Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost and If Sleep and Death be Truly One by Alfred Lord Tennyson COMPARATIVE STUDY

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Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost

and

If Sleep and Death be Truly One” by Alfred Lord Tennyson

COMPARATIVE STUDY

Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on Thee,

and I'll forgive Thy great big joke on me.

”MISTER” AND ”THE LORD ”

Robert Frost and Alfred Tennyson are two illustrious poets from two different worlds with some kindred spirits – United States and United Kingdom. The first, Robert Frost, is one of America's best known and most popular poets who lived between 1874-1963, whereas the latter author is an English poet who was made ”poet laureate” and lived between 1809-1892.

As one can easily realise, despite their dissimilar origin, they both managed to create poetry in a marvellous manner and to enjoy the privilege of being acknowledged for this reason by their contemporaneity. Thus, very popular and often-quoted poet, Robert Frost was frequently honoured during his lifetime, receiving four .

On the other side, Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson, much better known as "Alfred, Lord Tennyson”, succeeded to the position of  (the title for the official poet of the ), during much of Queen Victoria's reign and remains one of the most popular poets in the English language.

Stopping by woods …

        “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” is generally regarded as Frost's masterpiece. The poem was included in Frost's collection “New Hampshire” (1923) for which he won the first of his four Pulitzer Prizes. It is Frost's most famous poem, and one which he himself viewed as his “best bid for remembrance.” It is also perhaps Frost's most frequently taught and anthologized poem. The speaker in the poem, a traveller by horse on the darkest night of the year, stops to gaze at a woods filling up with snow. While he is drawn to the beauty of the woods, he remembers he has obligations which pull him away from the allure of nature. The lyric quality of “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” can be heard in the enchanting final stanza: “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.”

        The poem is elegant, yet very mysterious when it comes to its core significance. When asked to reveal the hidden meaning of his poem, Robert Frost’s answer was as puzzling as possible: “If I wanted you to know I’d had told you in the poem.”

If Sleep and Death …

        This poem is only a short fragment from a larger composition, “In Memoriam A.H.H. created it as a requiem for a good friend of him, , who died suddenly of a  in  in 1833, at the age of 22. Because it was written over a period of 17 years, its meditation on the search for hope after great loss touches upon many of the most important and deeply-felt concerns of Victorian society. It contains some of Tennyson's most accomplished lyrical work, and is an unusually sustained exercise in lyric verse. It is widely considered to be one of the great poems of the 19th century.

The poem was a great favourite of , who found it a source of solace after the death of  in 1861: "Next to the , In Memoriam is my comfort." – she used to say. In 1862, Victoria requested a meeting with Tennyson because she was so impressed by the poem.

MAJOR THEMES

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Like many of Frost’s poems,  “Stopping …” explores the theme of the individual caught between nature and civilization. The speaker's location is on the border between civilization and wilderness and it echoes a common theme throughout American literature. The speaker is drawn to the beauty and allure of the woods, which represent nature, but has obligations—“promises to keep”—which draw him away from nature and back to society and the world of men. The speaker is thus faced with a choice of whether to give in to the allure of nature, or remain in the realm of society. Some critics have ...

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