SOURCE: Hochman, Jhan. “An Overview of ‘Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.’” In Poetry for Students. Vol. 1, pp. 276–79. Detroit: Gale Research, 1997.

In the following essay, Hochman discusses multiple interpretations of “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” a poem that seems to evade any one definite interpretation.

Perhaps no poem of Robert Frost is more anthologized and studied than “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”. The poem appeared in Frost's collection, New Hampshire: A Poem with Notes and Grace Notes (1923) for which he won one of four Pulitzer Prizes. Even Frost called the poem his “best bid for remembrance.” “Stopping,” describes an unremarkable moment: a driver stopping his horse-drawn buggy to look at the woods, his horse shaking the harness bells which the driver thinks is the horse's way of saying, “There must be some mistake,” and the driver deciding it is time to move on...