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Analysis of Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening Essay

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Analysis of Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Diction (i.e. choice of vocabulary) The diction of "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" is extremely simple. None of the vocabulary is difficult or unusual, and most of the most of the words are short and plain, for example 'woods', 'house', 'snow', 'horse'. None of the descriptions, either of the setting, or the horse, is detailed or elaborate: the horse is simply, 'little'; the lake is 'frozen' (but we learn nothing else about it), and the only time more than one adjective is used to described anything is when we are told that the woods are: 'lovely, dark and deep'.

One major effect of such plain and simple diction is to give the poem a …show more content…

Rhyme and Rhythm Complementing and reinforcing its simple, present tense diction, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" also has an extremely regular rhythm and a deliberately repetitive rhyme scheme:

· In stanza 1: Lines 1, 2 and 4 all rhyme ('know', 'though', 'snow'), and only line 3 ('here') does not rhyme.

· But line 3 of stanza 1 becomes the rhyme sound for the first, second and fourth lines of stanza 2: 'queer', 'near', 'year'.

· This format is repeated in stanza 3: the first, second and fourth lines rhyme ('shake', 'mistake', 'flake') and the third line ('sweep') does not rhyme but it becomes the rhyme sound for stanza 4 ('deep', 'keep', 'sleep', 'sleep').

· Unlike the previous three stanzas, the final stanza is odd because every line has the same rhyme.

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

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