Robert Frost the famous poet has written many poems that often have many common characteristics that work to give his poems several common themes. Two of these themes that Frost often uses is the use of setting through nature. These literary devices become apparent in several of his poem's, especially "The Road Not Taken" and "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening".
Frost's use of setting in his poetry has labeled Frost as a nature poet. In fact Frost is often considered one of America's best example of a nature poet. Donald Greiner points out that Frost "writes about birch trees and rose pogonias, mending walls, mowing, and going for water"(207). Frost's use of nature and setting in his poetry may be argued that it is linked to his life in New England. Frost's descriptions of trees and forests and woods are very typical of the stereotypical New England Landscape. .
Spending much of his life in rural New Hampshire many argue that the time he spent there is responsible for Frost's ability to incorporate the use of nature .
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and setting into his poetry. Frost once wrote "I might say the core of all my writing was probably the five free years I had there on the farm down the road a mile or two from Derry Village"(Westbrook 239-240). Frost went on to refer to those years as "the most sacred in his entire life"(Westbrook 240).
Many years ago "Robert Frost was quoted as saying that "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" contained all he ever knew and that he would like to print it with "Forty pages of footnotes" (Rosenberry 526). In Frost's poem the use of woods can be argued to have a much deeper meaning than the literal sense. Greiner points out that "the majority of Frost's symbolic poems focuses on man's relationship with nature. Yet, though nature threatens man with destruction, its very challenge creates courage, and so life, within him"(209). This is one possible reason that Frost focuses so much on the nature in the setting.
