美国文学

Analysis of the “Stopping by Woodson a Snowy Evening”I. General BackgroundA. Introduction of ROBERT FROST1. The background information on ROBERT FROSTRobert Frost was born in San Francisco, California and spent his early childhood in the Far West. His father ,a good teacher ,and later a editor . At the death of his father ,when Frost was eleven , the family moved to Salem ,New Hampshire .After graduating from high school as valedictorian and class poet in 1892 ,Frost entered Dartmouth College but soon left to work at odd jobs and to write poetry .In 1897 he tried college again ----Harvard ----but he left at the end of two years ,having acquired an enduring dislike for academic convention .For the next twelve years Frost eked out a minimal living by teaching and farming while continuing to write his poems. In 1912 he decided to venture everything on a literary career . Leaving New Hampshire ,he sailed for England ,where he hoped “to write poetry without further scandal to friends or family.Robert Lee is one of the most famous poets in America .He received the Pulitzer Prize four times in his lifetime ,and he was the only poet ever invited to read one of his poems at a presidential inauguration .His poems, like himself ,are also so simple and straight that people can understand the literal meaning .In London ,he published his first book ,A Boy …s Will in 1913 brought him to the attention of influential critics ,among them the American expatriate Ezra Pound ,who praised Frost as an authentic poet .In England ,he made some important acquaintances , including Thomas Ernest Hulme , and Ezra Pound .As World War 1 began ,Frost returned to America in 1915 .He bought a farm in San Francisco ,where he launched a career of writing ,teaching ,and lecturing .B. The introduction of Frost …s some poems form ationSome poems are even like the monologue or dialogues of the farmers .But his poems are only “deceptively simple”. Most of them best profound philosophical meanings of life .He is a 20th-century poet ,but the forms of his poems are old ones ,and people appraise his poems as “new wine in old bottles “.However ,these old bottles are very important for us to understand his poems and to get the deep meanings contained in the forms .II. Analysis the Stopping by Woods on a Snowy EveningA.This poem‟s style :Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,this poem‟s style is l imbic tetrameter and musical rhyme aaba bbcb ccdc dddd link the stanzas together and indicates that the ideas contained in the stanzas are strongly related .Whose woods these are I think I know .His house is in the village though ;He will not see 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 belles a shakeTo ask if there is some mistake .The only other sound‟s 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 .B.Analysis of this poem‟s deeper meaningThrough this poem, we can know that some sentences have other meaning .So there are some examples:1.My little horse must think it queerReminds us again of the everyday man and his life back home, but “queer” leads to an even lonelier scene ,a kind of northern nowhere connected with strangeness of the winter solstice .2.“A nd miles to go before I sleep ,And miles to go before”In the sentence, its‟depth and hidden meaning .As we said ,Frost often repeats several lines in his poems ,but every line contained different meaning .From stopping by woods on a snowy evening,we can get that the themes :1.duty and responsibility 2. Beauty 3. Return to nature .And from the three aspects, we can get the implied meaning .For example: Duty and responsibility : 1.S peaker has “promises to keep ,”which i s waiting to be fulfilled.2.He may be distracted by the snowfall‟s beauty ,but he values keeping a promise.3. The final 2 lines repetition indicate that how he feels about the responsibility lying ahead .Beauty :1.Nature as a standard of beauty is so strong that it make speaker halt .”2. “lovely” “deep”“dark”: the darkness emphasizes the connection between beauty and mystery .3. “eas y wind” the silence of nature ,another standard of beauty . Return to nature :1.Contrasting images of the natural and the man –made . Woods Vs village lake Vs farmhouse horse Vs harness –bell.2.speaker is enchanted with the things of nature ,but is constantly reminded of human being. He decides that returning to nature cannot last .3.How difficult it is for man to stay with nature in the modern world .C. Main features of Frost‟s Poems1.Wordsworthian tradition ---rural scenesa. Fragrant with natural quality.b. Images and metaphors drawn from the rural world ,the simple country life and the pastoral landscape ..c. Nature and Frost‟s rural surroundings were source for insights “from delight to wisdom .”d. He also said : “Literature begins with geography,”2.Philosophic tendency---wit and wisdomUnder the disguise of plain language and simple form ,Frost takes symbols from the limited human world and the pastoral landscape to refer to the great world beyond the rustic scene, to convey deeper meanings.3.Traditional iambic form but modern meaning .4.Profound insights into the superficial trifles .D. Conclusion :This poem is very beautiful lyric .the layout of this poem is very clean –cut .There are four stanzas all together ,and each stanza has four lines .The meters and feet in each line are exactly same .There are four feet in each line ,and each foot has an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one ,so undoubtedly ,this poem is iambic tetrameter . The rhyme scheme is also very regular: aaba ,bbcb. ccdc. dddd. From this rhyme scheme ,we can see clearly that in the first three stanzas , and “the final word unrhymed in the first stanza is linked with words rhymed in the nest to create a continuing patter”. This is called interlocking rhyme ,and in the fourth stanza , the rhyme has no change .Works Cited吴伟仁《美国文学史及选读》外语教学与研究出版社1990 年8月第2版。