Stopping by Woods

The Text
(Rhyming Lines in Notes and Comments
Color)
1
Whose woods
these are I think I Alliteration: This figure of speech helps rhyme to maintain cadence. The main alliterative sound is "H"–whose, his,
know, house, he, here, his. Alliteration also occurs in "W" sounds (woods, will, watch, and woods) and "S" sounds (see,
His house is in the stopping, snow).
village though. Rhyme: Rhyme occurs at the end of Lines 1, 2, and 4 (know, though, snow) and within Lines 1-4 (these, see, me;
He will not see me village, will, fill; is, in, his). Notice that here establishes the end rhyme for Lines, 1, 2, and 4 of the second stanza.
stopping here, Comment: The traveler appears worried that he is committing an offense by looking upon woods owned by another
To watch his man. Nevertheless, he steals a look, for the other man "will not see me stopping here."
woods fill up with
snow.
Alliteration: This figure of speech also enhances this stanza (my, must; little, lake; horse, farmhouse; farmhouse,
2 frozen.
My little horse Use of Little: Here, the poet bids for the sympathy of the reader. The word little suggests that the speaker/narrator is
must think it a humble, ordinary citizen who cannot afford a more imposing horse.
queer, Rhyme: Rhyme occurs at the end of Lines 1, 2, and 4 (queer, near, year) and within Lines 1-4 (little, it, without;
To stop without a without, house; between, evening). Notice that lake establishes the end rhyme for Lines, 1, 2, and 4 of the third
farmhouse near, stanza.
Between the Comment: This stanza, in developing the setting, tells us that the location is remote (without any nearby
woods and frozen farmhouses), that the weather has been cold enough to freeze a lake, and that the evening is the darkest of the
lake, year. Darkest here could have more than one meaning, some writers have suggested–that is, the traveler could be
The darkest depressed, downcast. However, the speaker/narrator says the horse probably thinks it odd that his master has
evening of the stopped between the woods and lake on a dark evening. This observation suggests that the darkness is external
year. only, for the speaker is using the word darkest to explain the horse's reaction. In other words, if the horse could
speak, he would say, "I think it's queer that my master has stopped in front of these woods on such a dark evening."
3
He gives his
harness bells a
shake,
Alliteration: he, his, harness; ask, some, mistake, sound's, sweep
To ask if there is
Personification: The horse "asks" a question.
some mistake.
Comment: Sounds are important in this stanza–namely, the sounds of the bells, the wind, and the snowflakes. All of
The only other
the sounds are gentle, contrasting with the cacophony of everyday life in a town.
sound's the
sweep,
Of easy wind and
downy flake.
4
The woods are Alliteration: dark, deep
lovely, dark and Line 1 of Stanza 4: Not Entirely Original? Thomas Lovell Beddoes (1803-1849) wrote a poem entitled "The Phantom
deep, Wooer," in which a ghost who loves a beautiful lady stands at her beside one evening and invites her to join him in
But I have his quiet tomb, where "Our bed is lovely, dark, and sweet." (Compare lovely, dark, and sweet with lovely, dark and
promises to deep.) Critics have cited this line to support their arguments that the traveler in "Stopping by Woods" considers
keep, entering the deep, dark woods to end his life.
And miles to go Comment: The traveler would like to stay for a while, and perhaps even enter the woods to absorb their ambience
before I sleep, and ponder the mystery of life and nature. However, he has commitments, obligations, responsibilities. Therefore,
And miles to go he decides to move on. But the poem does not say whether he in fact moves on. One presumes that he does.
before I sleep.
On a Snowy Evening
A Poem by Robert Frost
.

Setting

Frost wrote “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” while residing in the village of Franconia in the northwestern corner of New
Hampshire. It seems likely that woods near Franconia inspired him to write the poem and that Franconia is the village mentioned in Line
2. The time is “the darkest evening of the year.” If by this phrase the speaker/narrator means the longest night of the year–that is, the
night with the most hours of darkness–then the day is either December 21 or 22. In the northern hemisphere, the winter solstice occurs
each year on one of those days. The solstice is the moment when the sun is farthest south.
Characters

The Observer (Speaker/Persona/Narrator): A person traveling by a horse-drawn wagon (or cart or carriage) on a rural road. The
traveler stops to observe snow piling up in woods.
The Horse: A small horse with a bell attached to its harness. It shakes its head, ringing the bell, to signal that it does not understand
why its master has stopped.
Owner of the Woods: A man who lives in a nearby village. He is mentioned in the first stanza of the poem.

Publication Information

“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening ” was published in 1923 in a collection of poems entitled New Hampshire. This collection won
Robert Frost a Pulitzer Prize and widespread recognition as an important American writer.

Meaning of the Poem

.......“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” presents one person’s momentary encounter with nature. We do not know whether the
speaker (narrator) is a man or a woman. In fact, we know nothing at all about the person except that he or she has been traveling on a
country road in a horse-drawn wagon (or cart or carriage) on "the darkest evening of the year." If by this phrase the speaker/narrator
means the longest night of the year–that is, the night with the most hours of darkness–then the day is either December 21 or 22. In the
northern hemisphere, the winter solstice occurs each year on one of those days. The solstice is the moment when the sun is farthest
south. However, if by "darkest evening" he means most depressing, bleakest, or gloomiest, he may be referring to his state of mind.
.......Let us assume that the speaker is a man, the poet Frost himself, who represents all people on their journey through life. When he
sees an appealing scene, woods filling with snow, he stops to observe. Why does this scene appeal to him? Because, he says, the
woods are “lovely, dark, and deep.”
.......Perhaps he wishes to lose himself in their silent mystery, away from the routine and regimen of everyday life–at least for a while.
Maybe the woods remind him of his childhood, when he watched snow pile up in hopes that it would reach Alpine heights and cancel
school and civilization for a day. Or perhaps they represent risk, opportunity–something dangerous and uncharted to be explored. It
could be, too, that they signify the mysteries of life and the afterlife or that they represent sexual temptation: They are, after all, lovely,
dark, and deep.
.......The traveler might also regard the woods as the nameless, ordinary people who have great beauty within them but are ignored by
others. This interpretation recalls a theme in Thomas Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard,” in which Gray writes:
Full many a gem of purest ray serene,
The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flow'r is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.
Here the gem in the bottom of the ocean and the flower in the desert symbolize neglected people with much to offer the world if only
someone would take time notice them. The woods in Frost’s poem are just as lovely as the flower and just as dark and deep as the
cave holding the gem, but civilization pays little heed to the gem, the flower, and the woods.
.......Perhaps Frost sees the woods as a symbol of the vanishing wilderness consumed by railroads, highways, cities, shopping centers,
parking lots. A man in the village owns the woods now. What will he do with them?
.......In 1958, poet John Ciardi (1916-1986) suggested in Saturday Review magazine that the woods in Frost's poem symbolize death .
He further wrote that the speaker/narrator wants to enter the woods–that is, he wants to die, commit suicide. Frost himself scoffed at
this interpretation in public appearances and in private conversations. But is it possible that Frost's subconscious mind was speaking in
the poem, revealing thoughts and desires unknown to his conscious mind?
.......Maybe, in the end, the woods and the snow are what they are: quiet, peaceful, beautiful. Although the traveler wants to stay to look
at them, he has promises to keep, and miles to go before he sleeps.

Structure and Meter

The poem consists of four stanzas, each with four lines. (A four-line stanza is called a quatrain.) Each line in the poem has eight
syllables (or four feet). In each line, the first syllable is unstressed, the second is stressed, the third is unstressed, the fourth is stressed,
and so on. Thus, the poem is in iambic tetrameter. An iamb is a foot containing an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. A
tetrameter is a line of poetry or verse containing four feet. (If you need detailed information on meter, click here.) The following
example–the first two lines of the poem–demonstrates the metric scheme. The unstressed syllables are in blue; the stressed are in red
capitals. Over each pair of syllables is a number representing the foot. Also, a black vertical line separates the feet.

.......1....... .......2..... .......3.............4

Whose WOODS | these ARE | I THINK | I KNOW...........
....1...../......2...........3........ ...4
His HOUSE | is IN | the VILL | age THOUGH

Author Information

.......Robert Frost (1874-1963) was born in San Francisco, California, where he spent his childhood. In 1885, after his father died of
tuberculosis, the Frosts moved to Massachusetts. There, Robert graduated from high school, sharing top honors with a student he
would later marry, Elinor White.
.......Frost attended Dartmouth and Harvard, married Miss White in 1895, worked farms, and taught school. In his spare time, he wrote
poetry. Disappointed with the scant attention his poems received, he moved with his wife to Great Britain–first to Scotland, then to
England, where the Frosts resided in a suburb of London. Publishers liked his work and printed his first book of poems, A Boy’s Will, in
1913, and a second poetry collection, North of Boston, in 1914. The latter book was also published in the United States in the same
year.
.......Having established his reputation, Frost returned to the United States in 1915 and bought a small farm in Franconia, N.H. To
supplement his income from the farm and his poetry, he taught at universities. Between 1916 and 1923, he published two more books
of poetry–the second one, New Hampshire, winning the 1923 Pulitzer Prize. He went on to win three more Pulitzer Prizes and was
invited to recite his poem “The Gift Outright” at President John F. Kennedy’s inauguration in January 1961. Frost died in Boston two
years later. One may regard him as among the greatest poets of his generation. Whether his poetry can measure up to the poetry of
Dante, Shakespeare, Keats, Browning, Shelley, Dickinson, and other major poets is a subject for debate.
.

Study Questions and Essay Topics

 It is extremely important to select the right word, with the most appropriate connotation, to present a thought or an image. Why
do you suppose Frost chose to use woods instead of the forest? Why did he choose easy instead of gentle in Stanza 4?
 Write a short profile of the speaker/narrator/traveler. True, the poem provides little information about him (or her). However, we
do know that (1) he apparently does not want to be seen observing the woods by the man in the village; (2) he owns a little
horse; (3) he is a keen observer and reporter, who tells us what the horse may be thinking and describes the sounds of the
wind and snowflakes; (4) he appreciates nature; (5) he keeps his promises–or at least tries to.
 Why did Frost end the poem repeating the same line?
 Recall and write about the thoughts going through your mind during a snowstorm (or another weather event).
Sonnet 18 (Addressed to the Unidentified Young Man)

.......This sonnet is presented and explained on the main page (The Sonnet: A Study Guide).
It is probably the most popular of
all the sonnets because of the beauty of its poetry and rhythm. It is differs from the previous 17 sonnets in one
key respect: It does not urge the young man to marry and have children. The reason for this new approach is
that the author is now convinced that his poetry alone is enough to preserve the memory of the young man's
outstanding qualities.

The Shakespearean Sonnet: An Overview

By Michael J. Cummings © 2003
.
........William Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets. A sonnet, a form of poetry invented in Italy, has 14 lines with a specific rhyme
scheme. The topic of most sonnets written in Shakespeare's time is love–or a theme related to love. Poets usually wrote their
sonnets as part of a series, with each sonnet a sequel to the previous one, although many sonnets could stand alone as
separate poems. Sonnets afforded their author an opportunity to show off his ability to write memorable lines. In other words,
sonnets enabled a poet to demonstrate the power of his genius in the same way that an art exhibition gave a painter a way to
show off his special techniques.
.......Shakespeare addresses Sonnets 1 through 126 to an unidentified young man with outstanding physical and intellectual
attributes. The first 17 of these urge the young man to marry so that he can pass on his superior qualities to a child, thereby
allowing future generations to enjoy and appreciate these qualities when the child becomes a man. In Sonnet 18, Shakespeare
alters his viewpoint, saying his own poetry may be all that is necessary to immortalize the young man and his qualities.
.......In Sonnets 127 through 154, Shakespeare devotes most of his attention to addressing a mysterious "dark lady"–a
sensuous, irresistible woman of questionable morals who captivates the poet. References to the dark lady also appear in
previous sonnets (35, 40, 41, 42), in which Shakespeare reproaches the young man for an apparent liaison with the dark lady.
The first two lines of Sonnet 41 chide the young man for "those petty wrongs that liberty commits / when I am sometime absent
from thy heart," a reference to the young man's wrongful wooing of the dark lady. The last two lines, the rhyming couplet, further
impugn the young man for using his good looks to attract the dark lady. In Sonnet 42, the poet charges, "thou dost love her,
because thou knowst I love her."
.......Shakespeare wrote his sonnets in London in the 1590's during an outbreak of plague that closed theaters and prevented
playwrights from staging their dramas.
.......Generally, Shakespeare's sonnets receive high praise for their exquisite wording and imagery and for their refusal to stoop
to sentimentality. Readers of his sonnets in his time got a taste of the greatness that Shakespeare exhibited later in such plays
as Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, Othello, and The Tempest. Sonnets 138 and 144 were published in 1599 in a poetry collection
entitled The Passionate Pilgrime [Pilgrim]. The other sonnets were published in 1609 in Shake-speares [Shakespeare's]
Sonnets. It is possible that the 1609 sequence of sonnets is out of its original order
.......The Shakespearean sonnet (also called the English sonnet) has three four-line stanzas (quatrains) and a two-line unit
called a couplet. A couplet is always indented; both lines rhyme at the end. The meter of Shakespeare's sonnets is iambic
pentameter (except in Sonnet 145). The rhyming lines in each stanza are the first and third and the second and fourth. In the
couplet ending the poem, both lines rhyme. All of Shakespeare's sonnets follow the same rhyming pattern.

Anatomy of the Sonnets: Rhyming Pattern.......The following presentation of Sonnet 18, one of Shakespeare's most famous,
will help you visualize the rhyming pattern of the sonnets. I capitalized the last part of each line and typed a letter to the left of
the line to indicate the pattern. The meaning of each line appears at right.

Sonnet XVIII (18) Addressed to the Young Man

Quatrain 1 (four-line stanza)

.....................
A Shall I compare thee to a summer's DAY?.....................If I compared you to a summer day
B Thou art more lovely and more temperATE:....................I'd have to say you are more beautiful and serene:
A Rough winds do shake the darling buds of MAY,.............By comparison, summer is rough on budding life,
B And summer's lease hath all too short a DATE:..............And doesn't last long either:
.
Comment: In Shakespeare's time, May (Line 3) was a summer month.

Quatrain 2 (four-line stanza)

.
C Sometime too hot the eye of heaven SHINES,................At times the summer sun [heaven's eye] is too hot,
 D And often is his gold complexion DIMM'D;.....................And at other times clouds dim its brilliance;
C And every fair from fair sometime deCLINES,..................Everything fair in nature becomes less fair from time to time,

D By chance or nature's changing course unTRIMM'D;.......No one can change [trim] nature or chance;
.
Comment: "Every fair" may also refer to every fair woman. who "declines" because of aging or bodily changes

Quatrain 3 (four-line stanza)

.
E But thy eternal summer shall not FADE.........................However, you yourself will not fade
F Nor lose possession of that fair thou OWEST;................Nor lose ownership of your fairness;
E Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his SHADE,..........Not even death will claim you,
F When in eternal lines to time thou GROWEST:...............Because these lines I write will immortalize you:
.
Couplet (two rhyming lines)
.
G So long as men can breathe or eyes can SEE,.............Your beauty will last as long as men breathe and see,
G So long lives this and this gives life to THEE..................As Long as this sonnet lives and gives you life.

The rhyme scheme is as follows:

............First stanza (quatrain): ABAB
............Second stanza (quatrain): CDCD
............Third stanza (quatrain): EFEF
............Couplet: GG.

.......Notice that Shakespeare introduces the main point of the sonnet in the first two lines of Stanza 1: that the young
man's radiance is greater than the sun's. He then devotes the second two lines of Stanza 1 and all of Stanza 2 to the
inferior qualities of the sun. In Stanza 3, he says the young man's brilliance will never fade because Sonnet XVIII will keep
it alive, then sums up his thoughts in the ending couplet.

.
.......Notice that Shakespeare introduces the main point of the sonnet in the first two lines of Stanza 1: that the young man's
radiance is greater than the sun's. He then devotes the second two lines of Stanza 1 and all of Stanza 2 to the inferior qualities
of the sun. In Stanza 3, he says the young man's brilliance will never fade because Sonnet XVIII will keep it alive, then sums up
his thoughts in the ending couplet.
.......Shakespeare addresses his sonnets to a young man, a dark lady of ill repute, and a mythological muse that inspires him to
write. He also refers to a third person, a rival poet (as in Sonnet 79) and makes observations (as in Sonnet 153). Shakespeare
keeps secret the identities of the young man, the dark lady, and the rival poet. Many critics have chided him for doing so,
maintaining that such secrecy shuts out the public and turns his poems into private messages that make readers work too hard
to discover meanings.
.
Origin and Development of the Sonnet
.
.......The sonnet originated in Sicily in the 13th Century with Giacomo da Lentino (1188-1240), a lawyer. The poetic traditions of
the Provençal region of France apparently influenced him, but he wrote his poems in the Sicilian dialect of Italian. Some
authorities credit another Italian, Guittone d'Arezzo (1230-1294), with originating the sonnet. The English word "Sonnet" comes
from the Italian word "sonetto," meaning "little song." Some early sonnets were set to music, with accompaniment provided by a
lute.
.......The Italian poet Petrarch (1304-1374), a Roman Catholic priest, popularized the sonnet more than two centuries before
Shakespeare was born. Other popular Italian sonneteers were Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), Italy's most famous and most
accomplished writer, and Guido Cavalcante (1255-1300). The format of Petrarch's sonnets differs from that of Shakespeare.
Petrarch's sonnets each consist of an eight-line stanza (octave) and a six-line stanza (sestet). The first stanza presents a
theme, and the second stanza develops it. The rhyme scheme is as follows: (1) first stanza (octave): ABBA, ABBA; (2) second
stanza (sestet): CDE, CDE (or CDC, CDC; or CDE, DCE).
.......The sonnet form was introduced in England by Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542) and Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517-
1547). They translated Italian sonnets into English and wrote sonnets of their own. Surrey introduced blank verse into the
English language in his translation of the Aeneid of Vergil. Wyatt and Surrey sometimes replaced Petrarch's scheme of an
eight-line stanza and a six-line stanza with three four-line stanzas and a two-line conclusion known as a couplet. Shakespeare
adopted the latter scheme in his sonnets.
.......Besides Shakespeare, well known English sonneteers in the late 1500's included Sir Philip Sydney, Samuel Daniel, and
Michael Drayton.
.......In Italy, England, and elsewhere between the 13th and early 16th Centuries, the most common theme of sonnets was love.
Sonnets in later times also focused on religion, politics, and other concerns of the reading public.
.
Do Shakespeare's Sonnets Suggest That He Was a Homosexual?
..
.......Some Shakespeare interpreters maintain that his sonnets to the young man are expressions of homosexual love. They
make this assertion even though no evidence exists in the record of Shakespeare's life or in reports on his friendships, his
marriage, and his social activities to indicate that he was anything but heterosexual. Only one reference to homosexuality
occurs in his plays. This reference–which begins at Line 14 in Act V, Scene I, of Troilus and Cressida–condemns homosexuality
in strong, insulting terms. The speaker is Thersites, a Greek with a scurrilous tongue. He addresses Patroclus, famous in Greek
mythology as the male paramour of Achilles, the greatest warrior on either side in the Trojan War. Here is the exchange
between Thersites and Patroclus:

..............THERSITES Prithee, be silent, boy; I profit not by thy talk:

.....................thou art thought to be Achilles' male varlet. [varlet: attendant, page, slave]
..............PATROCLUS Male varlet, you rogue! what's that?
..............THERSITES Why, his masculine whore. Now, the rotten diseases
.....................of the south, the guts-griping, ruptures, catarrhs,
.....................loads o' gravel i' the back, lethargies, cold
.....................palsies, raw eyes, dirt-rotten livers, wheezing
.....................lungs, bladders full of imposthume, sciaticas,
.....................limekilns i' the palm, incurable bone-ache, and the
.....................rivelled fee-simple of the tetter, take and take
.....................again such preposterous discoveries! (Lines 14-24)

It can be argued, of course, that Thersites is not speaking for Shakespeare but instead is expressing a view that existed since
the time when Homer wrote of Achilles in The Iliad, completed between 800 and 700 B.C.
.......Among those who believe that Shakespeare expresses homosexual love in his sonnets is Norrie Epstein, author of The
Friendly Shakespeare. She has written:

There is profound resistance to accepting Shakespeare, the icon of Western civilization, as gay. High school teachers
introduce Shakespeare's Sonnets as passionate love lyrics, neglecting to mention that they were written to a man. . . .
But there's no getting around it: the Sonnets are clearly addressed to a young man, and even allowing for what
professors call the "Renaissance cult of male friendship," many of the poems are quite ardent (267).

.......However, Hallet Smith, writing in The Riverside Shakespeare, rejects the view that the sonnets express homosexual desire,
saying:

The attitude of the poet toward the friend [the handsome young man] is one of love and admiration, deference and
possessiveness, but it is not at all a sexual passion. Sonnet 20 makes quite clear the difference between the platonic
love of a man for a man, more often expressed in the sixteenth century than the twentieth, and any kind of homosexual
attachment" (1746).

Shakespeare scholar G.B. Harrison observes: "It was a common belief in Shakespeare's time that the love of a man for his
friend, especially his 'sworn brother,' was stronger and nobler than the love of man for woman" (366).
.......In fact, Shakespeare's plays contain many passages in which heterosexual males express non-sexual love for one another
in solicitous and doting language. For example, in The Two Noble Kinsmen, Arcite addesses his friend this way: "Dear
Palamon, dearer in love than blood" (Act I, Scene II, Line 1). In Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Rosencrantz says to Hamlet, "My
Lord, you once did love me." Hamlet replies, "So do I still . . . . (Act III, Scene II, Line 348).
.......In Act III, Scene II, of Antony and Cleopatra, Agrippa says of Lepidus: "How dearly he adores Mark Antony!" (Line 9). Adore
is a word a 21st Century American male heterosexual typically would use only in reference to a female. However, Shakespeare
uses it here to signify political love and friendship, not sexual love. In Cymbeline, Iachimo speaks of Posthumus Leonatus as
"such a holy witch / that he enchants societies into him; / Half all men's hearts are his" (Act I, Scene VI, Lines 166-168). Iachimo
and Posthumus are both heterosexuals. When Proteus bids good-bye to his best friend, Valentine, in The Two Gentlemen of
Verona, he says:
.
..............Wilt thou be gone? Sweet Valentine, adieu!
..............Think on thy Proteus, when thou haply seest
..............Some rare note-worthy object in thy travel:
..............Wish me partaker in thy happiness
..............When thou dost meet good hap; and in thy danger,
..............If ever danger do environ thee,
..............Commend thy grievance to my holy prayers,
..............For I will be thy beadsman, Valentine. [Beadsman: One who prays the rosary]
..............(Act I, Scene I, Lines 11-18)
.
Proteus and Valentine have eyes only for females, yet Proteus calls Valentine "sweet" and speaks of himself as "thy Proteus."
.......It is true, of course, that the London of Shakespeare's time had a homosexual culture which included writers and actors, as
well as theatre patrons who paid their pennies to see boy actors playing the parts of women. But it is also true that society in
general condemned homosexuality. Liza Picard writes: "Homosexuality was viewed as an abhorrent divergence from the natural
order, a crime punishable by death" (172).
.......My view is that Shakespeare was not a homosexual–or, for that matter, a bisexual. There is no credible evidence in his
plays and the record of his life in Stratford and London to suggest otherwise. Nor is there any real evidence in the sonnets–
other than expressions of admiration and agape (a Greek term for altruistic love)–to support the notion of a homosexual
Shakespeare. In fact, in the first 17 sonnets, Shakespeare urges the handsome man he addresses to have children so that he
may pass his excellent qualities on to a new generation. In Sonnet 1, he writes::
.
............From fairest creatures we desire increase,
............That thereby beauty's rose might never die. (Lines 1-2)
.
.......Increase here means reproduction. The rose is the young man, who will "never die" if he lives on in his children. If
Shakespeare had been homosexual, he would hardly have recommended that the object of his affection seek the arms of a
woman. What's more, in Shakespeare's time, public discussion of love was limited to conventional, biblical-approved love. As a
practical man concerned about the public's perception of him, Shakespeare would never have jeopardized his reputation by
owning up to homosexual love. His expressions of affection in the sonnets were well within the bounds of propriety in a day
when males could freely voice their love for one another with terms of endearment.
.......Keep in mind, too, that in early sonnets referring to the "dark lady" Shakespeare actually rebukes the young man for
attempting to "steal" the dark lady from him.
.......However, there can be no gainsaying that Shakespeare had competition in his admiration for the young man, for he refers
in several sonnets to a rival poet who also praises the young man. The first four lines of "Sonnet 80" make such a reference:
.
............O, how I faint when I of you do write,
............Knowing a better spirit doth use your name,
............And in the praise thereof spends all his might,
............To make me tongue-tied, speaking of your fame!
.
Likewise, the last two lines of "Sonnet 80" refer to a second poet:
.
............There lives more life in one of your fair eyes
............Than both your poets can in praise devise.
.
.......No one has successfully pinned down the identity of this rival poet. Nor has anyone identified the young man or the
mysterious dark lady addressed in Sonnets 126 to 152.
.

The Young Man, the Dark Lady, the Rival Poet, and W.H.: Who Were They?

.......For centuries, literary sleuths throughout the English-speaking world have pored over old texts and dusty Shakespeare-era
records to discover the identity of the person to whom Shakespeare's sonnets were dedicated, the mysterious "W.H.," and the
identities of the three principal personas addressed or referred to in the sonnets: the young man, the dark lady, and the rival
poet. So far, no one has produced enough undisputed evidence to identify any of these mysterious individuals by name.
.......The 1609 edition of the sonnets was dedicated to a person identified only with the initials W.H. and signed by a person
identified only with the initials T.T. The latter initials were probably those of the known publisher of the sonnets, Thomas
Thorne. He might have (1) written the dedication to express his own wishes or (2) written or copied it to express the wishes of
Shakespeare at the time that he was writing the sonnets.
.......If Thorne was expressing his own wishes, the W.H. to whom the sonnets were dedicated was not necessarily the young
man to whom Shakespeare addressed the first 126 sonnets. Instead, W.H. might have been William Hall, an unimportant
London printer known to have furnished manuscripts to other printers for publication; William Harvey, the husband of the mother
of Henry Wriothesley, the Third Earl of Southampton (widely thought to have been the young man addressed in the sonnets);
William Hathaway, Shakespeare's brother-in-law, or some other person. Thorne's dedication may have simply been an
expression of gratitude to Hall, Harvey, Hathaway, or the other person for bringing the sonnets to Thorne's attention.
.......However, if Thorne was expressing Shakespeare's wishes, the initials W.H. in the dedication might in fact refer to the young
man addressed in the sonnets.
.......As to the identities of the young man, the dark lady, and the rival poet, educated speculation has suggested the following
names as those of the mystifying trio.

The Young Man

Henry Wriothesley, Third Earl of Southampton (1573-1624): Patron of writers and favorite at the court of Queen Elizabeth I.
Shakespeare dedicated Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece to Wriothesley. Wriothesley married Elizabeth Vernon, one
of the queen's attendants, in 1598. Supporters of Wriothesley as the young man of the sonnets note that his initials, H.W., are
the reverse of the W.H. to whom the sonnets are dedicated.
William Herbert, Third Earl of Pembroke (1580-1630): Nephew of the writer Sir Philip Sidney and student of poet Samuel
Daniel. He became a privy councilor of England in 1611 and served as chancellor of Oxford University from 1617 until the time
of his death. When Shakespeare's friends compiled the First Folio of his plays in 1623, they dedicated it to Herbert and his
brother.
William Hughes: A boy actor. The Irish playwright Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) championed a theory that Hughes was the young
man. However, no records are available to establish that Hughes was an actor in Shakespeare's time.
William Harte: Nephew of Shakespeare.
William Hatcliffe: A Lord of Misrule. The Lord of Misrule managed Christmas celebrations at the court of the monarch, at the
homes of favored nobles, and at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge.
William Hammond: A literary patron.
William Holgate: A little-known poet.

The Dark Lady

Mary Fitton (1578-1647): Woman of dark complexion who enjoyed a place in the court of Queen Elizabeth I and was married
and widowed twice. She gave birth to three illegitimate children fathered by three men.
Anne Whateley (or Whiteley): Resident of Temple Grafton, near Stratford, who may have been a girlfriend of Shakespeare.
Evidence suggests that Shakespeare at one time intended to marry her but broke off his relationship to marry Anne Hathaway,
who was pregnant with Shakespeare's child.
Jane Davenant: Wife of the owner of The Crown Inn on Cornmarket Street in at Oxford. (The inn still exists.) Supposedly,
Shakespeare stopped at the inn on trips between Stratford and London. Shakespeare was the godfather of her child, William
Davenant (1606-1668), a playwright and poet of some renown in his day. In 1638, Davenant became poet laureate of England
after the death of Ben Jonson. Rumors abounded that Davenant was not only Shakespeare's godson but also his biological
son. According to some accounts, Davenant once owned the famous Chandos portrait of William Shakespeare.
Emilia Bassano Lanier (1570-1640s): Daughter of Baptista Bassano of Venice. After she moved to England, she was the
mistress of Henry Carey, a patron known to Shakespeare. She married Alphonse Lanier, a court musician. Shakespeare
created characters named Emilia in three of his plays: Othello, The Comedy of Errors, and The Two Noble Kinsmen.
Elizabeth I (1533-1603): Queen of England from 1558 to 1603 and a supporter of stage plays.
Lucy Morgan: A black woman said to be a prostitute.
Marie Mountjoy: A London landlord who rented lodging to Shakespeare.

The Rival Poet

Michael Drayton (1563-1631): poet of considerable talent who wrote sonnets, odes (after the manner of the Roman poet
Horace), and heroic poems.
Samuel Daniel (1562-1619): poet, playwright, writer of masques, sonneteer (Delia, 1592), author of a verse history of the War
of the Roses and a prose history of England.
George Chapman (1559-1634): playwright and translator of ancient literature, including highly praised translations of Homer's
Iliad and Odyssey.
Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593): Elizabethan playwright of the first rank who helped popularize the strengths of blank verse.
Marlowe's most famous plays are The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus (1588), The Jew of Malta (1589), and Tamburlaine the
Great (1587). Marlowe also wrote distinguished poetry and, like Chapman, translated ancient literary works.
Ben Jonson (1572-1637): Poet and playwright of the first rank who advocated adherence to the drama rules (unity of time,
place, and action) established by the ancient Greeks . Shakespeare acted in Jonson's first play, Every Man in His Humour, in
1598. Among Jonson's best plays are Volpone (1606) and The Alchemist (1610). Jonson also wrote masques and excellent
poetry. He was a friend of Shakespeare who met frequently with him and other writers at the Mermaid Tavern in London.
Edmund Spenser (1552-1599): Poet of the first rank. He is most famous for his monumental epic poem, The Faerie Queene.
His wedding poem, "Epithalamion," is one of the finest works of its type ever written.

Iambic Pentameter

.......Shakespeare wrote his sonnets (and many of the lines in his plays) in iambic pentameter, a technical term for a poetry
pattern in which each line has 10 syllables, beginning with an unstressed syllable and a stressed syllable, followed by another
pair of unstressed and stressed syllables, and so on–until there are five pairs of syllables (or ten syllables in all) .
.......To understand iambic pentameter, you first need to understand the term ''iamb.'' An iamb is a unit of rhythm consisting of an
unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. The words ''annoy,'' ''fulfill,'' ''pretend,'' ''regard,'' and ''serene'' are all iambs
because the first syllable of each word is unstressed (or unaccented) and the second syllable is stressed (or accented). Iambs
may consist of a final unstressed syllable of one word followed by an initial stressed syllable of the next word. The following line
from Romeo and Juliet demonstrates the use of iambs. The unstressed syllables are green and the stressed syllables are
underlined in red:
......
...............But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?

Here are two more lines from Romeo and Juliet that also demonstrate the use of iambs:
.
...............I will not fail: 'tis twenty years till then.
...............I have forgot why I did call thee back.

When a line has five iambs, it is in iambic pentameter. The prefix ''pent'' means ''five.'' (A figure with five sides is called a
''pentagon''; an athletic competition with five track-and-field events is called a ''pentathlon.'') The suffix ''meter'' (in ''pentameter'')
refers to the recurrence of a rhythmic unit (also called a ''foot''). Thus, because the above lines contain iambs, they are ''iambic.''
Because they contain five iambs (five feet) they are said to be in iambic pentameter.

Works Cited
.......
Epstein, Norrie. The Friendly Shakespeare. New York: Viking, 1993.
Evans, G. Blakemore, textual ed. The Riverside Shakespeare. Houghton: Boston, 1974.
Harrison, G.B., ed. Shakespeare: The Complete Works. New York: Harcourt, 1952.
Picard, Liza. Elizabeth's London. New York: St. Martin's, 2003. . .
 The Tiger
A Poem by William Blake
Study Guide
Theme

.......“The Tiger,” by William Blake (1757-1827), presents a question that embodies the theme: Who created the tiger? Was it the kind
and loving God who made the lamb? Or was it Satan? Blake presents his question in Lines 3 and 4:

What immortal hand or eye

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
Blake realizes, of course, that God made all the creatures on earth. However, to express his bewilderment that the God who created the
gentle lamb also created the terrifying tiger, he includes Satan as a possible creator while raising his rhetorical questions, notably the
one he asks in Lines 5 and 6:
In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thy eyes?
Deeps appears to refer to hell and skies to heaven. In either case, there would be fire--the fire of hell or the fire of the stars.
.......Of course, there can be no gainsaying that the tiger symbolizes evil, or the incarnation of evil, and that the lamb (Line 20)
represents goodness, or Christ. Blake's inquiry is a variation on an old philosophical and theological question: Why does evil exist in a
universe created and ruled by a benevolent God? Blake provides no answer. His mission is to reflect reality in arresting images. A
poet’s first purpose, after all, is to present the world and its denizens in language that stimulates the aesthetic sense; he is not to exhort
or moralize. Nevertheless, the poem does stir the reader to deep thought. Here is the tiger, fierce and brutal in its quest for sustenance;
there is the lamb, meek and gentle in its quest for survival. Is it possible that the same God who made the lamb also made the tiger? Or
was the tiger the devil's work?

Meter

The poem is in trochaic tetrameter with catalexis at the end of each line. Here is an explanation of these technical terms:

Tetrameter Line: a poetry line usually with eight syllables but sometimes seven.
Trochaic Foot: A pair of syllables--a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable.
Catalexis: The absence of a syllable in the final foot in a line. In Blake’s poem, an unstressed syllable is absent in the last foot
of each line. Thus, every line has seven syllables, not the conventional eight.
The following illustration using the first two lines of the poem demonstrates tetrameter with four trochaic feet, the last one catalectic:
.....1...........2...........3...............4
TIger, | TIger, | BURN ing | BRIGHT
.....1...........2...........3...............4
IN the | FOR ests | OF the | NIGHT
Notice that the fourth foot in each line eliminates the conventional unstressed syllable (catalexis). However, this irregularity in the
trochaic pattern does not harm the rhythm of the poem. In fact, it may actually enhance it, allowing each line to end with an accented
syllable that seems to mimic the beat of the maker’s hammer on the anvil. For a detailed discussion of meter and the various types of
feet, click here.
.

Structure and Rhyme Scheme

The poem consists of six quatrains. (A quatrain is a four-line stanza.) Each quatrain contains two couplets. (A couplet is a pair of
rhyming lines). Thus we have a 24-line poem with 12 couplets and 6 stanzas–a neat, balanced package. The question in the final
stanza repeats (except for one word, dare) the wording of the first stanza, perhaps suggesting that the question Blake raises will
continue to perplex thinkers ad infinitum.

Figures of Speech and Allusions

Paradox: If the maker of the tiger also made the lamb.

Metaphor: Comparison of the tiger to a fire.
Anaphora: Repetition of what at the beginning of sentences or clauses. Example: What dread hand and what dread feet? / What the
hammer? what the chain?
Allusion: Immortal hand or eye: God or Satan
Allusion: Distant deeps or skies: hell or heaven
Alliteration: See poem annotations.

Symbols
The Tiger: Evil (or Satan)
The Lamb: Goodness (or God)
Distant Deeps: Hell
Skies: Heaven
.

Published in 1794 in Songs of Experience

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Text of the Poem
1
Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye Annotations
Could frame thy fearful
symmetry? Alliteration
2
In what distant deeps or
skies The color-coded letters in the first two stanzas give examples of alliteration.
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire? Meaning of the Poem
What the hand dare seize the
fire? Stanza 1: What immortal being created this terrifying creature which, with its perfect proportions
3 (symmetry), is an awesome killing machine?
And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy
heart? Stanza 2: Was it created in hell (distant deeps) or in heaven (skies)? If the creator had wings, how
And when thy heart began to could he get so close to the fire in which the tiger was created? How could he work with so blazing a
beat, fire?
What dread hand and what dread
feet? Stanza 3: What strength (shoulder) and craftsmanship (art) could make the tiger's heart? What being
4 could then stand before it (feet) and shape it further (hand)?
What the hammer? what the
chain? Stanza 4: What kind of tool (hammer) did he use to fashion the tiger in the forge fire? What about the
In what furnace was thy brain? chain connected to the pedal which the maker used to pump the bellows? What of the heat in the
What the anvil? What dread furnace and the anvil on which the maker hammered out his creation? How did the maker muster the
grasp courage to grasp the tiger?
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
5
When the stars threw down their Stanza 5: When the stars cast their light on the new being and the clouds cried, was the maker
spears, pleased with his creation?
And water'd heaven with their
tears, Stanza 6: The poet repeats the the central question of the poem, stated in Stanza 1. However, he
Did He smile His work to see? changes could (Line 4) to dare (Line 24). This is a significant change, for the poet is no longer asking
Did He who made the lamb make who had the capability of creating the tiger but who dared to create so frightful a creature.
thee? .
6 .
Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
.