SOURCE: Coale, Samuel. “The Emblematic Encounter of Robert Frost.” In Frost: Centennial Essays III, edited by the Committee on the Frost Centennial of the University of Southern Mississippi, pp. 107-17. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1978.

In the following excerpt, Coale discusses the theme of man's encounter with the allure of nature in “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.”

Frost admitted that “my best bid for remembrance” ([Lawrance] Thompson [Robert Frost: The Years of Triumph; hereafter cited as Thompson], 598) would be “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” and it is ironic that of all the Frost poems we have examined, this is the least “Frost-y.” It contains all the “proper” Frost images—snow, woods, darkness, a sleigh—but it is extremely unlike the usual stance of mutual confrontation. Frost advised, “Set yourself against the moon. Resist the moon” (Thompson, 77), but here he has not resisted and has...