Peter Stamm: Agnes (1998)

Bereits in den ersten Gesprächen mit Agnes wird der Ich-Erzähler an "an ein Gedicht von Robert Frost" erinnert, aber ihm "fallen die genauen Worte nicht ein." (Kap. 4). Und von Agnes heißt es: "Sie las viel in der Norton Anthology" (Kap. 28). Diese Norton Anthology of Poetry wird im Roman immer wieder als Agnes' einziges Nicht-Fachbuch erwähnt (Kap. 8, 25, 28, 30). Darin findet sich auch dieses Gedicht von Robert Frost und weitere Gedichte werden in den Kapiteln 30 und 31 zitiert. Wie passen sie in die Geschichte?

Robert Frost (1874 San Francisco - 1963 Boston)

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
to stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

"Frost wrote this poem about winter in June, 1922 at his house in Shaftsbury, Vermont that is now home to the "Robert Frost Stone House Museum". Frost had been up the entire night writing the long poem "New Hampshire" and had finally finished when he realized morning had come. He went out to view the sunrise and suddenly got the idea for "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening". He wrote the new poem "about the snowy evening and the little horse as if I'd had a hallucination" in just "a few minutes without strain."
Quelle: en.wikipedia.org (April 2011)