Poetry Project - L(a and Stopping By Woods On a Snowy Evening

Robert Frost - Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening

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

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

He gives his harness bells a shake c
To ask if there's some mistake. c
The only other sound's the sweep d
Of easy wind and downy flake. c

The woods are lovely, dark and deep, d
But I have promises to keep, d
And miles to go before I sleep, d
And miles to go before I sleep. d

Literary Devices and Forms:
Situation and Setting
Rhyme
Free verse
Terza rima (Somewhat)- aba bcb cdc ded

Background on Poet:
He was born and raised in Lawrence, Massachusetts. His father had died when he was young, and his mother was a school teacher. Frost worked among others in a textile mill and taught Latin at his mother's school in Methuen, Massachusetts. In 1894 the New York Independent published Frost's poem 'My Butterfly' and he had five poems privately printed. Frost worked as a teacher and continued to write and publish his poems in magazines. He went to Dartmouth and Harvard, but no degrees are mentioned. He moved to England.

His poetry comes from his past. The poems in his published book, North Boston, written with blank verse or looser free verse of dialogue, were drawn from his own life, recurrent losses, everyday tasks, and his loneliness.

After his return from England, he taught at Amherst College and Michigan Universities. His wife died, and four of his children died as well. two suffered from mental break downs, and one committed suicide.

His success continued until his death on January 29, 1963.

My Reaction:

I remember reading this poem in fifth grade. Like my other poem, setting is only the base of the poem. The situation is more important than the setting. In this poem, the speaker is in the woods on a winter night. The setting gives it a depressed feeling, and the situation is derived from this feeling. The speaker mentions that he has "promises to keep" before he sleeps. The promises he has to keep is his life that he has to keep living before he dies. In this poem, death is a topic. The woods and the dark of the winter signify his encounter with death and his perseverence and will to leave, the horse, lead him out of death. As it is seen, setting is used to create the mood of the situation at hand.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncIMCD0E5rE



E.E. Cummings - [l(a]

Literary devices and forms:
Tone
Free verse
Parallelism
situation
setting

Background on Cummings:

Born: October 14, 1894
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Died: September 3, 1962
North Conway, New Hampshire

"The American poet E. E. Cummings wrote verse that presented romantic attitudes in an experimental style." - Similary to Kasey's view on the poem.

His father was a Harvard Professor, and E.E. Cummings (Edward Estlin) was born into a well known family. His mother introduced writing to him. He eventually graduated from Harvard in 1915, and received an advance degree in 1916.

He became an ambulance driver in France before WWII. He was imprisoned, and it was then that he stirred up ideas for his first book. His "romantic transcendentalism" views were not accepted by many. It took 10 years to publish his first poems.

He is known for breaking up words and putting them back together.

He lived in NYC and North Conway, and focused on painting.

http://www.notablebiographies.com/Co-Da/Cummings-E-E.html

My Original thoughts:

This poem really caught my eye, especially because I had no idea what the words were when I first read it. After reading it over, I realized that it says, "a leaf falls" and then "loneliness". This poem really caught my attention because of the form. It is a very horizontally challenged poem, meaning that it can't be read line to line. The direction is always down, which emphasizes the leaf falling from the tree. Then, after being read in the parentheses, Cummings mentions "loneliness".

The use of a few words in each line signifies the loneliness. The line after the two little l's, there is only one letter left, and after that, the word one. To further build on that, it shows that as the leaf is getting further and further from the tree, the loneliness within it, is growing ever more real. The second to last line shows l, which defines loneliness. It seems as though each line illuminates the loneliness of the leaf.

These two terms are parallel to each other. A leaf falling from a tree can be seen as a child almost being excluded from a group, or falling behind. He/she can't seem to hold onto the branch, the group, any longer, and he/she just gives up. As we all know, loneliness is being in solitary isolation, and isn't a leaf falling off of a tree symbolizing just that? That is why, after I read it again, I realized that the leaf falling from the tree is incorporated into loneliness. This falling off, and falling to the ground, is just a part of loneliness that we all have to face sometimes.

Classmates' Input:

The one that strongly contradicts my analysis, but makes complete sense:

I wrote on this poem as well. I wanted to bring to your attention the two L's in the middle of the poem. They are lowercase so they look like ones and it brought me to think that Cummings was trying to say, within all this lonliness, we are happy when we find someone else. He is saying that everyone who feels lonely is simply searching, deep down, for another person to connect with.

- Kasey Quinlan

Also, Charlie mentioned the form of the poem being the number 1. I hadn't realized it before, but then this further strengthened my belief that I was correct. No offense, Kasey. :]

Another thing i found interesting was Lauren's take on it. "l/one/l/iness"

I really thought that Kasey's analysis shed new light on the poem. We saw the two ll's differently. She saw it as two people finding each other, and I saw it as two people drifting away from each other. After reading her post, I did agree with Kasey, but I was still convinced my reasoning was more accurate.

What does everyone else think?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okZ0vvPkX6c

A weird interpretation of it.