text:
Stopping_by_Woods_on_a_Snowy_Evening_eNotes
Angga R. Sasotya
100%(1)Il 100% ha trovato utile questo documento (1 voto)
15 pagine
100%Il 100% ha trovato utile questo documento, Contrassegna questo documento come utile
SalvaSalva Stopping_by_Woods_on_a_Snowy_Evening_eNotes per dopo
804 visualizzazioni15 pagine
The Scarlet Letter Questions Answered
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost
Literary Analysis of Robert Frost's "Stopping by the Wood on a Snowy Evening"
Robert Frost - Poet of Sadness
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
Mending Wall Symbolism
Lesson Plan- The Cask of Amontillado
2 Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening Symbolism
The Yellow House: A Memoir (2019 National Book Award Winner)
Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It
Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance
Sei sulla pagina 1di 15
Copyright Notice 1998-2002; 2002 by Gale. Gale is an imprint of The Gale Group, Inc., a division of Thomson Learning, Inc. Gale and Design and Thomson Learning are trademarks used herein under license. 2008 eNotes.com Inc. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this work covered by the copyright hereon may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, Web distribution or information storage retrieval systems without the written permission of the publisher. For complete copyright information on these eNotes please visit: http://www.enotes.com/stopping-by/copyright
1. Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening: Introduction 2. Text of the Poem 3. Robert Frost Biography 4. Summary 5. Themes 6. Style 7. Historical Context 8. Critical Overview 9. Essays and Criticism 10. Compare and Contrast 11. Topics for Further Study 12. Media Adaptations 13. What Do I Read Next? 14. Bibliography and Further Reading 15. Copyright
"Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," one of Robert Frost's most well-known poems, was published in his collection called New Hampshire in 1923. This poem illustrates many of the qualities most characteristic of Frost, including the attention to natural detail, the relationship between humans and nature, and the strong theme suggested by individual lines. In this poem, the speaker appears as a character. It is a dark and quiet winter night, and the speaker stops his horse in order to gaze into the woods. The speaker projects his own thoughts onto the horse, who doesn't understand why they have stopped; there's no practical reason to stop. The woods are ominously tempting and acquire symbolic resonance in the last stanza, which concludes with one of Frost's often-quoted lines, "miles to go before I sleep." One interpretation of this stanza is that the speaker is tempted toward death which he considers "lovely, dark and deep," but that he has many Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening 1
responsibilities to fulfill before he can "sleep." Back to Table of Contents
Text of the Poem
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. Back to Table of Contents
Born in San Francisco, Frost was eleven-years-old when his father died, and his family relocated to Lawrence, Massachusetts, where his paternal grandparents lived. In 1892, Frost graduated from Lawrence High School and shared valedictorian honors with Elinor White, whom he married three years later. After graduation, Frost briefly attended Dartmouth College, taught at grammar schools, worked at a mill, and served as a newspaper reporter. He published a chapbook of poems at his own expense, and contributed the poem "The Birds Do Thus" to the Independent, a New York magazine. In 1897 Frost entered Harvard University as a special student, but left before completing degree requirements because of a bout with tuberculosis and the birth of his second child. Three years later the Frosts' eldest child died, an event which led to marital discord and which, some critics believe, Frost later addressed in his poem "Home Burial." In 1912, having been unable to interest American publishers in his poems, Frost moved his family to a farm in Buckinghamshire, England, where he wrote prolifically, attempting to perfect his distinct poetic voice. During this time, he met such literary figures as Ezra Pound, an American expatriate poet and champion of innovative literary approaches, and Edward Thomas, a young English poet associated with the Georgian poetry movement then popular in Great Britain. Frost soon published his first book of poetry, A Boy's Will (1913), which received appreciative reviews. Following the success of the book, Frost relocated to Gloucestershire, England, and directed publication of a second collection, North of Boston (1914). This volume contains several of his most frequently anthologized pieces, including "Mending Wall," "The Death of the Hired Man," Introduction 2
and "After Apple-Picking." Shortly after North of Boston was published in Great Britain, the Frost family returned to the United States, settling in Franconia, New Hampshire. The American editions of Frost's first two volumes won critical acclaim upon publication in the United States, and in 1917 Frost began his affiliations with several American universities as a professor of literature and poet-in-residence. Frost continued to write prolifically over the years and received numerous literary awards as well as honors from the United States government and American universities. He recited his work at the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy in 1961 and represented the United States on several official missions. Though he received great popular acclaim, his critical reputation waned during the latter part of his career. His final three collections received less enthusiastic reviews, yet contain several pieces acknowledged as among his greatest achievements. He died in Boston in 1963. Back to Table of Contents
Line 1: In this opening stanza, the setting is clarified as a winter evening in a rural environment. The speaker desires to watch snow fall quietly in some woods. While these woods belong to someone, that person is not present and so will not protest if the speaker trespasses. Lines 5-8: The speaker emphasizes that he has no practical reason to stop, that he is stopping for the beauty of the scene only. However, in line 8, an element of darkness appears, which can indicate that all is not well. Because the speaker also emphasizes the cold with "frozen lake," readers begin to understand that the poem may not be a simple light-hearted celebration of nature. Lines 9-12: Although this stanza begins with an auditory image, the shaking of the harness bells, the greater emphasis of the stanza is on silence. Although the speaker can hear the "easy wind," such a sound is gentle, nearly as silent as the falling of the snow. The slight alliteration in line 11, "sound's the sweep," mimics the sound of of this wind. Lines 13-14: In this stanza, the speaker emphasizes his attraction to the unknown and perhaps the dangerous. He is tempted to go farther into the woods which are "lovely" but are also "dark and deep." He can't, however, lose himself in these woods because he has obligations to fulfill. Here, his life in a social community conflicts somewhat with his desire for communion with nature. Lines 15-16: The repetition of this line as the conclusion to the poem indicates that the idea contained in it is highly significant. Although the speaker may literally have "miles to go," the line also functions as a metaphor. He has much life to live before he can "sleep" permanently in a "dark and deep" woods. These lines suggest that although death may at times be more attractive than life to the speaker, he is nevertheless determined to choose life. The tone of the lines, however, may also indicate that the speaker is resigned to life but not necessarily enthusiastic about it. Back to Table of Contents
Beauty This poem presents nature as a standard of beauty that is so strong that it captures the speaker's attention and makes him or her halt whatever they are doing. There are not many descriptive words used to convey what it is that the speaker finds so beautiful, only "lovely," "dark" and "deep." Of these, "lovely" simply restates the whole idea of the poem, which most readers would already have gotten a sense of from the speaker's tone and actions. The darkness of the woods is an idea so important that it is mentioned twice in this poem, emphasizing a connection between beauty and mystery. The emphasis on darkness is strange, and more obvious because the poem takes place on a snowy evening, when the dominant impression would have been the whiteness blanketing everything. Some reviewers interpret the fascination with darkness as a death wish, which Frost discounted. By using light and dark imagery and having his speaker favor the dark, Frost leads the reader toward an aesthetic judgement about nature: that it is fascinating precisely for the things that humans do not understand, for the depths that consciousness cannot penetrate. The beauty of this scene is, of course, not registered by the horse, whom the poem shows to be impatient. Once again, the poem shows beauty to exist in the tension between understanding and non-understanding, which the horse does not have the mental capacity to appreciate. The only other indication of beauty this speaker experiences is the silence of nature"the sweep / Of easy wind and downy flake." Of course, wind can be heard, but an "easy" wind would just barely be perceptible; there is nothing audible about snowflakes unless they are hard and frozen, not "downy" like soft feathers. By bringing attention to these nearly unmeasurable sounds, the poem offers us another standard for beauty. The deep dark woods do not present any appreciable pattern and the hushed blowing snow presents no melody: the source of nature's beauty lies in its mystery, not its familiarity. Return to Nature With sadness, "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening" examines just how difficult it has become in the modern world for man to stay in touch with nature. The poem is made up of contrasting images of the natural and the man-made: the woods and the village, the farmhouse and the lake, even the horse and the harness-bells. The speaker is enchanted with the things of nature, but is constantly reminded of human things, and, after a few minutes of giving in to the enchantment, decides with regret that this return to nature cannot last. In this poem humanity is represented not just by objects but by the concept of ownership. The first two words focus attention on an absent character about whom we only find out two things: that he lives in the village, away from nature, and that he owns the woods. It is the irony of this, that the owner does not appreciate what he has, that establishes the poem's mood. Man, it tells us, is wasteful. One of the most striking things about this piece is that the human and the animal appear to exchange their values. The horse is the one who is in a hurry, who needs a place of businessa farmhousein order to make sense of their brief stop. It is the human who is able to temporarily put aside the idea of property ownership and destination and to appreciate the moment. The horse is impatient, the human tranquil. This shows us how completely the horse has been brought into the human world, indicating the completeness of nature's transformation to mankind's uses. Other works of literature, such as Thoreau's Walden, show us people casting aside their social lives in order to live with nature, but in the world presented here a brief unplanned visit with nature is all that is possible. Duty and Responsibility The speaker of this poem has "promises to keep," and regardless of what these promises are or who they were made to they have to be fulfilled. Obviously, the scene in the wood is important to this person, who is practically hypnotized by the falling snow. Another observer might feel that experiencing this unexpectedly beautiful scene is more important than anything, including promises, or that they are not responsible for doing Themes 4
what they promised because they did not know, at the time the promise was made, that this snowfall in the wood would be so attractive. Promises are broken every day by people who find some reason to forgive themselves. The speaker of this poem loves the snowfall's beauty enough to be distracted by it, but even more than that he or she values keeping a promise. The repetition of the final two lines gives us an indication of how this person feels about the responsibilities that lie ahead: they are not frightening or unpleasant, they are just tedious, involving travel, lack of sleep, and numbing repetition. Unenthusiastic about obligations but enthusiastic about the snowfall, this speaker nevertheless lives up to the promises that were made. Back to Table of Contents
"Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" is written in iambic tetrameter. "Iambic" means that each metrical foot contains two syllables, an unstressed one followed by a stressed one. "Tetrameter" means that each line contains four metrical feet. So a poem written in iambic tetrameter would contain a total of eight syllables in each line. This idea will become clearer if we scan a line, or diagram the meter: Of easy wind and downy flake. When the line is scanned, it will look like this: Of eas / y wind / and down / y flake. Such metrical patterns generally make poetry sound more musical. Occasionally, a line will vary from the established pattern, which often emphasizes the importance of that line. "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" also relies on rhyme to achieve some of its music. For the first three stanzas, the rhyme scheme is consistent. Its pattern is aaba bbcb cede. The fourth stanza, however, rhymes every line with d. This means that in the first stanza, lines one, two, and four rhyme with each other, with line three ("here") seeming odd. However, in stanza two, lines one, two, and four rhyme with "here," while the rhyme on line three, "lake," is picked up in stanza three. Such a pattern links the stanzas together and indicates that the ideas contained in the stanzas are strongly related. Back to Table of Contents
"Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening" was first published in 1923, when the pace of social growth was in the process of breaking out into a gallop. In all areas of life, new ways of looking at established ideas suddenly rose up and challenged tradition. In literature, old formal structures were redefined by the writings of James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway, and T.S. Eliot; in art, Dadaism was a short-lived revolution but Cubism arrived to stay; mainstream architects started using the revolutionary ideas of Frank Lloyd Wright; and musicians including Louis Armstrong and Sidney Bechet invented America's indigenous music, jazz. The ideas of Darwin, Marx, Freud, and Einstein were not just the business of intellectuals anymore, but were discussed openly at dinner tables and in magazines on the grocer's rack. This sudden breakout pace of social change would naturally make people uncomfortable if they were used to slower times. Many readers probably felt like the narrator of "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening" who takes a few quiet moments with nature before going on to fulfill obligations. Style 5
Often, discussions about the flood of new ideas in the 1920s will focus attention on the end of World War I in 1919. More than any war that came before it, this war made people question the value of human existence, as advances in long-range weaponry and in vehicles to shift troops quickly across long distances, and the first use of airplanes for combat, expanded the scope of human experience while crushing individual lives. As a result, many of the literary figures of the 1920s are said to have felt a sense of alienation, as if the tie between their individual lives and the world in general had been severed. This made it easy for them to break with tradition. American artists in particular became even more alienated when they found they could live much more cheaply in France than they could at home because the American dollar kept rising: in 1919 a dollar bought eight francs, in 1923 it was worth sixteen, and by 1926 it bought twenty-five francs. Separated from the American tradition, these artists could look at their country more objectively, and many chose a new style to express this new view. Robert Frost, who had lived in England from 1912 to 1915 when his literary career was just getting started, may have been able to get a clearer look at American values from that distance, but it did not lead him to a revolution in style. The words he wrote about poet Edward Arlington Robinson in 1935 were equally true about Frost himselfthat he "stayed content with the old-fashioned way to be new." Another type of alienation that became commonly known by mainstream Americans in the 1920s was the Marxist idea of "alienation of labor." Since the last decades of the nineteenth century, the world had become increasingly industrialized, which meant that a generation that had grown up on farms, as Frost had, was now for the most part living in cities. For workers who made their livings in factories, this meant selling their time to their employers during working hours. For intellectuals, it meant that society valued a factory over a stream or a meadow, because the factory provided jobs. Writers pointed out the double disgrace of workers who trampled nature while selling their own lives away for twelve or fourteen hours a day. The Russian revolution of 1917 was seen as a triumph for Communism, and it gave laborers hope that the trend of having power collect in the hands of a few rich men could be reversed, so that people could control their own destinies. In the 1920s, Communist organizations flourished across America, as did all labor unions and workers' organizations. Some of these groups were radical and supported violent means for changing the government, but most, such as the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations, worked within the system and are still influential today. Popular media still refer to that decade as "the Roaring Twenties," offering images of a faster paced city life increasingly controlled by automobiles and violent organized crime. To an extent, this perception is true. There were four automobiles on the road in the U.S. in 1895; in 1920 there were eight and a quarter million; by 1927 that number had doubled. The factories needed to build these machines brought people from farms and other countries to the cities. With liquor outlawed by Prohibition from 1919 to 1933, there were great profits to be made in illegally providing liquor, and the criminals who did this could only protect their profits from each other by violent means. The popular imagination focuses on the flashy, exciting images of the 1920s, but it usually misses the discomfort people felt when they saw the peaceful countryside slipping away. Robert Frost captures this mood in "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening." Back to Table of Contents
Critical Overview
Because it is so well known, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" has received significant critical attention, generally positive. Writing in The Virginia Quarterly Review, James M. Cox states that this poem contains "haunting rhythms" which are formed partly by the "logic of the rhyme scheme." This rhyme scheme, he says, "is an expression of the growing control and determination" of the speaker. John T. Ogilvie, in his article in the South Atlantic Quarterly, suggests that the poem becomes richer with each reading. It has, he says, "a disconcerting way of deepening in dimension as one looks at it, of darkening in tone." A poem Historical Context 6
which might initially seem simply to describe a natural scene becomes more ominous as the reader becomes more attentive. John C. Kemp, in his book, Robert Frost and New England: The Poet as Regionalist, also believes the poem is successful in part because of its structure. Here, "we find restraint, economy, and gracefully tuned cadences," he says. In this passage, Kemp is suggesting that Frost is able to use language skillfully, that he is able to draw several levels of meaning from each word and line, and that he is able to do so attractively. Back to Table of Contents
Essays and Criticism
1. The Meaning of Stopping By Woods 2. The Intricacies of Frost's Famous Poem 3. Robert Frost's Favorite Poem
The Meaning of Stopping By Woods
In the following essay, Hochman maintains that the apparent simplicity of this popular, well-known poem invites overanalysis of its meaning. Perhaps no poem of Robert Frost is more anthologized and studied than "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening." The poem appeared in Frost's collection, New Hampshire: A Poem with Notes and Grace Notes (1923) for which he won one of four Pulitzer Prizes. Even Frost called the poem his "best bid for remembrance." "Stopping," describes an unremarkable moment: a driver stopping his horse-drawn buggy to look at the woods, his horse shaking the harness bells which the driver thinks is the horse's way of saying, "There must be some mistake," and the driver deciding it is time to move on. It is not known who the person is, nor whether male or female. Neither is it known from where or to where the driver is going, nor why, and the promises the driver must keep also go unexplained. Finally no clue is supplied as to where this scene takes place. Here then, is a poem that functions as a perfect vehicle upon which to heap meaning, since, one is likely to think, the mere situation of stopping and looking at woods surely cannot be all there is to the poem. The reader feels compelled to read into and perhaps even over-read the poem. Frost complained that the poem was over-interpreted, especially when critics remarked that "sleep" probably meant death. Still Frost should be expected of some good-natured trickery here: the poem seems deliberately fashioned to lure its readers into either a simplistic under-reading or an anxious over-reading. The poem itself comes to function like the "lovely" woods it describes: one is either prone to simply drive by and regard the snowy woods as if a beautiful landscape painting or photograph, or, on the other hand, tempted to plunge into the woods, become overwhelmed by the "forces" or the "deeper meanings" of the forest. Just imagine four possible (over)readings of the poem. First, the driver contemplates the purity of life without sin (snow), but decides one must move onspurred on by the bestial horsebefore living as sinless a life as if one were sleeping or dead. Or the interpretation can be just the opposite: the reader contemplates a fallen nature represented by the woods and wants to indulge in sin, but at the last moment is reined in by the harnessed horse. Third: the driver contemplates the coldness of the snow and is tempted to give up all Critical Overview 7
relationships and become a hermit, but the horse reminds the driver of another presence-in-need and the driver is reminded that a world of relationships is crucial. Fourth, the driver is suicidal since it is the "darkest evening" of the year and wants to walk out into the snowy, dark and deep woods and perish. But the living and dependent horse calls him back with a shake of the harness bells. There are, of course, many more possible interpretations, for instance, the driver resists the siren song of the contemplative life in nature and chooses a life of responsibility and activity in culture. But whatever the interpretation, the question is, if reading after reading can be spun out, what is the point? On the other hand it can be decided that if the poem can be read in almost any fashion it becomes meaningless. Adopting one interpretation then seems like the superior way in which to come to terms with "Stopping." The interpretation most likely to result is the one that best fits what the reader might think in a similar situation. Or, with research into Frost, one might adopt the reading that best fits with Frost's outlook and sensibilities even if it grates against one's own. Problems, however, exist with either strategy. With the multiplication of interpretations, the poem turns into a runny and complicated mush. On the other hand, if only one "best" explanation is settled for, the poem turns into a thin broth fit only for fragile intestinal tracts. Instead of settling for either the overly processed concoction or decoction of Frost's poem, it might be better to distance ourselves a little bit, study how it is the poem lures the reader into (and here I switch metaphors) either using the poem like an old, nicked-up knife, employing it for almost any kind of job, even tasks for which it is ill-suited, or, conversely, seldom "using" it, as if the poem were some marble bust on a pedestal in an alcove. Frost wished that poems would be studied more as performances or processes and less used or regarded as finished objects. This means attempting to understand why the poem has the shape it does, and contains the words it contains, all for the purpose of finding out in what ways the poem best functions. This may be the preferable solution to dealing with an object that will serve us and it better by using it as neither a universal tool nor a fragile and expensive museum piece. Within a horizon of rather traditional formal limitation based on the number four, that is, iambic tetrameter (four beats or pairs of syllables consisting of an unaccented syllable followed by an accented syllable) in four stanzas of four-lines each, Frost chiselled out for "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" an ingenious form of interlocking rhyme: the third unrhymed line of the first three stanzas provokes the subsequent stanza's rhymed sound. Further, Frost repeated the last two lines of the poem partially as a matter of form: "What it [the repetend or repeated lines] does is save me from a third line promising another stanza .... I considered for a moment four of a kind in the last stanza but that would have made five including the third in the stanza before it. I considered for a moment winding up with a three line stanza. The repetend was the only logical way to end such a poem." What results is a satisfying presentation of traditional form with an individual variation demanded by the poem's own structure. Upon a foundation of tradition, Frost erected a canny interlocking rhyme scheme, upon which he attached a consistent and efficient way of solving a formal problemso elegant is Frost's solution of the repetend for an ending, that its formal perfection is likely to go unnoticed even as it attracts us with its peaceful, sleep-like repetition. The four stanzas, the four lines per stanza with four beats in each line, and the four end-rhymes yield a kind of rational object, one made of straight lines that produces a kind of box-like or grid structure. Such a structure can remind one of conventionality, of a person who does the usual or the normal, as when someone says, "He's square," or "She's straight." Frost himself said that "Stopping" illustrated a "commitment to convention." Form, then, appears to be reinforcing content, the four-fold structure lending itself to the driver's decision to move on, to stop dreaming and get back to a world of responsibilities and practicality. The first stanza sets a rather mischievous tone for the poem. First, worried that the owner of the woods might see him stopping, the driver seems gratified the owner lives in the village. Such meditations are common to an environment in which private property replaces unboundaried nature. Stopping is increasingly called "loitering," "trespassing," or it simply arouses suspicion so that stoppers are self-conscious about stopping. The Meaning of Stopping By Woods 8
One must, as the police say, "Keep moving," if one is to remain above suspicion. But just when the driver has established his pleasure at being above suspicion, the second stanza establishes the horse's discomfort. It is not the woods that bothers the horse so much, the driver thinks, as the absence of a farmhouse on the "darkest evening of the year." This evening might be the winter solstice on December 22, the longest night of the year. With the scene being so dark and devoid of human presence, the reader might begin to share the horse's, and maybe the driver's, mild discomfort. The third stanza intensifies the solitude of the scene through attention to sound: the only sounds being the momentary shake of harness bells, and the ongoing "easy wind" and softly falling snow. Here the reader might be simultaneously pulled in by the increasing mystery or quiet of the natural scene and the endearing way in which the driver seems to understand or overinterpret his horse's shake. As abruptly as driver and horse seem to have stopped, however, the driver resolves to go and leave behind this at least somewhat alluring forest, even if the series of adjectives, "lovely, dark, and deep" convey a complex mix of attraction and fear. The reasons for leaving the woods the driver offers are those very unspecific "promises to keep" and "miles to go." It seems like the driver is reticent to give any more information. Fortunately or unfortunately, the driver's laconic reasons are all that readers have to go on. In the end, what Frost produces is a poem that seems to hover in the zone of perfection, a poem that explains nearly everything and nothing at the very same time. In an end that never ends, the very problem with this poem is its perfection, its quality of demanding more and more discussion about something for which discussion seems pointless. As unsatisfactory as it may seem, these woods can neither be penetrated nor left behind; it is simply time to go. Source: Jhan Hochman, in an essay for Poetry for Students, Gale, 1997. Jhan Hochman is a freelance writer and currently teaches at Portland Community College, Portland, OR. Back to Section Index Back to Table of Contents
The Intricacies of Frost's Famous Poem
In the following essay, Monte reminds us that a familiar poem is not necessarily a well-understood one, and he urges us to pause and reflect on the intricacies that give depth to Frost's famous poem. With the exception of "The Road Not Taken," "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" is probably Frost's best-known poem. As with many well-known poems, we may feel that familiarity equals understanding or that a poem we have read or heard enough times can't surprise us anymore. This is especially the case with "Stopping by Woods," which is not only one of the most popular American poems, but is also one written in a clear and seemingly direct style. We might even say that we like the poem precisely because of its simplicity and effortless feel. But as with a person we've been-acquainted with for a long time but don't really know, a familiar poem may change when we encounter it in unfamiliar circumstances. Where once we saw only surface and clearly defined qualities, suddenly we see depths and ambiguity. For this to happen with a poem, we often only need to stop and reflect on our experience, like the speaker in Frost's poem. One of the messages of "Stopping by Woods" seems to be just thatpausing and reflecting on experience help us re-enter life with a new understanding and sense of direction. The plot of "Stopping by Woods" is straightforward: a man (we assume) narrates his experience of driving some sort of horse-drawn vehicle by privately owned woods on a snowy evening. He stops, and then contemplates how strange his halt must seem to the horse, given that it is cold and dark and there is no farmhouse in sight. The horse shakes his harness bell, an action that the man interprets as the animal asking "if there is some mistake." The man then listens to the wind and the snow and ends his account with some The Intricacies of Frost's Famous Poem 9
remarks on his experience, his responsibilities to the world, and the distance he needs to travel before he sleeps. The story could easily be trueit certainly aims to be "true to life"but it is hard not to interpret it symbolically. Many readers over the years have felt that the man's journey toward sleep represents life's "journey" toward death, though Frost himself insisted that the last two lines were not an invocation of death. Another popular way of reading the poem is to understand the man's rejection of the woods as an acceptance of social duty and personal responsibility. But "Stopping by Woods" is a much stranger poem than may appear at first. From the opening lines, we know that the story is being told from the speaker's point of view ("Whose woods these are I think I know"), but we may never bother to consider whom the man is addressing. The addressee of the poem can only be the man himself, who seems to be narrating the events as they occur to him, or thinking "aloud" to himself. This odd, subjective perspective is worth puzzling over, if only because it allows us to see just how self-conscious the man is. Why is he so concerned about being seen stopping by the woods? Is it simply because he fears he will be accused of trespassing on someone else's property? Perhaps he feels guilty that he has temporarily suspended his business and does not wish to be seen or see himself as someone who shirks responsibility. Or it could be that he feels guilty for indulging in a fantasy, for he is attracted to something he feels he should resist. It is hard to say what the woods represent for the manrest, death, nature, beauty, solitude, oblivionbut it is clear that he feels he should not allow himself to give in to his desire to stay there. There is moreover a sexual dimension to his fantasy: the feminine woods ("lovely, dark and deep") are set against a world of men where promises must be keptthe world of property and business. Whatever depths "Stopping by Woods" possesses, it gives us the impression of simplicity. How does the poem manage this? Most obviously, its language remains conversational throughout and it generally avoids twisting around the word order of spoken speech. "Stopping by Woods" also contains only one word with more than two syllables. When the poem does alter the expected word order, as in "Whose woods these are I think I know," the sound and the sense of the line help us forget that there is anything odd going on. We don't feel the line should read "I think I know whose woods these are" because we get the sense that the speaker is expressing the thought as it occurs to him: he is especially concerned with remembering who owns the woods, and he expresses his uncertainty by following his first thought with the phrase "I think I know." The insistent rhythms of the poemevery line except one is exceptionally regular in beating out "ta-dum, ta-dum, ta-dum, ta-dum"and the frequent rhymes add to the illusion of simplicity. Caught in the flow of the poem, we tend not to notice that the lines "Between the woods and frozen lake / The darkest evening of the year" neither follow logically from the lines that come before them nor form a complete sentence on their own. Once again, we might feel that we are listening to the thoughts of the speaker. He is situating himself in place ("Between the woods and frozen lake") and time ("The darkest evening of the year"), where "darkest" may imply the "longest" evening of the year, December 22, the winter solstice. By calling the evening "darkest," the man suggests that he has reached a low point or a moment of crisis. Another reason why "Stopping by Woods" seems simple is that it is structured around many familiar oppositions. A complete list of these oppositions would be unusually long for such a short poem: man and nature, masculine and feminine, emptiness and fullness, business and pleasure, movement and stopping, society and solitude, life and death, activity and sleep, and so on. Such familiar distinctions may make us feel at home in the poem, but they may also be disturbing. The categories either seem too fixed (should we only associate men with activity and business?) or too fluid (which is empty, life or death?). Oppositions also help determine the poem's organization: "Stopping by Woods" constantly alternates between inner thoughts and descriptions of the world outside. Even within its descriptive mode, the poem shifts from the visual details of the first stanza ("He will not see ... To watch his woods") to the sounds of the third stanza ("harness bells ... The only other sound's the sweep"). Meanwhile the second and the fourth stanzas are more reflective. In the second stanza, the man imagines what the horse is thinking. The details of "the woods and frozen lake" may be in the man's line of vision, but they may also be his way of placing the scene on a mental map, just as "darkest evening" may place the day on a mental calendar. The fourth stanza is even more subjective in its The Intricacies of Frost's Famous Poem 10
description of the woods as "lovely, dark and deep." All of this inward and outward movement and the poem's oppositions make us feel that the man is being pulled in different directions and needs to make a decision. But before looking at the decision the man makes in the last stanza, it is worthwhile to stop and examine some of the odd features of his descriptions. Why is his horse "little"? Why is the wind "easy" and the flake "downy"? It is not enough to say "because they are little, easy, and downy," or even "because they appear that way to the man," for we would still be left wondering why he chose to describe these things and not others. A somewhat more inventive if unkind explanation is that Frost needed to fill up his lines with these adjectives in order to keep the poem's rhythm insistent. But perhaps we can do better. By calling the horse "little," Frost gives us a sense of the smallness of the figures in the landscape. We furthermore sense that the man is not rich and is probably fond of his animal. "Easy" and "downy" may in their own way hint at what the man is feeling. Part of the attraction of the scene seems to lie in its promise of ease and softness, its contrast to the hard world of men. The description of the woods in the final stanza leads into the strangest and most memorable section of the poem. Why does this last stanza haunt us? It begins innocently enough and even sounds like a cliche: "The woods are lovely." But the vagueness of the description, the pulse of the line, and the repetition of sounds ("dark and deep") suggest that we are entering a kind of dreamworld. The drowsy repetition of "And miles to go before I sleep" completes this effect, and we sense that the poem is enacting what the man is feeling. The poem's close feels satisfying because it deviates from, and then reinforces, patterns that the poem has established earlier. The first three stanzas have rhymes in the first, second, and fourth lines. The third line then rhymes with the first line of the following stanza, helping us feel that all four stanzas connect like links in a chain. But the established rhythms and rhymes are disrupted in the final stanza. The line "But I have promises to keep" is not as rhythmically insistent as the other lines of the poem. It also contains the poem's only three-syllable word, "promises." Just as the man attempts to shake off his dreamy attraction to the woods, we are brought up short with this jarring line. The last two lines then feel like a fade out, not simply because of the repetition, but due to the return of the rhythm and the absence of a new linking word: all four lines of this stanza rhyme. The speaker in "Stopping by Woods" "wakes up" to a knowledge of what he must do. He apparently decides to return to the real world and cease his dreaming. He is leaving nature and returning to society, and in so doing makes us feel that there is some irony in the poem's title: he was only "stopping by" nature, as if on a social call. At the beginning of the poem he was unsure ("I think I know"); at the end he has gained some kind of knowledge. We can think of the experience he has by the woods as either a temporary diversion or a recurring moment in his life that helps him go on. In this straight reading of the poem, the man's experience, though forcing him to confront the fact of death and the difficulties of life, consoles him (and the reader) in the end. But if this moment is, or has the potential to be, a recurrent moment in life, the poem may not be as consoling as we first thought. In this dark reading of the poem, we can't be sure whether the man has come to a decision or merely postponed it. He never actually says he has moved on and, if anything, he seems on his way to sleep. Even supposing he does continue on his journey, it is not clear that the road ahead represents a more appealing alternative to the woods. Real life may seem emptier now, and all those familiar oppositions that help us make sense of our lives are open to question. If we equate stopping by woods with reading a poem, we will confront a similar dilemma. As the man's experience should suggest, however, it is not a question of choosing between alternatives so much as it is becoming aware of new possibilities. In looking closely at a poem, we don't cancel our first experience of reading so much as we enrich it and make it more strange. Source: Steven Monte, in an essay for Poetry for Students, Gale, 1997. Back to Section Index Back to Table of Contents The Intricacies of Frost's Famous Poem 11
Robert Frost's Favorite Poem
In the following excerpt, Bleau shares his story of meeting Frost and speaking with him about "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening." Robert Frost revealed his favorite poem to me. Furthermore, he gave me a glimpse into his personal life that exposed the mettle of the man. I cherish the memory of that conversation, and vividly recall his description of the circumstances leading to the composition of his favorite work. We were in my hometownBrunswick, Maine. It was the fall of 1947, and Bowdoin College was presenting its annual literary institute for students and the public. Mr. Frost had lectured there the previous season; and being well received, he was invited for a return engagement. I attended the great poet's prior lecture and wasn't about to miss his encoreeven though I was quartered 110 miles north at the University of Maine. At the appointed time, I was seated and eagerly awaiting his entrancearmed with a book of his poems and unaware of what was about to occur. He came on strong with a simple eloquence that blended with his stature, bushy white hair, matching eyebrows, and well-seasoned features. His topics ranged from meter to the meticulous selection of a word and its varying interpretations. He then read a few of his poems to accentuate his message. At the conclusion of the presentation, Mr. Frost asked if anyone had questions. I promptly raised my hand. There were three other questioners, and their inquiries were answered before he acknowledged me. I asked, "Mr. Frost, what is your favorite poem?" He quickly replied, "They're all my favorites. It's difficult to single out one over another!" "But, Mr. Frost," I persisted, "surely there must be one or two of your poems which have a special meaning to youthat recall some incident perhaps." He then astonished me by declaring the session concluded; whereupon, he turned to me and said, "Young man, you may come up to the podium if you like." I was there in an instant. We were alone except for one man who was serving as Mr. Frost's host. He remained in the background shadows of the stage. The poet leaned casually against the lecternbeckoning me to come closer. We were side by side leaning on the lectern as he leafed the pages of the book. "You knowin answer to your questionthere is one poem which comes readily to mind; and I guess I'd have to call it my favorite," he droned in a pensive manner. "I'd have to say 'Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening' is that poem. Do you recall in the lecture I pointed out the importance of the line 'The darkest evening of the year'?" I acknowledged that I did, and he continued his thoughtful recollection of a time many years before. "Wellthe darkest evening of the year is on December twenty-secondwhich is the shortest day of the yearjust before Christmas." I wish I could have recorded the words as he reflectively meted out his story, but this is essentially what he said. The family was living on a farm. It was a bleak time both weatherwise and financially. Times were hard, and Christmas was coming. It wasn't going to be a very good Christmas unless he did something. Sohe hitched up the wagon filled with produce from the farm and started the long trek into town. When he finally arrived, there was no market for his goods. Times were hard for everybody. After exhausting every possibility, he finally accepted the fact that there would be no sale. There would be no exchange for him Robert Frost's Favorite Poem 12
to get a few simple presents for his children's Christmas. As he headed home, evening descended. It had started to snow, and his heart grew heavier with each step of the horse in the gradually increasing accumulation. He had dropped the reins and given the horse its head. It knew the way. The horse was going more slowly as they approached home. It was sensing his despair. There is an unspoken communication between a man and his horse, you know. Around the next bend in the road, near the woods, they would come into view of the house. He knew the family was anxiously awaiting him. How could he face them? What could he possibly say or do to spare them the disappointment he felt? They entered the sweep of the bend. The horse slowed down and then stopped. It knew what he had to do. He had to cry, and he did. I recall the very words he spoke. "I just sat there and bawled like a baby"until there were no more tears. The horse shook its harness. The bells jingled. They sounded cheerier. He was ready to face his family. It would be a poor Christmas, but Christmas is a time of love. They had an abundance of love, and it would see them through that Christmas and the rest of those hard times. Not a word was spoken, but the horse knew he was ready and resumed the journey homeward. The poem was composed some time later, he related. How much later I do not know, but he confided that these were the circumstances which eventually inspired what he acknowledged to be his favorite poem. Source: N. Arthur Bleau, "Robert Frost's Favorite Poem," in Frost: Centennial Essay III, edited by Jac Tharpe, University Press of Mississippi, 1978 pp. 174-176. Back to Section Index Back to Table of Contents
1923: The Soviet Union came into existence, expanding the Communist empire established by the Russian revolution of 1917. 1945: With the defeat of the Axis powers in World War II, the Soviet Union became one of the world's two super-powers, along with the United States. 1990: The Soviet Union disbanded after member nations demanded independence. Today: Most former Soviet Union countries belong to the Commonwealth of Independent States: civil wars over property rights of ethnic factions break out frequently. 1923: Approximately 42 percent of the land in the United States was farmland; approximately 30 percent of the population lived on farms, down from 41 percent at the turn of the century. 1940: 46.8 percent of U.S. acreage was farmland; 23.2 percent of the population lived on farms. 1960: 49.5 percent of U.S. acreage was farmland; 8.7 percent of the population lived on farms. 1980: 44.8 percent of U.S. acreage was farmland: 2.7 percent of the population lived on farms. Today: Machinery and bio-engineering make it possible to grow greater amounts of produce in smaller spaces Compare and Contrast 13
with fewer employees. Back to Table of Contents
Topics for Further Study
Write a short story about the owner of the woods finding this poem's speaker. Why is he out in the woods, instead of at his house in the village? Would he be angry? Would he befriend the poem's speaker? Describe the horse's life: why is he so uneasy about being out in the woods, with no farmhouse around? What does he do day after day, if this is so unsettling? Why is this poem's last line repeated? What does this tell you about what has gone on before? Back to Table of Contents
Media Adaptations
An audio record titled "Robert Frost Reads the Poems of Robert Frost" was released in 1957 by Decca. A video titled Robert Frost, part of the Poetry America Series, is available through AIMS Media. Robert Frost, a videocassette from volume 3 of the Voices and Visions Series, is available from Mystic Fire Video. A 1958 interview with Robert Frost is available on video cassette from Zenger. Back to Table of Contents
What Do I Read Next?
Henry David Thoreau's Walden is an American classic and was one of Frost's favorite books, which he reread often throughout his lifetime. Like this poem, it deals with a time the author left society for the New England forest, except that in Thoreau's case it was not for a few minutes but for a few years. New editions have consistently been published since the first printing in 1854. To explore the directions that more experimental poets such as Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot and William Carlos Williams were taking poetry into in the 1920s, see Stanley K. Coffman's Imagism: A Chapter for the History of Modern Poetry. Published in 1951 and reprinted in 1972, this book scarcely mentions Frost, but gives theoretical and biographical information about his peers that makes Frost's individualism come into focus. In Robert Frost Himself, Stanley Burnshaw draws on personal reflections of conversations, documents, letters, and the author's poems to present his biography. Much of this is thorough and interesting, although sometimes Burnshaw goes a little too far to rescue Frost's image from remarks made by the poets official biographer, Lawrence Thompson. Published in 1986.
Cleanth Brooks was one of this century's most respected literary critics and theorists. His 1939 book Modern Poetry and the Tradition, revised in 1967, explains the complexity of Frost's poetry and places it in the context of the poets who preceded him and his peers. Back to Table of Contents
Bibliography and Further Reading
Sources Cox, James M., Editor, Robert Frost: A Collection of Critical Essays, Prentice Hall, 1962. Cox, James M., "Robert Frost and the Edge of the Clearing," in The Virginia Quarterly Review, Vol. 35, No. 1, Winter 1959, pp. 73-88. Frost, Robert, Collected Poems, Prose, and Plays, Library of America, 1995. Gerber, Philip L., Critical Essays on Robert Frost, G.K. Hall, 1982. Kemp, John C., Robert Frost and New England: The Poet as Regionalist, Princeton University Press, 1979, p. 273. Ogilvie, John T., "From Woods to Stars: A Pattern of Imagery in Robert Frost's Poetry," in South Atlantic Quarterly, Vol. LVIII, No. 1, Winter 1959, pp. 64-76. Potter, James L., Robert Frost Handbook, Pennsylvania State University Press, 1980. Thompson, Lawrance, Robert Frost: The Years of Triumph 1915-1938, Holt Rinehart and Winston, 1970. For Further Study Cramer, Jefrey S., Robert Frost Among His Poems, Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co. Inc., 1996. Cramer gives a brief but thorough background of almost every poem Frost has written. An indispensable guide. Johnson, Paul, Modern Times: The World from the Twenties to the Eighties, New York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1983. Not as fun or interesting to read as Geoffrey Perrett's book listed below, but full of more factual information. Perrett, Geoffrey, Americans in the Twenties, New York: Touchstone Books, 1983. This book is filled with fascinating anecdotes that bring the decade alive. All aspects of life are covered. Suchard, Alan, et. al., Modern American Poetry, 1865-1950, Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1989. The author paints a portrait of Frost as a bitter and brilliant man, quite the opposite of the impression one gets of him from his poetry. Back to Table of Contents
Interessi correlati
Documenti simili a Stopping_by_Woods_on_a_Snowy_Evening_eNotes
DMMsmart
Craig Cole
NewEnglishBlog
Julia Garces
Agatha Pang
JC Carlo Gicaro
Sylvaen Wsw
bitchesrunwild
Will Narramore
EdhoTrygvasen
Popolare in Politics
Jericho Systems v. Axiomatics
PriorSmart
"UNSIGNED" Or Partially Signed Contracts
in1or
respuestas microeconomia
Paola Olarte
aetp-01(d)
Mohd Noor
claudia1920
Notes Chapter 3 AUD
cpacfa
bibliography final
COVID Report - May 14, 2020
Jim Parker
the day of resurrection in light of soorah an-nabaa compiled by shawana a
Impact of ECB on Economy
asharaghava
S&EManagemoney (1).pdf
Verbs often confused.page_59+exercises
Diego Avila
Pedigree Reliable Man Dec 14
carinaklingberg
Cases related to Family code.
Patricia Gumpal
The Public Policy Theory Primer
Mustofa Tofa
Elai Trinidad
Abdullah Ibn Hudhafah as-Sahmi
RahbarTv
Variation Order
Azman Scx
MAERSK Contract Letter
Victor de Vicente
Surah Teen MiracleDreamtafseer khan
speed2kx
Andenet Ashagrie
Dr Abdu Mukhtar - Presentation.pptx
Sadiq Mahmoud
AC 516 Materiality.Risk.Evidences.ppt
Richel Armayan
CABANSAG vs. FERNANDEZ
Kristela Adraincem
Curriculum Development Assignment # 2
veramond
Cotización Criba 50
Grace Martinez
AmarrCosmosGuide
pdiroot
260916_ERP_NIT.pdf
Srimathi Rajamani
FAQs on RTI Act
Dur Tur
Utile100%Il 100% ha trovato utile questo documento, Contrassegna questo documento come utile


Just months after playing his final concert with Black Sabbath, Ozzy Osbourne has announced his own Farewell World Tour that's slated to last into 2020. The metal pioneer may be finishing up his time on the road, but that doesn't mean he'll be done with music altogether.
Osbourne will be joined by four longtime collaborators: Zakk Wylde on guitar, Tommy Clufetos on drums, Adam Wakeman on keyboards, and Rob "Blasko" Nicholson on bass. The bassist, who also worked with Rob Zombie and Danzig, replaced Robert Trujillo as Osbourne's bassist back in 2003. He was featured on the singer's Black Rain and Scream albums.
The tour will start in Mexico before heading to South America and Europe. The North American leg of the tour will be revealed in 2018.


text:
Home All News Health First Smartphone App to Detect Ear Infections in Children Could Save Unnecessary...
First Smartphone App to Detect Ear Infections in Children Could Save Unnecessary Doctor's Visits
A new smartphone app is able to sound out possible ear infections in children.
Scientists developed the app using a "user-friendly" method that can quickly detect the presence of fluid in the middle ear – a likely indicator of ear infections.
Researchers say that the new system, which was tested on 98 young patients in a pediatric surgical centre, could provide a "low-cost and effective" tool for parents to detect ear infections such as acute otitis media (AOM), a leading cause of visits to doctors.
Some cases of AOM can lead to severe complications such as meningitis, while other pediatric ear conditions (such as otitis media with effusion) are associated with delays in speech and poorer school performance.
RELATED: Answering Trivia Questions With This App Can Pay Off Other People's Student Loans
These conditions are hard to diagnose because symptoms are vague: Children might tug on their ears or have fevers, or be asymptomatic. Young children may be unable to describe where they hurt.
Researchers say that detecting middle ear fluid is a "critical" need in pediatric medicine – but existing tests, such as tympanometry, either can't be performed at home or they require expensive equipment.
To overcome the hurdles, Dr. Justin Chan and colleagues at the University of Washington School of Medicine created a system that uses a commercial smartphone's existing speakers and microphones to send audible "chirps" of sound into the ear canal so it can analyze the reflected acoustic signals and predict middle ear status.
MORE: This Kindness App Pairs People With Problems to Neighbors Who Have the Specific Solution
A deeper pitch in the sound indicates that the middle ear is filled with fluid. When no fluid is present, the eardrum vibrates and sends a variety of sound waves back.
"It's like tapping a wine glass," said Chan, a doctoral student in the Allen School. "Depending on how much liquid is in it, you get different sounds. Using machine learning on these sounds, we can detect the presence of liquid.
"The system requires no additional equipment beyond a small paper funnel to focus the sound, which can be constructed from printer paper, scissors and tape in under three minutes," said Chan.
CHECK OUT: Most People Don't Get Enough Vitamin D, But This App Can Fix That
The researchers tested the system using an iPhone 5S and a Galaxy S6 on the ears of 98 patients between the ages of 18 months and 17 years. They found that the platform detected middle ear fluid with 85% to 90% efficiency depending on the age group.
Collectively, this means that the app could diagnose ear infections with about the same amount of success as established diagnostic techniques.
"Importantly, parents of patients operated the system as easily as physicians in a separate experiment involving 25 patient ears, and the software was not substantially affected by background noise such as the sound of a crying child," said Chan.
MORE: Because His AirBnb Guest Had a Heart Attack, Man's Ingenuity is Now Saving Thousands of Lives
The team also tested the algorithm on a variety of smartphones and used different types of paper to make the funnel. The results were consistent regardless of phone or paper type.
The researchers now plan on commercializing this technology through a spinout company, Edus Health, and then making the app available to the public.
"Fluid behind the eardrum is so common in children that there's a direct need for an accessible and accurate screening tool that can be used at home or clinical settings," said co-first author Dr. Sharat Raju, a surgical resident in otolaryngology-head and neck surgery at the UW School of Medicine.
"If parents could use a piece of hardware they already have to do a quick physical exam that can say 'Your child most likely doesn't have ear fluid' or 'Your child likely has ear fluid, you should make an appointment with your pediatrician,' that would be huge."
The findings were published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.
Make Sure Your Friends Have Heard About The Good News By Sharing It To Social Media – Photo by Dennis Wise / University of Washington

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Archives|$100 MILLION FINE FOR MERRILL LYNCH
$100 MILLION FINE FOR MERRILL LYNCH
By PATRICK MCGEEHAN MAY 22, 2002
Merrill Lynch & Company said yesterday that it would pay $100 million in penalties to New York and other states and change the way it pays stock analysts to end an investigation that its chairman said had damaged the firm's reputation.
The settlement averted the possibility that Eliot L. Spitzer, the attorney general of New York, would file criminal charges against Merrill or any of its analysts or managers. Citing e-mail messages written by Henry Blodget and other Internet stock analysts, Mr. Spitzer had accused Merrill of promoting stocks of companies whose investment banking business Merrill wanted.
Merrill still, however, faces civil lawsuits and complaints in arbitration by individual investors. Federal securities regulators are also investigating conflicts of interest among Wall Street analysts.
But some former Wall Street analysts and plaintiff lawyers said the deal would bring little real change because it would not end the fundamental conflict of having analysts try to serve two masters -- the investors who follow their recommendations and the corporations that pay investment banking fees to their firms. Merrill's analysts, some of whom earn several million dollars a year, will continue to woo those corporations and try to help sell their stocks and bonds to mutual funds and other big investors. [News analysis, Page C1.]
''The analysts are still going to be, basically, high-paid salespeople,'' said Thom Brown, an analyst who formerly worked at a big investment bank and was interviewed last year by Mr. Spitzer's investigators. ''The most important aspect of their work is not going to change. What is that? Bringing in investment banking business.''
The $100 million penalty -- all of which will go to the treasuries of New York and other states -- would be one of the largest paid by a securities firm. It would match the amount Credit Suisse First Boston agreed in January to pay to federal securities regulators to settle investigations into its sales of new stocks in the late 1990's. Still, it amounts to less than a fifth of Merrill's earnings of $573 million last year and only a small fraction of the $3.78 billion Merrill earned in 2000.
''Clearly, the world is shifting,'' Mr. Spitzer said in an interview. ''You have the largest investment house fundamentally rewriting the rules. You don't pay a $100 million fine if you didn't do anything wrong.''
In the settlement Merrill executives apologized again for the behavior of their analysts but did not admit to any wrongdoing. Instead, they agreed to reorganize Merrill's research department and to stop allowing investment bankers to help determine how much analysts earn.
Merrill also agreed to prohibit analysts from promising positive stock ratings to prospective clients or from lowering their ratings to punish companies for not hiring Merrill.
Merrill executives said the firm had never paid its analysts a share of the fees from particular transactions they worked on. But their contributions to investment banking were measured and were considered in setting their pay.
Merrill will put more emphasis on how well the securities an analyst shepherds to market perform, said Rosemary Berkery, Merrill's general counsel. She said analysts would still help bankers identify and evaluate companies that Merrill could take public. Now, the performance of those new stocks, not just the fees earned from them, will affect the analysts' compensation, she said.
That system may open up another conflict, though, some critics said. Analysts may be motivated anew to recommend shares of companies to help improve their short-term performance on that score, they said.
David H. Komansky, Merrill's chairman and chief executive, said he did not expect any significant change in how much analysts earn because of the settlement.
Merrill's stock had sunk by more than $10 a share since Mr. Spitzer publicized his accusations. That decline reduced the company's stock market value by more than $9 billion. Although some analysts said the settlement had not hurt Merrill's prospects, its stock rose just 47 cents, or about 1 percent, yesterday to $43.85.
By settling, Mr. Spitzer was able to declare victory in a quest that brought him national attention as a reform-minded prosecutor as well as criticism for tackling an issue considered the province of federal regulators. Mr. Spitzer has repeatedly criticized the Securities and Exchange Commission for ignoring the problem of analysts' conflicts of interest while saying that he wanted to work in partnership with the commission.
''We commend the New York attorney general for shedding additional light on this critical issue and bringing this phase of the investigation to a speedy conclusion,'' Stephen M. Cutler, the commission's director of enforcement, said in a statement. ''While this settlement is an important milestone for investor protection, it is not the finish line and will not preclude our own efforts on behalf of the investing public.''
Mr. Spitzer said he hoped that the changes Merrill agreed to make would serve as a model for other Wall Street firms. But Merrill's competitors may take different tacks. A senior official of the Goldman Sachs Group said yesterday that he saw no problem with investment bankers' helping to evaluate the performance of analysts and did not endorse any limitation on the interaction between analysts and investment bankers.
''I don't see this issue fundamentally as one of separation,'' said E. Gerald Corrigan, a managing director of Goldman Sachs, whom the firm appointed yesterday to be an ombudsman for its research department. ''Quite to the contrary. It seems to me that if analysts are to be effective, and effective means to be objective and independent, they cannot live in an ivory tower or an isolation booth.'' Mr. Corrigan is a former chief executive of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Mr. Spitzer said his office would continue to investigate the behavior of analysts at several other big firms. He said some of those firms had begun to deliver documents he had requested under subpoenas.
Mr. Brown said Mr. Spitzer had to punish Merrill's analysts and executives if he wanted to deter fraudulent behavior. Analysts at other firms who have recommended stocks in hopes of being paid for helping their firms win underwriting assignments ''breathed a sigh of relief today,'' Mr. Brown said.
Although the settlement did not involve penalties for any current or former employees, Mr. Spitzer said that he expected the analysts would ''have their day in court.''
The turning point in Mr. Spitzer's yearlong investigation was his receipt of e-mail messages written by Mr. Blodget and other Merrill analysts that appeared to show that they harbored negative views of stocks they were recommending. The messages caught the analysts disparaging companies as ''junk'' or worse, and Mr. Spitzer brandished them as though they were smoking guns.
Reporters seized on them as evidence of what many investors had long suspected: that Wall Street analysts often contort themselves to come up with reasons to recommend buying stocks. The involvement of Mr. Blodget, who had been Merrill's best-known analyst before he quit in November, was fuel for the bonfire of Merrill's public image.
Mr. Komansky himself said that he ''found it quite embarrassing'' when he read a newspaper article about the accusation, which Mr. Spitzer first made publicly on April 8. He told employees that the firm's reputation had been tarnished and he apologized at a shareholder meeting last month.
Mr. Blodget, who earned $12 million in 2000, has declined to discuss the matter.
Yesterday, Merrill apologized again ''for the inappropriate communications brought to light.'' It added, ''We sincerely regret that there were instances in which certain of our Internet sector analysts expressed views that at certain points may have appeared inconsistent with Merrill Lynch's published recommendations.''
Mr. Komansky said Merrill would now begin an aggressive campaign to repair the damage, beginning with newspaper ads today proclaiming that Merrill's revised policies would set a new standard for research.
Throughout the day, Mr. Komansky and E. Stanley O'Neal, Merrill's president, told employees, investors and reporters that the settlement did not involve an admission of wrongdoing. Asked by an employee why the firm was paying the states, Mr. O'Neal said that the firm wanted to put the issue behind it.
The $100 million will be divided among the states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, with New York receiving $48 million and the others sharing the rest, Mr. Spitzer said. New York's share will go into the state treasury for general purposes, he said.
But Merrill will not pay anything until the other parties accept the terms of the agreement. The National American Securities Administrators Association has endorsed the agreement, and Mr. Spitzer has assured Merrill's executives that he will persuade the states to accept it.
Several plaintiffs' lawyers who represent Merrill customers complained that Mr. Spitzer had obtained neither restitution for individual investors nor an admission of liability that would help them in court.
''This agreement has done nothing to help investors on an individual basis in arbitration or in litigation, other than to put the e-mails in the public domain,'' said John Lawrence Allen, a lawyer in Manhattan. ''It's a great political ploy for Mr. Spitzer.''
Mr. Spitzer, who is scheduled to be nominated for re-election this week at the state Democratic Party's convention in Manhattan, countered that he had given investors a big leg up in court against Merrill.
''We have done more to air and establish the record of what went on on Wall Street than has any previous investigation,'' he said.
We are continually improving the quality of our text archives. Please send feedback, error reports, and suggestions to archive_feedback@nytimes.com.
A version of this article appears in print on May 22, 2002, on Page A00001 of the National edition with the headline: $100 MILLION FINE FOR MERRILL LYNCH. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe


text:
Anseo atá tú: Baile / Saoráil Faisnéise
The Citizens Information Board, as Comhairle, became subject to the requirements of the Freedom of Information (FOI) legislation from 1 October 2001. The Freedom of Information Act 2014 imposes various duties on public bodies and certain other bodies which are subject to it, and gives certain rights to individuals to access the records of the bodies concerned.
To facilitate access to information, the Freedom of Information Act 2014 requires an FOI body to publish information about itself in conformity with a model publication scheme that was approved by the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform. The information published under the Citizens Information Board publication scheme can be accessed via the menu on the left.
Access records held by the Citizens Information Board
Correct any personal information relating to yourself which is held by the Citizens Information Board and which you consider to be inaccurate, incomplete or misleading
Be given reasons for decisions made by the Citizens Information Board which affect you personally
The records held by the Citizens Information Board to which you are entitled to get access are:
Records created since 21 April 1998
Records created before that date which are necessary in order to understand subsequent records
Personal information held by the Citizens Information Board, regardless of when the record was created
Making an FOI request for records
If you cannot find the information you are looking for on the website or through enquiries and wish to make an FOI request:
Your request should be made in writing or by email and should indicate that the information is sought under the FOI Act.
You should indicate if you want the information in a particular form (for example, photocopy, CD-ROM, etc.).
You should give as much detail as possible to enable us to identify the records. If you have difficulty in identifying the precise records which you require, we will be happy to help you in preparing your request.
You may be required to prove your identity, especially if you are looking for personal information. So you may, therefore, be asked to produce your passport, driving licence, birth certificate, or other appropriate identification.
We are obliged under the FOI Act to acknowledge your request within two weeks and to make a decision within four weeks.
You should send your request to:
Margaret Zheng, FOI Officer
Citizens Information Board,
George's Quay House,
43 Townsend Street, Dublin 2
Telephone: 0761 07 9000
E-mail: FOI@ciboard.ie
If you are not happy with the initial decision on your request or if you do not receive notification of a decision, you may apply for an internal review of the decision (or absence of decision) to:
Adrian O'Connor, Senior Manager
You should look for an internal review within four weeks of receiving the initial decision or the absence of an initial decision (that is, within eight weeks of your initial request).
We are obliged to conduct an internal review within three weeks of receiving your application. If you are still unhappy with the decision or you have not received a reply to your request for an internal review, you may appeal to the Information Commissioner at:
Office of the Information Commissioner
18 Lower Leeson Street, Dublin 2
D02 HE97
Telephone: 01 639 5689, Lo-call: 1890 253 238, Fax: 01 639 5674
Email: info@oic.gov.ie
Website: www.oic.gov.ie
The Citizens Information Board is obliged by the legislation to charge fees for certain records accessed under the FOI Act.
There is no charge for access to personal records, for correcting or amending personal information or for getting access to decisions which directly affect you.
Fees will be charged for the work involved in processing the records that are released if the total cost exceeds €100. These fees are as follows:
€20 per hour of search and retrieval
€0.04 per sheet for a photocopy
€10 for a CD-ROM containing copy of documents
€6 for a radiograph (X-ray) containing copy documents
You will have to pay a deposit of 20% of the estimated cost of search and retrieval if the estimated cost of finding the records requested is more than €100.
If you apply for an internal review, you have to pay €30 (or €10 if you are a medical card holder). The fee for an appeal to the Information Commissioner is €50 (or €15 for a medical card holder).
You can find further information in our Freedom of Information Guide (doc) and at www.foi.gov.ie.
Faisnéis faoin gComhlacht um SF
Seirbhísí a chuirtear ar fáil nó a chuirfear ar fáil don Phobal
An próiseas cinnteoireachta do mhórthograí beartais
Faisnéis Airgeadais
Soláthar
Loga Nochta um SF agus Faisnéis Eile le Foilsiú go Rialta


well it's old news by now, but heres the official toona report. me and carson drove up to altoona pa and took part in the 3-stage cat2 race. We drove up a day in advance so we could ride the 9 hour drive out of our legs. so we explored nearby duncansville and holidaysburgs. stage was is a super fast, rolling course mainly through a bunch of fields, but you come through a residential area for the start finish, so theres six 90 degree turns in the last km. i crashed with three turns to go last year in the rain when someone slide out, so i decided to try and conserve and get up there if the oppertunity presented itself. i got through the stage well, but a lot of those guys take that race extremely seriously, and despite several attempts, getting good position leading into the last km wasn't going to happen without really getting aggressive. so i stuck to the flat and cruised in, in 51st i think.
stage two is a beast that goes over blue knob ski resort, with a total of four 5km climbs, all in the last 35 miles. blue knob ended my hopes last year, and it took everything i had this year as well, i really struggled the first 2km, and had to claw my way up, and bridge several dropped groups, and had a really good final km, and went over the top in the third group, 10 seconds behind the second group of 12, and 20 seconds behind the leading group of 18 or so. I had a teammate, Rob Mcconnville with me, and our group worked well together thankfully, and we bridged to the second group within a few miles, and then quickly rejoined the leaders. this made the lead group about 45 riders strong, so we dispensed of a good 40 riders on blue knob. the next two climbs are a true 5km, and aren't as steep and blue knob. the second climb starts really gradual, and then the last km really kicks up and again, i suffered a lot on the steeper section, but made it over in the group, and we lost another 4-10 guys. the third climb is almost identical, gradual intro and ended with a brutal final km, i felt great on this climb and rode comfortably in the top 10 across the top. this is when all the training in Banner Elk starts to pay off i guess haha. a 6 man break got away somewhere first before the third climb and was maintaining a 40 second gap across it, and into the valley, and by the final climb, they had 2 minutes. the lead group was down to about 30 tired guys, the pace on the final climb didn't pick up until the final 3km when we went through 20km to go, a couple guys attacked and really stretched out the group, and instantly put some riders into the red. i surprisingly handled the acceleration well, despite having a hard time with that all year. the final km, like the previous climbs, the road kicked up a bit, and i feel like everyone was on the rivet, and a few guys were driving it, and it was really stretching out and i made the desicion to conserve since it was going to be a very select group for the sprint, i'd take my chances there. across the top there is a nice extended plateau through a small village and come guys hammer across, and i took two really hard pulls too to try and keep anyone from rejoining before the decent. after that, there is a 12km decent to the line, and the group was down to 21 riders. the sprint is really wide, 4 lanes, and very slightly downhill aka not my thing, but i was pretty confident, there were some attacks in the final km but nothing was going to get away, the sprint was pretty drawn out and chaotic, and i didn't judge it well, and only managed 8th from the group, slotting me in 15th overall. which despite the reality of the potential 7th i was sprinting for, i am really pleased with since last year i got dropped on blue knob and finished 64th. i find myself a lot, debating aggressive vs conservation, i have chosen conservation a lot this year it seems, because i've been subjected to some big races like tour of virginia and u23 nats where i have been racing over my head. and i feel that generally i can out climb the sprinters, and out sprint the climbers, but can't match the purists of any disipline. looking back at the blue knob race, i wish i'd of driven it up the final climb and worked the group down to 7-8 riders and sacrificed my sprint. but it is easy to say things like that looking back. there is always next year.
we rolled into downtown altoona for the stage three criterium, 20 minutes before our start, for no other reason than we are really lazy haha. but we got ready and got to the line, and took off with no warmup. luckily after two killer days in the saddle, you're pretty open and warmed up anyway. so i made and plan to stay where i was, in the back, and ride for 6 laps to get warmed up before i started moving forward. this worked out well, and ten laps in, i was sitting in the top 25. but much like the technical circuit race friday, the locals were taking huge risks in the corners, something i was a little hesitant to do. but it's the last day, i'm young and heal fast right? so the last five laps were crazy and i was determined to get up there and contest it, i worked my way into about 25th wheel and there was a small crash in the final corner before 3 laps to go, i got through it really cleanly on the inside, and had to close a 2 second gap, but the chaos moved me into about 10th wheel. i haven't previously mentioned that i had nursed a broken seat rail through the circuit race and road race, that i broke on our ride in holidaysburg before the start. well literally over the line with 2 laps to go, the other one broke! so the nose of my seat went down, and was only being held on by the railings behind the clamp, so i could sit my weight really far back on the seat in the turns and then had to stand through the straights. anyone that rides knows, two laps of mostly standing kills you haha, but i suffered through it and only lost ten spots and finished 21st i believe.
so it wasn't a tremendous weekend results wise, but overall i am really pleased with how it went. I got through safely after crashing twice last year. and improved greatly on my position each day and overall. and just as important, this race was really fun and altoona is an cool litlte town.


text:
Listen to @allotmentalice
Get growing with @allotmentalice!
The knead for time: how real bread is made
Posted on February 22, 2018 March 6, 2018 by Alice Whitehead
To celebrate Real Bread Week (Feb 24-March 4), I'm sharing an article I wrote for Great British Food, which takes an aromatic journey around some of Britain's best craft bakeries, uncovering the skills and tradition of artisan bread making and baking in the UK…
Not many people would admit to keeping a 45-year-old wild creature in a bin in the back room, but every morning baker Sam Wells diligently feeds his 'Wild White' and makes sure its every whim is catered for. It might sound like a scene from a gothic novel, but for Wells it's all in a day's work.
As head of production at the multi-award winning Hobbs House Bakery, in Chipping Sodbury, he's responsible for nurturing the culture of bacteria, or starter (acquired at the ripe old age of 30), which is used to make sourdough. It's a process that cannot be hurried.
"We've been perfecting our recipe for more than five years," says Wells, who works alongside brother Clive, brother-in-law Trevor Herbert and nephew Tom. "It contains just four ingredients: water, salt, organic white flour and the fourth – and most important – time. It goes through a 70-hour process before it's popped in the oven."
Although the bakery has been stamped with Rick Stein's Super Hero status, the staff are not, in fact, imbued with special powers (though the taste of their lovely loaves might make you think so): they simply know what makes great bread.
Wells, who's been baking in the five-generation family business since he was nine, says unlike the bagged, mass-produced bread you find in the supermarket, they wouldn't dream of adding any other ingredients to the recipe. "If you want to make a loaf quickly you have to add chemicals. We don't stick anything else in our bread to make it stand up in the tin, taste delicious or last longer – we just give it a bit of time and it's all there."
But the starter is not the only thing Wells is striving to nurture: he's one of a handful of British craft bakers fighting to keep the traditions of artisan bread making alive and well too.
As one of the oldest crafts in the world, the skilled process of bread making stretches back to Egyptian times. In Rome, circa 160BC, bakers were held in such high regard that a professional Bakers' Guild was formed, the members of which enjoyed the freedom of the city and special privileges (it's said they were also forbidden to mix socially with ordinary folk in case they should be "contaminated"). In the Middle Ages, bakers had to serve an apprenticeship of seven years before qualifying, with laws protecting their craft and status.
By the Victorian era, however, industrial-scale gas ovens, automated baking units and roller-milling systems, had put paid to all but a few craft bakeries. The 1960s saw the introduction of the now famous, high-speed Chorleywood Bread Process, which enabled dough to be made in as little as three minutes and transformed into a sliced loaf in less than three hours. It sounded the death knoll for many more artisan bakers.
Today, while countries such as Italy can boast up to 90 per cent of its bread is made in artisan bakers, in Britain, only around five per cent of bread is made in this way. In our fast-paced, fast food lifestyle the 70-hour sourdough has fallen out of favour.
"In the pre-industrial era, time was an essential ingredient in bread making. But today, for the British baking industry a more serious race has been on: to make mass-produced, no-time bread in the interests of profit and low prices," says Andrew Whitley, a baking teacher and former baker, with more than 30 years experience. "Without time to ferment the dough, bread not only lacks flavour but may not be the staff of life we fondly imagine."
Loving every crust and crumb
Compare a standard sliced loaf with a deeply flavoured yeasted artisan loaf, or a dark and thickly crusted rye sourdough and you'll see what all the fuss is about. Step into a craft bakery and experience the mingling aromas of wood smoke, fresh-baked bread and fruity starters – and it's likely you'll be converted forever.
"Whenever I visit a market I seek out the bread, and once I've bought a loaf: I'll squeeze it, then I'll smell it, before having a long, lingering chew," says cookery teacher Susan Spaul, author of Leiths Baking Bible. "The crust can be crisp or chewy or even soft; the insides have even greater variety depending on additions to the dough: I love them all."
River Cottage chef Dan Stevens first got bitten by the bread bug when he began baking in his mother's kitchen as a child, and says the unpredictable nature of bread making is what makes it so absorbing.
"My first attempt was bad; the second similar; the third slightly better. By the sixth time I thought I was starting to nail it, but then the seventh attempt was awful," says Dan, author of The River Cottage Handbook 3: Bread. "My mother insisted on taking my efforts over to my grandmother's house and they all ate it politely, even though it tasted like a brick."
"Despite this I became totally fascinated," continues Dan. "I realised there was so much to learn about bread making and an incredible amount of science behind it. I still have bad bread days, but I love the fact it keeps me on my toes!"
Linda Collister, author of Quick Breads and many other books on baking, learnt the basics at Cordon Bleu, and La Varenne cooking school in Paris. "The chef who taught us made perfect bread and expected nothing less from his students; you just had to practice until you got it right," she says. "In Paris I discovered pain Poilane, a rustic style sourdough loaf with deep flavour and chewy crumb, and baguettes with a razor-like crust. When I got back home I found the bread here a bit of a let down. Once you've eaten the best bread you won't settle for second best!"
A similar disillusionment with standardised bread led architect Jamie Campbell to go the whole hog and build a bakery at his home in Long Crichel, near Wimborne, Dorset. "I constructed a wood-fired oven in the stable block and baked my first loaf in 2000," says Campbell from Famous Hedgehog Bakery. "But what started as a hobby became a total fascination. Although it's demanding, it's totally mesmerising."
Today, his small bakery produces 10 different kinds of bread – from sourdough to yeasted loaves – as well Continental bread, viennoiserie and patisserie. He employs a team of bakers and supplies both the local community and the Abel and Cole box scheme.
Campbell is passionate about converting more people to artisan bread and agrees with Andrew Whitley that the vast majority of bread available in shops is "uniform pap".
"Bread is a living thing and you have to have some humility about the process, you can't know it all," says Campbell. "Time and experience are crucial in helping to develop flavour. Factory-made bread that's dressed up to look and taste the same is simply incorrectly made, and I for one don't want to eat it."
On a knife edge
Former baker Whitley became so enraged about the state of bread making in Britain that he set up the Real Bread Campaign to promote all-natural bread to consumers.
"Many professional bakers don't seem to love what they do anymore. They are so busy baking by numbers – producing 'good-looking' products with unnaturally soft crumb that last for weeks – they've become alienated from bread making altogether," says Whitley. "The bread industry has conspired not to reveal the additives and enzymes that go into ordinary loaves, selecting on yield rather than nutrition or digestibility. The public, meanwhile, remains largely ill-informed."
West Country miller Michael Stoate, whose company Stoates Flour has been supplying traditional stoneground flour to craft bakeries for 180 years, agrees: "I think there is an overall lack of trust with large corporate organisations who put profits before provenance and this has worked to our advantage. I can't help feel that our heritage has a positive impact and is respected by our customers."
Real bread renaissance
Thanks to bakers like Campbell, Whitley and Wells, artisan baking is finally making a comeback with more traditional bakeries appearing on the high street. "It's been a really interesting decade for bread making," says Campbell. "People are becoming more aware of what goes into their average loaf…but there's still a long way to go."
According to recent figures, sales of bread makers and loaf tins are also on the rise as more people turn to home baking. "There's a lot that goes into mass-produced bread that does not reach the ingredient list on the bag and people have realised that by making their own they have full control," says Stoate.
Sam Wells has certainly seen public perception changing. "Every week I sell my bread at Stroud farmers' market and I'm often asked why it's more expensive than supermarket alternatives," he says. "I tell them to buy a loaf, take it home and taste it, and if they don't think it's worth £2 or £3 to come back for a refund. No one has bought their bread back, and if they do return: it's to buy more. That says it all."
First published in Great British Food in 2010
Real Bread Week is an annual, international celebration of real bread and the people who make it. Its three aims are to encourage and help people to buy real bread from local, independent bakeries, bake your own and join the Real Bread Campaign.
I'd love to know what you think about this!	Cancel reply
Garden Media Guild
GardenTags
Four gardening trends from RHS Hampton Court
Gardening grind – @allotmentalice makes pesto on BBC Northampton
Garden visit: Coton Manor Gardens
How to get a taste of the tropics in your garden
Make a self-watering bottle tower for the garden
Garden Vlog
Follow Alice!


Ground loops can be a problem when using USB audio devices. It generally happens when they are more than one ground path between two devices. This can result in hum, whining noises or artefacts. The ground shared with the computer is also often quite "dirty" as it is shared with the computers circuitry, processor and possibly also other devices in your house. It can be of great benefit to break the connection to the noisy ground and create a new separate ground.
This can be done with a usb isolation chip such as the adum4160 from Analog Devices.
This chip will create a new ground reference on the device side which will break any ground loop and remove the noisy ground.
The adum4160 chip is UL rated for 5000V isolation for 1 minute (UL 1577) and will also protect your devices from electrical shocks and damage from static electricity.
The device side needs to be powered separately. It can be done by supplying external power or power can be taken from the USB rail using a DC DC converter, as we have done with in our usb isolator. The DC is further smoothened with a LC filter.
Our DAC 2 (UAE23+) includeds the adum4160 chip inside the device to have the DAC always isolated from USB hub ground. This DAC always needs to be supplied external power to function. The benefit of this is that a good quality power supply can be connected and the USB power will not be used at all.
In listening tests the usb isolation have proven to significantly increase the sound quality to connected audio devices.
The usb isolation is "transparent" from the computer. You dont need any drivers or special settings on your computer for it to work. Just plug it in and connect your device.
There is a couple of limitation you should be aware of. First, the adum4160 chip support USB "Full Speed" 12Mbps but not "High Speed" 480Mps. This means that DACs accepting up to 96/24 sample rates will work. However if you have a dac that support 192kHz (or higher) sample rates, then it will not work as USB "High speed" is required for anything above 96/24. Note - there is some confusion regarding the use of "USB 2.0" vs "High" and "Full" speeds. USB 2.0 refers to the standard (released in 2000) and supports both Low, Full and High speed. USB 3.0 (released April 2008) additionally supports "SuperSpeed" but still supports low, full and high transfer speeds. So even if your device says it supports USB 3.0 or 2.0 it will work if it runs on Full speed (12Mbps) which is the case for all dacs that support max 96/24.
Second, our usb isolator only provides 200mA of power to power your device. This is sufficient for many devices, but there are DACs and sound cards that will require closer to 500mA which is the max output a normal USB port can deliver. To give you an idea of power consumption we can inform that our Tiny dac requires only 30mA (!).
Adum4160 does accept both Low and Full speed devices, but a setting needs to be changed to select Low speed. Our usb device is factory set to support Full speed devices only, this means that low speed devices like USB mouse, keyboards will not work without modification.
With some computers it will no wake up from sleep by itself, meaning you have to unplug and plug it back in.