Terry Pruyne's Classes
  • Daily Agenda
  • Introduction
    • 10R: INTRODUCTION
  • The Personal Project
    • Checklist for Personal Project
    • Personal Project information Packet
    • Global Contexts >
      • Examples for the Global Context Question
    • Annotated Bibliography: Personal Project >
      • Example of an Annotated Bibliogrpahy
    • The Presentation: Personal Project
  • What is Civil Disobedience?
    • Pathos, Ethos, and Logos >
      • Pathos, Ethos, and Logos in Leter from Birmingham Jail
    • MLK: Letter from Birmingham Jail >
      • Question for "Letter From Birmingham Jail"
    • Literary Elements in "Letter from Birmingham Jail"
    • Thoreau: Where I Live and What I Live For
  • Short Story Unit
    • Science Fiction >
      • Harrison Bergeron >
        • Harrison Bergeron analysis
      • A Sound of Thunder >
        • "Sound of Thunder" analysis
      • All Summer in a Day
    • Short Story Unit: Part II >
      • Lather Research
      • Sniper: Research
      • Sniper Research Paper
    • Superman and Me by Sherman Alexie
  • This I Believe
    • This I Believe: Writing Your Personal Belief
    • This I Believe: Guidelines to Write
    • This I Believe: Philosophy of Life in Songs
    • Thoreau: Where I Live and What I Live For
  • Antigone
    • Antigone: Intro Questions
    • Letter to an Administrator >
      • Letter to an Administrator: sample letter
  • Maus
    • Maus: Chapter 1 Questions
    • Maus: Chapter 2 Questions
    • Maus: Chapter 3 Questions
    • Maus: Chapter 4 Questions
    • Maus: Chapter 5 Questions
    • Maus: Chapter 6 Questions
    • Maus: Understanding Graphic Novels >
      • Maus: Seven Types of Comic Panels
      • Maus: six Types of Transitions
      • Maus: What is Inference
      • Maus: Videos
      • Comic Book Drawings
    • Maus Project >
      • graphic novel project: Spongebob
      • graphic novel project: A Blade in the Night
      • graphic novel project: example
      • Grading the Maus Project
  • Of Mice and Men
    • Of Mice and Men: Introduction
    • Of Mice and Men >
      • Of Mice & Men: The American Dream
      • Themes in Of Mice and Men >
        • Social Consciousness
        • Lonliness in Of Mice and Men
        • The American Dream
      • Literary Elements in Of Mice and Men
      • Chapter Questions
      • Texas Uses Lenny for Execution Role Model
      • Of Mice and Men: You are a Lawyer
      • Documents: Of Mice and Men
      • courtroom
      • Evidence to Convict George
      • Evidence to Defend George
  • MLA Page Set up and Other Important Info and Links
    • Concession and Refutation
  • Poetry
    • Poetry Terms
    • Poetry: The Wind
    • Poetry: Ex-Basketball Player
    • Poetry: Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day?
    • Poetry: The Whipping >
      • Point of View
      • The Whipping Resources
    • Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening >
      • Frost
    • All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace
  • Into the Wild
    • Into the Wild: Why a Road Trip
    • Henry David Thoreau >
      • Thoreau Into the Wild Assignment
      • Thoreau in Into the Wild
      • Commencement Speech at Mount Holyoke College
    • Questions: Into the Wild (Chapters 1-6) >
      • Happiness
      • Aftermath of Into the Wild
  • MLA STYLE EXAMPLE PAPER
  • Help for Passing the Common Core Exam
    • Help for Part I of the New York State Common Core Exam
    • Help for Part II of the New York State Common Core Exam >
      • First Organizer for Part II
      • Second Organizer for Part II
      • Concession and Refutation
    • Help for Part III of the New York State Common Core Exam
    • Literary Terms: Short Definitions for the Commonly Used on New York State Exams
    • Mr. Ruth's Study Guide
  • RHETORIC & EVIDENCE-BASED CLAIMS
    • Political Cartoons
  • Additional Readings
    • Serving in Florida by Barbara Ehreneich
  • Literary Devices Through the Rolling Stones
  • Creating a Brochure
  • 10H: INTRODUCTION
  • Literary Elements
    • Literary Terms: Characterization
    • Literary Terms: Allusion
    • Literary Terms: Theme
    • Literary Elements: Imagery
    • Literary Terms: Conflict
    • Literary Terms: Irony
  • Documenting Sources (Works Cited)

stopping by woods on a snowy evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.   
His house is in the village though;   
He will not see me stopping here   
To watch his woods fill up with snow.   

My little horse must think it queer   
To stop without a farmhouse near   
Between the woods and frozen lake   
The darkest evening of the year.   

He gives his harness bells a shake   
To ask if there is some mistake.   
The only other sound’s the sweep   
Of 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.

  
Robert Frost, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” from The Poetry of
Robert Frost,
edited by Edward Connery Lathem. Copyright 1923, © 1969 by
Henry Holt and Company, Inc., renewed 1951, by Robert Frost. Reprinted with the
permission of Henry Holt and Company, LLC.

Source: Collected Poems, Prose, & Plays (Library of America, 1995)  
QUESTIONS

1. On a literal level, why does the speaker decide to move on just as he's enjoying the beauty of the woods?

2. To understand the poem on a symbolic level, we have to make sense of the connections that will convince us that the poem is much more than our simple literal reading indicates. What might the harness bells remind the speaker of? (What other bells summon us to do things in life?)

3. In contrast to the bells, what do you think the wind "says" tp the speaker? Why is it significant that the speaker hears only two sounds? What conflict is established?

4. "The woods are lovely, dark, and deep," says the speaker, and follows this statement with "But" -- as though scolding himself for being so enchanted with the beautiful scene. This indicates that he has come to his senses, and realizes he has commitments -- but to what, or to whom? What so suppose his "promises" are?

5. Robert Frost was asked many times what the "miles to go" and the "sleep" in this poem symbolizes, but he never answered the questions. When the speaker first says he has "miles to go" before he can "sleep,"  what is he probably thinking of? What metaphorical "sleep" do you think he might mean when he repeats the line?

6. The big question set up by the poem is what those lovely, dark, and deep woods symbolize to this traveler. What idea or value in life has he said "no" to in passing them by?

7. Whatever the woods stands for, what has the speaker said "yes" to in passing them by? In other words, what choice has he made?

8. Do you think the poem is about a feeling that we all might have at one time or another in our lives? Explain.

snowy_evening_questions_1-5.pdf
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snowy_evening_questions_6-8.pdf
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