On John Ciardi's "The Way to the Poem"
Robert Frosts poem, Stopping By the Woods on a Snowy Evening is one of the great masterpieces of American poetry. It is known for its ambiguity that has produced a vast number of different interpretations. The American critic, John Ciardi, tried his hand at interpreting the poem, and at the same time, tried to determine where the meaning of it comes from. Ciardis essay is very modern and was very much ahead of its time.
John Ciardi wrote his controversial essay, The
Way to the Poem in 1958 for the respected literary magazine,
The Saturday Review. During this time period, New
Criticism was the most highly practiced form of literary theory.
New Critics believe that every poem, novel, or any other writing
is a work completely to itself, its text different and
unique from all other works. New Criticism stresses that
every work means exactly what it says; there are no in-depth
meanings to any literature. Practicing New Criticism
involves reading a work very closely, and identifying the parts
of it that make it unique. In the close reading, New
Critics look for complexities such as paradoxes, ironies, and
ambiguities that may cause people to have multiple
interpretations. Then, they find the unifying idea that
resolves all of the complexities, and find the details that
support their findings. In taking all of these steps, New
Critics believe that every reader will come to the same
conclusion about any given text. The reaction that the New
Critics had to Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening
was one of a nice poem. They felt that it was about a man
taking a ride through the woods and stops to watch the snowfall.
He gets so caught up in the beauty of the scene that he looses
track of time. Finally, after realizing that it is getting
dark and that he has things to do, he goes home. Ciardis
essay was controversial because his interpretation of the poem is
completely different than that of the New Critical version.
Ciardi used several techniques, such as Deconstruction,
Psychoanalysis, and Structuralism, which were unconventional at
the time, to come to a conclusion about the poems meaning.
All of these practices are modern forms of criticism that hadnt
surfaced during the time that the essay was written. The
ideas were alive in society, but they didnt have enough of
a following to be considered as a formal criticism.
Ciardi used Deconstruction in his essay. Deconstruction is a form of literary theory that states that there are no definite meanings in literature. If a person feels that he/she has come to the correct interpretation of any particular poem, then he/she has probably found the opposite of what the poem is really about. Deconstructionists find phrases in texts that are ambiguous. These undetermined meanings are said to be in play. Play is the endless possibilities of what something could mean. Ciardi identifies a couple of things in the poem as being in play. For instance, Why does the man not say what errand he is on? What is the force of leaving the errand generalized? (149). Ciardi also questions the end of the poem when the third line of stanza four is repeated. The second time he says it, however, says Ciardi, miles to go and sleep are suddenly transformed into symbols. What are those something-elses the symbols stand for? (152). Both of these quotes show that Ciardi is unsure of the meaning of the two things that were mentioned. When giving his interpretation of them, Ciardi is careful to use phrases like, the center point of that second miles to go is probably approximately in the neighborhood of being close to the meaning, perhaps, the road of life; and the second before I sleep is maybe that close to meaning, before I take my final rest (153). Using words such as perhaps and maybe signify that he doesnt know for sure what the phrase means.
Deconstructionists also look for
words in a text that, when compared with their opposites, give a
generalization about the meaning of them. The
compared words are called binary oppositions. Deconstructionaists
determine which one is preferred over the other. Even
though he never mentions it in his essay, Ciardi contrasts the
binary opposition of dark/light. Symbolism of these
two words is taken from the Biblical use of them. Light is
associated with Christ, Heaven, and life, whereas Satan, Hell,
and death are characterized by the dark. Ciardi recognizes this
characterization of darkness as death when he says,
can one fail to sense by now that dark and snowfall
represent a death wish? (151). In this poem, Ciardi
believes that the man prefers the darkness over the light. But
how does this make the poem a death wish? To understand
this, one must understand Ciardis psychoanalytical
interpretation of the poem.
Ciardi said, Frost could not have known he
was going to write those lines until he wrote them (154).
Frost himself said that they just felt right (153).
With these things being said, Ciardi practiced Psychoanalysis.
Psychoanalysis is the act of interpreting ones dreams,
words, actions, and writings by studying that persons
unconscious mind. If the poem did in fact just come
(156) to him, then there must have been something in his
unconscious self that brought it to him. This something
is called a repressed feeling. Repression happens when the
conscious mind deems a desire as unacceptable, and places it into
the unconscious. Ciardi believes that the repressed desire
of Frost is suicide. He backs his theory up by identifying
symbols in the text. Symbols are words used in place of an
actual idea that if actually told, would reveal a forbidden
desire in the author. Ciardi says, Can one fail to
sense by now that the dark and the snowfall symbolize a death
wish
(151). The dark symbol has already been
established as being associated with death. Snowfall
symbolizes the fall of man into his final slumber. Both of
these symbols help to shape Ciardis death wish
theory.
Ciardi offers answers to questions that he
said were left in play by Frost. The first question, why
does the man not say what errand he is on? is answered
the more aptly to suggest any errand in life and, therefore,
life itself (150). The other question, why does he
say so much about knowing the absent owner of the woods and where
he lives? is answered, the force he represents is
the village of mankind from which the poet finds himself
separated (150). Ciardi goes on to say,
the fact that the mans relation (with the woods)
begins with his separation from mankind (150). So the
unconscious feeling that Frost is displaying in these lines is
his want to leave mankind.
Ciardi also introduces the theory that this poem
is actually a struggle between the conscious and the unconscious
of Frosts mind, a collection of thoughts. The horse
in stanzas one and two represent what Ciardi calls a foil
(151). A foil is a character who plays against
another character, says Ciardi (151). In stanza two,
the horse acts as the conscious voice of the man in the poem,
wondering why he is stopping in the middle of nowhere in the cold,
snowy, weather. The death wish of the
unconscious is what is actually keeping the man in the woods.
With this being said, the horse has also become a symbol of the
sensible, conscious mind.
Ciardi misses the symbolism of the title, Stopping
By the Woods on a Snowy Evening. With the
psychoanalytic response, the word Stopping would
represent a stopping of ones life. In this case, the
implication of death would be established before the poem begins.
Ciardi says that stanza four is the final
decision that the man makes. Even though his mood
lingers over the thought of that lovely dark-and-deep,
Ciardi says that the man moved on (152). His social
obligations, as symbolized by his promises to keep,
persuade him to go on to his destination. After all, he has
a long way to travel, and miles to go before I sleep (1st
time) (Frost 147).
Ciardi wasnt as concerned with the actual
interpretation of the poem as he was with how one comes to it.
This is the same feeling that Structuralists have. Structuralism
involves examining a literary works grammatical usage to
see how a person gets an interpretation. Ciardi states that
this is what he wants to find out when he says, What
happens in it? (the Frost poem)-which is to say, not what does it
mean, but how does it mean? (148). In looking for an
answer, Ciardi practices several of the Structuralism techniques.
Structuralists feel that the best way for one to
understand a texts meaning is to read and understand other
texts. They feel that in understanding the language and its
literary conventions, one can come to a valid interpretation of
any work. Ciardi brings this technique into his essay in
the very beginning with his criticism of the school system.
He says that the school system has a list of poems that students
are required to read before they graduate. This is good in that
the students are exposed to different forms of poetry; however,
they are not made to come to any conclusion about what the poem
means. Ciardi believes that readers of any age should first
understand poem before moving on to another. He states this
himself when he says, Poetry, finally, is one poem at a
time. To read any one poem carefully is the ideal
preparation for reading another. Only a poem can illustrate
how a poem works (148). Ciardi uses this procedure
with his interpretation of the Frost poem when he compares it to
Arnolds Dover Beach, Longfellows Village
Blacksmith, and Holmes Chambered Nautilus
(148). All of these poems are built on the same poetic
formula that Frosts poem is. Ciardi uses this
technique again to explain Frosts motive for writing a
simple language to a simple narrative when he quotes Frosts
line from, The Mowing: Anything more than
the truth would have seemed to week (Frost 150).
Ciardi also looks at the structure to assist him
in finding a meaning. In fact, he says, Poetry can
not be discussed meaningfully unless one can assume that
everything in the poem-every last comma and variant spelling-is
in it by the poets specific act of choice (149-150).
With this in mind, the concept of signifier/signified comes in to
play. Ferdinand de Sausseure is associated with this
concept. He said that all words are signifiers. When
produced, these words signify something in the readers mind
that gives him/her a feeling of what a poem is about. The
signified is relative to each person. The signifiers that
Ciardi identifies are dark, snowfall, and horse. All of
these signified an unconscious desire to commit suicide, to
Ciardi. This is one of the reasons for the controversy from
the New Critics. To them, the words in the poem signified
nice things.
The end of the poem stresses Frosts
masterful use of the English language. Ciardi says that
rhyming in English is a very difficult thing to do. There
are few words that rhyme with each other. In other
languages, such as Italian, French, and Spanish, there are an
endless number of words that rhyme. In these languages, a
poet has no trouble finding the right words to rhyme that will
convey the message that he wants to give in the proper way.
In English, a poet may have the perfect word to use that will
describe what he wants to say. However, the word may have
few to none words that will rhyme with it. Even if the word
does fit the rhyme, it may produce multiple responses that the
author didnt intend. Ciardi believes that Frost
played a game. Most poems are written with four line
stanzas, having the second and third lines endings rhyme
with each other. Frost went beyond this. He stayed with the
four-line stanzas, but he rhymed the endings of the first, second,
and fourth lines. In the last stanza, Frost began rhyming
the first, second, and third lines, but became stuck because no
word that rhymed with sleep would fit into the last
stanza. Therefore, he repeated his third stanza as the
fourth. This was very unconventional of poetry, but was
praised by Ciardi. He said, The miracle is that it
worked. Despite the enormous freight of rhyme, the poem not
only came out as a neat pattern, but also managed to do so with
no sense of strain. Every word and every rhyme falls into
place as naturally and as inevitably as if there were no rhyme
restricting the poets choices (155).
There are a couple of things in the essay that
causes a contradiction of Ciardis interpretation. As
a Structuralist, Ciardi said that everything that is put into a
poem is by the authors choice. In other words, he
knows exactly what he is writing, and what he means to say.
However, as a psychoanalyst, he stated that Frost could not have
known why he wrote the lines, nor could he have known what he was
thinking. He is contradicting himself in saying that Frost
knows why he wrote the poem, but he really doesnt know why.
How can a man know and not know at the same time? This is a
paradox that the New Critics could have used to pick the essay
apart.
As a Psychoanalyst, Ciardi believes the poem to
be a thought process of a man in the woods. However, in
looking at the syntax of the first line of the poem, we can see
how a Structuralist could differ with him. The line reads,
Whose woods these are, I think I know (147). This
seems to be more of a line from a narrative rather than a thought.
This is so in that it gives the feeling that someone has asked
the man who owns the land. He replies with a question,
Whose woods these are? This is a common
way to reply to someone with the question previously asked.
Then he responds with a general comment about his knowledge,
I think I know. With this being said, the poem
seems to be heading in the direction of a story rather than a
thought. However, when someone asks the question to another
person, it would probably be more along the line of, Whose
woods are these? The same would apply if someone
asked himself the same question. Therefore, if it were a
thought process, then the man would most likely have used, Whose
woods are these, and not what is actually written.
Its true that this essay is very modern and
was beyond its time when it first appeared to the public. However,
just because its modern doesnt mean that all modern critics
readily accept it. In taking a feminist point of view to
the essay, I found one major problem with it. In Ciardis
Psychoanalytic interpretation, he studies Frosts
unconscious mind by examining the words that he wrote. In
doing so, he naturally assumes that the character in the story is
a male. However, there is nothing in the text to support a
male character assumption. By switching the characters
role from male to female, Ciardis interpretation is
completely destroyed. Now, Frost is taken out of the
picture because he is obviously not a female, and his
interpretation goes with him because there is no longer anyone
there to have a repressed feeling.
To a Feminist, Stopping By the Woods on a
Snowy Evening could represent a womans refusal to
give up her life to get married. There is one major
signifier in the poem, the word woods. Woods
signifies marriage. In the first two lines, the female asks,
Whose woods these are, I think I know. His house is
in the village though (147). In asking whose
marriage this is, and then responding with his, we
can see that she feels the marriage is more beneficial to the
male than the female; the male owns the marriage.
Next, it has to be understood that snow represents
good things. Everyone loves snow. Skiers get excited
when there is fresh snow on the ground, children love to get out
of school because of it, and every Christmas time is always
associated with snow. When she says, he will not see
me stopping her to watch his woods fill up with snow, she
is really saying that she will not give in to a marriage that
will only produce good things for him (147). Of course we
can understand her feelings. In a traditional marriage, the
man gets a wife to cook, clean, do laundry, take care of the kids,
etc. However, there is never much mentioned about what the
wife gets out of it.
In the second stanza, the man becomes the horse.
My little horse must think it queer to stop without a
farmhouse near, is the mindset of the man (147). He
doesnt understand why the female doesnt want to marry
him. She then gives a reason. One must remember that
woods represents male-dominated marriages. In this
particular line, the word is used in a singular voice, wood,
to show that she is speaking of one particular marriage, hers.
The frozen lake is interpreted as a wife who is
frozen to the marriage, in this case, again her. Between
indicates an event that comes between the marriage and her being
frozen. This event is the actual wedding day.
She feels that her wedding day would be the biggest mistake of
her life by calling it the darkest day of the year (147).
Stanza three again opens with the males
voice. He is now actually pleading with her for the reason
of her rejection of the marriage. He wonders if it is some
mistake that he made, or one that she may have made about him.
However, she is only hearing the sounds of easy wind and
downy flake (147). Wind is always associated with
trees. We always hear of the wind blowing through the trees.
In turn, trees are associated with woods. Also, keep in
mind that snow is symbolic of good things. Flake
is a single piece of snow. Therefore, easy wind
gives the impression of the ease of his marriage. Downy
flake is each individual good thing that is continuously
falling on him.
Finally, the woods are lovely, dark and
deep, brings out the innate female desire (which males also
have), to get married and settle down (147). However, she
has promises to keep to herself. These are the
goals that she had set for her life long before she ever met the
man. The first And miles to go before I sleep
shows us that she has a lot of plans to fulfill before she can
settle down (147). She cant get married because
marriage would freeze her and not allow her to
accomplish her goals. The repeated verse of And
miles to go before I sleep lets us know that she is
aware that she has plenty of time left in her life. Not
only can she fulfil her dreams for herself, but she may also,
perhaps, get married sometime later in life.
With the Feminist view, New Critical criticism,
and contradictions within the essay, we can clearly see that
The Way to the Poem is indeed an essay of much
deliberation. Ciardi made valid points and supported them
well, but at the same time, left himself open for criticism.
However, even if one doesnt agree with everything that
Ciardi says, he/she has to agree that the essay is truly
remarkable in that it uses so many techniques that were not
relevant to the time period in which it was written. The
essay, as well as Ciardi, was just ahead of their time.
Works Cited
Ciardi, John. "The Way to the Poem." John Ciardi: Dialogue with an
Audience. J.B. Lippincott Co. Philadelphia & New York,
1958. 148-160
Frost, Robert. "Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening."
John Ciardi: Dialogue with an Audience.
J.B. Lippincott Co. Philadelphia & New York,
1958. 147