Mr+Derby's+Favourites

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= = =The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost=


 * (1915)**

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,media type="youtube" key="Afa5VSuQeH8" height="254" width="304" align="right" 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 kept 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.

Reflection
This is a poem that I first came across when I was much younger. The sad thing about this poem in the popular consciousness is that is has been appropriated by the greeting card industry and misinterpreted in the process. The poem by the great American poet, Robert Frost, is a lyric that explores the idea of life choices. The poem was based on an actual moment in Frost's life when he was literally walking in the woods with a friend and came across such a divergence.

The poem contains no caesurae, which contributes to a lulling rhythm that reflects the feelings of loss being experienced by the persona. This sense of loss comes from knowledge that in choosing one path inevitably means the loss of the opportunities available from the other. In this manner, Frosts poetry clearly reveals the relationship between form and content; the ideas in the poem are echoed in the choices of poetic techniques employed by the poet. The feelings of loss articulated in the poem are revealed through the abaab rhyme scheme used in this poem. I found that the use of long vowel sounds on the "a" lines and consonant sounds on the "b" lines particularly interesting beacause the longer vowel sound help create this sense of tired longing in the persona.

On face value, the poem is about life's choices. The diverging woods are symbolic of these choices, and a superficial reading would lead a reader tp believe that the adventurous man should always choose the road "less traveled by". The final lines can easily seem as if the persona had indeed gone down the road not taken and has been enriched as a result. The second stanza, however, we find out in the final two lines that "the passing there / Had worn them really about the same." What this indicates is that the two roads were not all that different after all. The implication of this is that the persona's choice was not, as the title suggest, the road not take. It was, rather, the result of arbitray decision.

In light of this, the last stanza is especially telling. The persona did not take the road not taken. He made an arbitrary choice. "All the difference" that he speaks of becomes purelry ironic. His life boils down to a series of choices based on very little information. He cannot know what his life would be like had he not taken the other path, which lead him to construct a version of events that makes him seem heroic. It is this subtlety that make me love this poem all the more.

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