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 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.
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Paraphrase
On a fall day, the yellow leaved roads leave the speaker in confusion. As he tries to decided which road he wants to take, both abandon him with leaves and distance. The persona debates whether or not he wants to come back and finally decides he made the right choice by taking the path that he did.
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Poet Bio
Robert Frost was born in San Francisco on March 26th, 1874. He was essentially associated with rural New England. He lived to be known as one of Americas top leading 20th century poets. It is no surprise Frost was a four time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, a honorable award to receive. Robert Frost used traditional, experimental, as well as regional and universal writing. He got through high-school, and a semester of Dartmouth College, but soon after, dropped out and worked as a newspaper reporter. In addition, he taught school and worked in a mill. Years later, 1897-1899, he attended Harvard College as a special student but left without a degree. On January 29, 1963, Frost passed away in Boston Massachusetts leaving his name to a lot of fame. His life's ambition was to write poems, and he unquestionably succeeded.
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Literary Devices
wood:
The poet uses rhythm in the four stanza poem. For example, A pattern of ABAAB is shown in stanza one.
The words "hence" and "difference" are internal rhymes.
The sound "ence" is in the word "difference" which makes it rhyme in its own way.
Following the word "I" is known as a Caesura. That is, the dash following the "I" gives it a pregnant pause before the second line is read. That breaks the regularity of the rhythmic or metrical pattern.
The "w" sound in "wanted" and "wear" is an alliteration : The repetition of consonant sounds that usually occurs at the beginning of words. It produces an echo effect thereby linking words through their sounds.
"Two roads diverged in a wood". Diverged produces a unpleasant effect. This is known as a cacophony .
The speaker of the poem is known as the persona .
The persona stands choosing which road to take, therefore this poem is a Lyric Poem. It is a short poem that is designed to express the thoughts, reflections, or feelings of the poet.
Imagery of green grass and forest trees is seen in this poem. It is a concrete representation of the objects in this poem.
Tone:
The tone of the poem has some confusion on to which road to choose, which path to take. It is a little nerve breaking and puts you on edge whether or not the persona chose the right path for himself.
Masculine rhyme is which two words end with the same vowel consonant combination. Such as "day" and "way" in the poem.
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Definitions
*
Trodden:
v. trod,
(tr
d)
trod·den, (trd
n)
or trod tread·ing, treads
To press beneath the feet; trample.
* Diverged:
v. (d
-vûrj,
d
-)
di·verged, di·verg·ing, di·verg·es
To go or extend in different directions from a common point; branch out
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Connotations
Connotative words are words which suggest beyond what it expresses. They get there connotative meaning from the history of the poem. The word "worn" in the poem can be articulated as a life style and how the poet used his life. To exact, "worn" may mean to carry or to have on the person. In the text it refers to the life being already lived.
In the context of the poem, "step" may suggest the persona has done nothing wrong on his life journey. Finishing off the sentence with "In leaves no step had trodden black", each step he took in his life has not been regretted.
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Analysis
The Road Not Taken, written by Robert Frost is a very straightforward poem. The man in the poem is taking another one of his daily walks to the forest, to see the yellow leaves falling to the forest floor. As he continues his travel through the yellow wood, he begins to think of how he is living his everyday and how this double path reflects on his life. Right before the edge of the breaking trail, the man stops to realize there are too many beautiful things in the world to pass by. If he does not choose the right path, it may make a difference in the way he carries on his life. Although both paths have the same amount of distance, one path may be the dull path; the path where he may be walking in the dry, worn out world; the life where happiness is missing. Fortunately, the persona chooses his steps carefully. Once he is walking on the path he chose, he will not want to come back. The point is, most readers tend to over think this simple poem. It is just about a man, who chose the right path in life, and lives to see all the different beautiful things in the world. That split moment where he had to chose the direction he wanted to go, determined the rest of his future, and that had seemed to make all the differences.
