The Road Not Taken (poem)

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Forest path with fork

"The Road Not Taken" is a poem by Robert Frost, published in 1916 in the collection Mountain Interval, it is the first poem in the volume and is printed in italics. The title is often mistakenly given as "The Road Less Traveled", from the penultimate line: "I took the one less traveled by".

Contents

[edit] Interpretation

The poem has two recognized interpretations; one is a more literal interpretation, while the other is more ironic.

Readers often see the poem literally, as an expression of individualism. Critics typically view the poem as ironic.[1] – "'The Road Not Taken,' perhaps the most famous example of Frost's own claims to conscious irony and 'the best example in all of American poetry of a wolf in sheep's clothing.'"[2] – and Frost himself warned "You have to be careful of that one; it's a tricky poem – very tricky."[3] Frost intended the poem as a gentle jab at his great friend and fellow poet Edward Thomas whom he used to take walks through the forest with (Thomas always complained at the end that they should have taken a different path) and seemed amused at this certain interpretation of the poem as inspirational.[4]

[edit] Literal interpretation

According to the literal (and more common) interpretation, the poem is inspirational, a paean to individualism and non-conformism.

This poem is commonly known as "the path less traveled' by some, but its correct name is "the road not taken." The names refer to two different roads, the correct name referring to the one the traveler did not take.

The poem's last lines, where the narrator declares that taking the road "less traveled by" has "made all the difference," can be seen as a declaration of the importance of independence and personal freedom. "The Road Not Taken" seems to illustrate that once one takes a certain road, there is no turning back. Although one might change paths later on, the past cannot be changed. It can be seen as showing that choice is very important, and is a thing to be considered. And that you will never know what the other path was like, so you may regret never knowing (the sigh), although it was still worth it because you made the right choice by knowing that you were able to exercise your personal freedom and independence.

However, the poem can only be understood with this interpretation if the reader focuses solely on the last two lines. The second and third stanzas use the descriptions "just as fair", "had worn them really about the same", and "both that morning equally lay" which clearly indicate that there was in fact no "less travelled" road and, thus, the speaker is not the iconoclast he claims to be. The "literal" understanding of the poem's meaning can be attributed to the fact that the last two lines are often quoted without the preceding context.

This interpretation seems connected with misremembering the title as "The Road Less Traveled", since it places emphasis on the choice made, not the opportunities foregone.

[edit] Ironic interpretation

The ironic interpretation, widely held by critics,[1][5] is that the poem is instead about regret and personal myth-making, rationalizing our decisions.

In this interpretation, the final two lines:

I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

are ironic – the choice made little or no difference at all, the speaker's protestations to the contrary. The speaker admits in the second and third stanzas that both paths may be equally worn and equally leaf-covered, and it is only in his future recollection that he will call one road "less traveled by".

The sigh, widely interpreted as a sigh of regret, might also be interpreted ironically: in a 1925 letter to Crystine Yates of Dickson, Tennessee, asking about the sigh, Frost replied: "It was my rather private jest at the expense of those who might think I would yet live to be sorry for the way I had taken in life."[6]

Quoted in the 1987 New Zealand television miniseries Erebus : The Aftermath by Justice Peter Mahon, Q.C., in his portrayal by Frank Finlay.

[edit] Text of the Poem

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 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.

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b William H. Pritchard. "On "The Road Not Taken"". University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Department of English. http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/frost/road.htm. 
  2. ^ Kearns, Katherine (1994). Robert Frost and a Poetics of Appetite. Cambridge University Press. 
  3. ^ Lawrance Thompson, ed. Selected Letters of Robert Frost. New York: Hold, Rinehart and Winston. p. xv. 
  4. ^ Pritchard., William (1984). Frost: A Literary Life Reconsidered. 
  5. ^ Sullivan, John Jeremiah (August 2000). "The death of the hired poem: Robert Frost, Monster.com, and the anxiety of affluence". Harper's Magazine. http://harpers.org/archive/2000/08/0066909. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 
  6. ^ Finger, Larry L. (November 1978). "Frost's "The Road Not Taken": A 1925 Letter Come to Light". American Literature 50 (3): 478–479. doi:10.2307/2925142. http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-9831(197811)50%3A3%3C478%3AF%22RNTA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-U. 

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