CONTENTS
Introduction 1
1. Robert Frost's Life-experiences and His Two Poems 2
1.1 Robert Frost's Life-experiences 2
1.2 The Background of These Two Poems 5
2. Samenesses of These Two Poems 7
2.1 Background: The Nature 7
2.2 Language: Oral Language of New England 8
2.3 Character Image: A Traveler 9
3. Differences Between These Two Poems 10
3.1 Background: Encountering Divergence VS. Stopping By Woods 10
3.2 Language: Traditional Iambic Poem VS. Rondeau 11
3.3 Character Image: Positive Traveler VS. Burden-bearing Traveler 12
4. Causes for Samenesses and Differences 12
4.1 Causes for Samenesses 13
4.2 Causes for Differences 15
5. Conclusion 16
Bibliography 18
Abstract: Frost's poems take the rural lives and natural scenery of the New England area as backgrounds, fresh and natural; take the spoken language there as means of expression, easy to be understood; while the sophisticated philosophies under those plain words are enlightening. The representative works of this kind are The Road Not Taken and Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. This thesis takes “dramatic monologue” as frame-work and theory of “sentence sounds” as researching means in analyzing these two poems to discover their samenesses and differences in terms of background, language and character image. It aims to analyze the causes of the samenesses and differences from the poet's life-experiences to reach the conclusion that his life-experiences influence his poetic writing.
Key Words: Robert Frost; dramatic monologue; sentence sounds; life-experiences
