The Road Not Taken - Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Obviously most everyone going through school probably read this poem at least once, but I picked this because it seems to be one of those works that seems a lot trickier than it seems to be at first glance. Most people I know interpret the poem as a relatively simplistic piece endorsing the "less taken" road, in other words promoting non-conformity. Yet both roads seem "worn about the same," creating more ambiguity and difficulty than simply choosing a "less-traveled road" since at least the visible parts of the path seem equal. The title itself, "The Road Not Taken," the fact that he says in the future he "shall be telling this with a sigh," as well as that stop after his first I implies uncertainty and curiosity as to what would have happened had he made another choice, and a sign of potential regret for taking the path he took. The fact that his choice "made all the difference" has a neutral tone, making the piece much more ambiguous and pensive than the conventional meaning it has attached to it demonstrates.
That said, I've heard a lot of analyses of this poem, even including the fact that the poem may be an ironic parody of conventional poetic voices. That said, Frost is masterful enough in his field that even if his poem is veiled in a sense of irony, it is ambiguous and intricate enough that it creates the potential for many different meanings and conclusions to be drawn from it.
-Tomas F
How many more valedictorian misuses of this poem must we suffer? Do valedictorians actually quote this poem, or does that just happen in movies. This is one of the few poems that I can recite from memory, and it has always frustrated me how many people think its about non-conformity.
ReplyDeleteRobert Frost was an asshole, a terribly conflicted poetic genius of an alcoholic asshole, but an asshole none-the-less, prone to verbally and physically abusing his wife and children. Once, in a drunken rage, he woke his children to the screams of his wife, who he had dragged into the kitchen at gun-point, and asked them if they wanted him to blow their mother's head off.
Is it any wonder that he could write such hauntingly beautiful poetry? Here is a man who has been to the edge of the abyss, who has looked into it, and felt it looking into him. Here is a man who has walked both roads, back and forth enough to know that they are but one, for all roads lead but one place.