The two poems I have chosen to compare are “The Road Not Taken” and “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost.  These two poems are those of Frost’s most much-loved works. Indeed, they both are exceptionally beautiful. Despite the apparent simplicity of poetic structure, Frost’s works communicate truly great ideas. About “The Road Not Taken” it is said: “The poem may seem to many to be the great pastoral symphony of his works; upon closer probing, however, one uncovers discordant notes and tense ambiguities” (Timmerman 69). True indeed, if being analyzed closely, both poems reveal unexpected meanings. They seem to disclose same issues, yet, in fact, have many dissimilarities and specific features.

Both Robert Frost’s poems “The Road Not Taken” and “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” reveals the theme of troubles caused by necessity of making choices in life. “Frost has written any number of poems that have such acts of choice as their dynamic center — choices that have been made, choices that will be made or that must be made, choices that have not been made” (Nitchie 157). In the first one the speaker comes upon a fork in the road while travelling through a wood. Considering both paths, he finally chooses one, realizing that his decision predetermines his destiny, since there would hardly be any way he could come back to that specific point of time and make another choice. The narrator concludes on a regretful note, wondering how different things would have been had he chosen the other road. In the second poem we observe how the narrator stops his sleigh to watch the snow falling in the woods on a gloomy winter evening. After a few moments of enjoying the beauty of winter scenery, he continues on his way unwillingly. Even though the themes of both poems are quite alike, there are, however, specific dissimilarities among them. “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” is about youth and dealing with life circumstances. Narrator observes the world in a positive way: even though he is under the burden of promises to be kept, he enjoys an easy wind, a downy lake, the lovely dark woods, he takes pleasure in living. “The Road Not Taken” is more probably about old age or, perhaps, an old spirit disillusioned, tired and worn out by life.  It is full or regret, of doubts about whether the chosen path is a right one. In “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” the speaker searches for a life deprived of soreness and fighting, yet still he has to act in accordance with social responsibility, which reproduces the obligation imposed on him by the society: “But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep” (Frost 14-15). “In “The Road Not Taken” the problem of choice is in a way even more elementary, since neither self-interest, moral obligation, nor even curiosity provides a real basis for preferring one road to the other” (Nitchie 17). The speaker prefers the unusual method of the decision making process, in such a way demonstrating his individuality and challenging state of mind: “Then took the other, as just as fair, and having perhaps the better claim, because it was grassy and wanted wear” (Frost 6).

The structure of both poems is quite similar. In relation to text they both seem to be quite plain. When analyzing “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” we observe that in sixteen lines, there is not a sole three-syllable word and only sixteen two-syllable words. Nevertheless, in relation to rhythmic scheme and form, the poems are unexpectedly elaborate. The poem is constructed of four stanzas, each one with four stressed syllables in iambic meter. For instance, in the first stanza first, second, and fourth lines rhyme, whereas the third line rhymes with the first, second, and fourth lines of the following stanza. “The interest in the final stanza is heightened by Frost’s repetend, or doubled last line” (Juten and Zubizarreta 348). Frost himself claimed that “the repetend was the only logical way to end such a poem” (Juten and Zubizarreta 348). Such an evocative duplication along with the preventive rhyme scheme and the promptness of the iambic tetrameter lines gives the poem its distinguishing worth. “The Road Not Taken” consists of four stanzas of five lines, each with a rhyme scheme of ABAAB. All stanzas and lines consistently the same length.