleagues and, to an outsider, would certainly have seemed to have everything to live for. On one occasion when that happened, I was in-session with a woman roughly my own age. You are in an office with somebody who is telling you that he or she has no reason or desire to live any longer. It was a scenario that every psychiatrist has learned to dread.

A walk in the woods book sparknotes