“The Road Not Taken,” while admittedly the most popular of Frost’s work, is not his most misunderstood poem. That honor belongs to “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” which appears to be a Janus-faced coin: on one side is a charming poem about a man caught up in the wonder of an evening snowfall in the woods; on the other is a momento mori poem with, perhaps, a suicide subtext. How do we reconcile the two?
The common mistake that readers and critics have made with Frost’s work is to read metaphor and symbol out of the poetry and attempt to render it as stark realism. It is Frost’s ulteriority, often revealed through the unconventional use of familiar poetic figurations, that compels us to explore the agons inherent in his work, otherwise we’d have very few reasons to return to the poems as often as we do.
Ann Marie Mikkelsen’s extensive research has yielded a very informative book on the use of pastoral themes in twentieth century poetry. Her prime exhibits are select poems by Robert Frost, William Carlos Williams, Wallace Stevens and John Ashbery, but she also briefly covers works by Gertrude Stein, Lyn Hejinian and Lisa Robertson.
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