On the Literal Level What Realization Has the Speaker Come to
Robert Frost is arguably 1 of the most well-known American poets of all time, and so it'south not surprising that his work is taught in high schools and colleges beyond the nation. Because he's so famous, chances are you've encountered "The Route Not Taken" before. We're here to help you build a deeper agreement of "The Road Not Taken." To help y'all learn what Frost's "The Road Non Taken" poem is all nigh, we'll embrace the following in this commodity: There'due south a lot to talk about, so allow's get going! Robert Frost is widely recognized equally one of the well-nigh influential American poets of the 20th century. (Sneha Raushan/Wikimedia) Robert Frost was born in 1874 in San Francisco, California. His father was a newspaper editor (a profession Frost after skilful himself, among others), and his mother was a instructor and Scottish immigrant. When he was about 10 years old, his family moved to Massachusetts to be well-nigh his grandfather, who owned a sawmill. Frost was named both the valedictorian and the "course poet" of his loftier school graduating class...and ii years later published his first verse form, "My Butterfly: An Elegy," in the New York Independent magazine. At this point, Frost knew he wanted to be a poet. Just unfortunately, the side by side segment of Frost's life would be marked past upheaval. He attended both Dartmouth and Harvard, but dropped out of both before graduating. His poetry wasn't gaining traction in the United States, either. To complicate matters further, Frost and his married woman, Elinor, suffered personal tragedy when two of their six children died in infancy. In 1900, feeling frustrated past his chore prospects and a lack of traction in his poetry career, Frost moved his family to a farm left to him by his grandfather in Derry, New Hampshire. Frost would live there for nine years, and many of his most famous early poems were written earlier his morning chores while tending to the farm. But Frost'southward poetry was all the same largely disregarded by American publishers. Consequently, Frost decided to sell the subcontract in 1911 and moved his family unit to London. It was there he published his first anthology of poetry, A Boy'southward Will, in 1913. Frost'southward 2nd album, North of Boston, was published in 1914 and plant massive success in England. Finally, subsequently years of struggle, Frost became a famous poet essentially overnight. In order to avoid WWI, Frost returned to the U.S. in 1915 and began teaching at Amherst College and the Academy of Michigan, all the while continuing to write poetry. He received numerous awards and recognitions, including the Pulitzer Prize for poetry, and became the public face of 20th century American verse. Late in life, at 86 years old, Robert Frost also became the first inaugural poet at John F. Kennedy's inauguration in 1960. Throughout his career, Frost never strayed far from old-fashioned, pastoral verse, despite the fact that newer American poets moved in a more than experimental direction. Frost's verse continued to focus on rural New England life up until his death in 1963. "The Route Not Taken" is a narrative poem, meaning it is a poem that tells a story. It was written in 1915 as a joke for Frost's friend, Edward Thomas. Frost and Thomas were addicted of hiking together, and Thomas often had trouble making up his mind which trail they should follow. (Yeah, that'south right: ane of the about famous American poems was originally written as a goofy private joke between two friends!) Frost first read it to some higher students who, to his surprise, thought it a very serious poem. "The Route Not Taken" was showtime published in the August 1915 issue of The Atlantic Monthly , and and then was re-published as the opening poem in his poetry collection Mountain Interval the adjacent year. The full text of the poem is beneath. Ii roads diverged in a yellow wood, And then took the other, as merely as fair, And both that morn as lay I shall be telling this with a sigh Frost's nigh famous poem got its outset as part of a letter sent to his best friend on the eve of World War I. "The Road Non Taken" has become well known for its perceived encouragement to take the "[road] less traveled by." In other words, many people interpret this verse form equally a call to blaze new trails and pause away from the status quo. This is partly why lots of people misremember the poem's championship as "The Road Less Travelled." This interpretation of "The Road Not Taken" is debatable (more on that later), just it was enough to inspire Frost'due south friend Edward Thomas to make a very grave decision to fight in Globe War I. Frost and Thomas were great friends while Frost lived in England, both of them were well-read and very interested in nature. They oftentimes took long walks together, observing nature in the English countryside. Even so, Frost's time in England ended in 1915 when Earth War I was on the verge of breaking out. He returned to the United States to avoid the war and fully expected Thomas to follow him. Thomas did not. Frost's verse form came in the mail service as Thomas was deciding whether to leave Europe or to participate in the state of war effort. While "The Road Not Taken" wasn't the only thing that made Thomas enlist and fight in Earth War I, information technology was a gene in his determination. Thomas, regretting his lack of achievement compared to his skillful friend Frost and feeling that the poem mocked his indecisiveness, decided to take initiative and fight for his country. Unfortunately, Thomas was killed at the Battle of Arras on April nine, 1917. Thomas was inspired to take "the road not taken" considering of Frost'southward poem. The same is true for many people who've read the poem since it was commencement published in 1915. The concept of taking a "route less traveled'' seems to abet for individuality and perseverance, both of which are considered key to American civilisation. The poem has been republished thousands upon thousands of times and has inspired everything from self-help books to automobile commercials. To help you understand the significance of Robert Frost'southward poetry, nosotros'll break down the overall meaning and major themes of the poem in our "The Route Not Taken" analysis below. But before we practise, go back and reread the poem. Once you lot have that done, come back here...and we tin get started! "The Road Not Taken" is a poem that argues for the importance of our choices, both big and small, since they shape our journey through life. For Frost, the near of import decisions we make aren't the ones nosotros spend tons of fourth dimension thinking well-nigh, like who we have relationships with, where we become to college, or what our future career should be. Instead, Frost'south poem posits that the small choices nosotros make each and every day also have large impacts on our lives. Each decision we make sets us upon a path that we may not sympathize the importance of until much, much later on. This theme is reflected throughout the poem. For example, the poem begins with a speaker placing us in a scene, specifically at the point where two roads break away from each other in the middle of a "xanthous wood." The speaker is sorry they cannot become both directions and all the same "be one traveler," which is to say that they cannot live 2 divergent lives and still be i single person. In other words, the speaker tin can't "have their cake and eat information technology, too." The speaker has to choose 1 direction to go downwardly, because like in life, making a decision ofttimes means that other doors are subsequently close for you. For example, if you lot choose to go to college at UCLA, that means you're too choosing not to go to college elsewhere. You lot'll never know what it would be like to go to the University of Michigan or every bit a freshman straight out of high school because you lot made a different choice. Merely this is true for smaller, day-to-day decisions as well. Choosing who you spend fourth dimension with, how difficult you written report, and what hobbies your pursue are examples of smaller choices that as well shape your future, too. The speaker of the poem understands that . They stand at the crossroads of these two paths for a long fourth dimension, contemplating their choice. First, they stare down one path as far as he or she tin, to where it trails off into the undergrowth. The speaker then decides to take the other path, which they country is just as "fair," meaning just as attractive as the first. The narrator states that the second path "wanted wear," meaning that it was slightly more overgrown than the offset path. But more importantly, no affair which path the speaker takes, they know they're committed to follow it wherever it may pb. We see that in this stanza: And both that morning equally lay While the speaker says they "saved the starting time" path for "some other 24-hour interval" to brand them feel ameliorate about their decision, the next two lines show that the speaker realizes they probably won't exist able to double back and take the start path, no thing where the 2d one leads. Just like in life, each path leads to another path, and so another. In other words, the decisions we make in the moment add upward and influence where we end upwards in life--and we don't actually go a "redo" on. After choosing their path, the speaker says they look forwards to a 24-hour interval far in the future when, "with a sigh," they'll tell people almost taking the route "less traveled by,/And that has made all the difference." Does this mean that taking the one less traveled has "made all the difference" in a good way? Saying so "with a sigh" doesn't necessarily audio like a good affair. The poem isn't at all clear on whether or not taking the less traveled path was a good option or a bad choice. And so while the poem is clear that all of our choices shape the path nosotros have in life, it'south more cryptic nigh whether choosing "less traveled" paths is a good thing or not. That's up to readers to make up one's mind! This brings usa to our commencement theme: how hindsight gives our choices power. The speaker begins at a betoken of bifurcation (which is a fancy way of saying "break into two branches"). Every bit readers, nosotros're meant to take the poem both as a literal story well-nigh someone in the woods trying to determine which style to go, every bit well as a metaphor about how our life choices are like divergent paths in the wood. Similar we mentioned before, the poem is articulate that you tin't take two paths and nevertheless "be 1 traveler," nor can yous be certain that y'all'll ever get a chance to test out your other options. That's because every choice yous make leads to more choices, all of which lead you further and further from our starting betoken. However, the poem also suggests that while the choices we make are important, how nosotros interpret these choices is what actually makes us who we are. We come across this in the last lines of the poem, which read: I took the one less traveled past, Essentially, the speaker is saying that later in life he will look back in fourth dimension and see that moment as i of bully significance. Merely we can only know which choices matter the most through the ability of retrospection. It'south like the old saying goes: hindsight is 20/twenty! Hither's what frost means: when we're making choices in life, they might seem inconsequential or like they're not that large of a deal. But in one case fourth dimension passes and we've journeyed down our path a little farther, we can expect back into the past and run into which choices take shaped us the most. And oft, those choices aren't the ones we call back are most important in the moment. The clarity and wisdom of hindsight allows us to realize that doing something like taking the path "less traveled by" has impacted our lives immensely. "The Road Not Taken" is too nigh our perspective...and how hindsight helps us reconsider our by decision. The other major theme in "The Road Not Taken" is how our individual perspective. The speaker of the poem spends well-nigh of their time trying to decide which path to take. They draw each path in detail: the first ane curves into the undergrowth, while the second was more than tempting because information technology was "grassy" and a little less worn. Just the truth is that these paths have more than in common than not. They're both in the forest, for one. Merely the speaker also says the get-go is "just equally fair" as the other, meaning it's just as pretty or attractive. They also mention that "And both that morn every bit lay / In leaves no stride had trodden blackness," which is a poetic fashion of saying that neither path had been walked on in a while. And even the one the poet says is less traveled was actually "worn...well-nigh the same" as the first path! So it's the speaker's perspective that makes these paths seem divergent rather than them really being super different from one another! Because our perspectives shape the mode nosotros sympathise the earth, it also affects our memories. Our memories assistance u.s. sympathize who we are, and they shape the person we become. Simply equally we tell ourselves our own story, we overwrite our memories. It's kind of similar deleting a sentence and retyping it...only for it to change a trivial scrap each time! What is your earliest memory? What is your favorite memory? Now think nigh this: are you remembering them, or are yous remembering remembering them? Is there a difference? Yes, because scientific discipline shows that every unmarried time nosotros call back a memory we modify it. It'due south very possible that your favorite early on memory isn't your retentivity at all--it is more likely a memory of being told something that happened to you. Perchance yous have a photograph of a moment that triggers your retention. The photograph may non alter, merely you do and your memory of the things that happened in that moment practise. And then, if our experiences and our choices make us who we are, but nosotros're constantly misremembering and changing our memories, how do actual events even matter? "The Road Not Taken" says that they do. Our choices we make are impactful, but the way nosotros remember them is what helps shape u.s.a. every bit individuals. So "The Road Not Taken" isn't necessarily an ode to bravely taking the less popular path when others wouldn't. It's more like an ode to being resigned to assertive our choices made usa who nosotros are, fifty-fifty though if we hadn't made them, hadn't taken that path, we'd be someone else who made choices that were just every bit valid. Poetic devices are the tools we can use to unpack the meaning of a verse form. Here are 2 that are important to understanding "The Route Non Taken." Poetic devices are literary devices that poets utilize to enhance and create a poem's construction, tone, rhythm, and meaning. In Robert Frost's, "The Road Not Taken," Frost uses iambic meter and vocalisation to reinforce the poem'southward meaning. Start matter's first: the following is just a brusque overview of iambic meter. If you lot want an in-depth discussion of meter, check out our blog about it. So what is meter? The English language linguistic communication has about an equal number of stressed and unstressed syllables. Arranging these stressed syllables into consequent is one of the well-nigh common ways of giving a poem a structure...and this arrangement is chosen "meter." A poem's meter is made upwards of units. Each "unit" of stressed and unstressed syllables that repeats in a poem is called a foot. A foot can either be an iamb (one unstressed followed by one stressed syllable), a trochee (one stressed syllable followed past an unstressed syllable), a dactyl (1 stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables) or an anapest (ii unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable). The iamb is the foot that comes to us nigh naturally as native English speakers, and the most iambs nosotros can speak easily without having to inhale for another breath is about five. So the most common structure for English linguistic communication poetry is iambic pentameter, meaning the most common foot is an iamb, and in that location are five iambs per line. Historically, the vast majority of poetry written in English has been in iambic pentameter, and it was the default format for English poetry for centuries. Just pentameter isn't the only iambic meter: two anxiety make dimeter, three feet make trimeter, four feet make tetrameter, and six feet brand hexameter, and so forth. The Modernist poets started moving away from these traditional repeating patterns of meter simply after Globe War I, using invented patterns called "free poetry." Although Modernist free verse didn't replace metrical poetry overnight or completely, it slowly broke down the central importance of it in means that are still felt today. Robert Frost'due south "The Road Not Taken" is from the very tail finish of the iambic-meter-as-a-necessity era. Frost stubbornly and famously stuck to the traditional metrical forms, comparing free verse to playing tennis "with the internet downward." It is the iambic meter that gives the poem its "old-fashioned" rhythm and comfortable feeling. It'south also the thing that makes the verse form sound so natural when you read it out loud. You may non even immediately recognize that the poem is in iambic meter, but it becomes articulate when you beginning breaking down the lines. Have this ane, for case: Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, Looking at the stressed and unstressed syllables we get: 2 ROADS/di-VERGED/in a YELL/ow WOOD The capitalized syllables are stressed, and the lowercase ones aren't. Each pair of these is an iamb! There are 4 stressed syllables on this line, every bit well as every other line in the poem. That ways this verse form is in iambic tetrameter. The most mutual foot is an iamb (although find that the third pes is an anapest), and there are iv of them. So why is this important? Beginning, iambic tetrameter is a metrical pattern favored past the 19th century Romantics, who very oft wrote poems that involved lonely people having keen epiphanies while out in nature by themselves. By mimicking that style, Frost pulls on a long poetic tradition helps readers strop in on some of the major themes of his verse form--specifically, that the speaker'due south decision in the woods volition accept long-term consequences for both their character and their life. The iambic form likewise rolls off of the natural language hands because it's the most common meter in the English language. That also echoes the importance of nature in "The Road Not Taken": both in terms of the natural imagery in the poem, just also in its word of the nature of perspective and memory. In that way, the class of the verse form helps to reinforce its themes! The second poetic device that Frost employs is voice. The voice of a poem is the product of all the stylistic and vocabulary choices that add together upwardly to create a character. In this case, the poem has one character: the speaker. The speaker is unnamed, and it'southward through their perspective that nosotros feel the verse form. It's like shooting fish in a barrel to think of the speaker as beingness Frost himself, but try to resist that temptation. The voice of a verse form is an artificial construct, a character created to requite the poem a certain upshot. So how does Frost create this phonation? First, note that the poem is in outset person . That means we're getting the speaker's perspective in their own words, signaled by their utilise of first person pronouns like "I." Additionally, the audience isn't existence addressed direct (like in Maya Angelou's "Still I Rise). Instead, it's as if we've intruded upon the speaker's thoughts equally they ruminate over the potential ramifications of choosing ane path over another. Writing the poem in first person ways that we're getting the story directly from the horse'southward oral fissure. In some ways, this is a good thing: it helps us empathise the speaker'due south unique perspective and in their own unique vocalisation. But in other means, information technology makes the objective details of the moment less articulate. That'south considering the speaker's recounting of the moment in the woods is colored by his own memory. That means we have to rely on the speaker'southward estimation of events...and decide how that impacts our interpretation of the poem! The first person narration also gives the poem much of its cogitating nature. Analyzing poetry tin be catchy, then it's helpful to read a few expert analyses. We have a bunch on our blog that you can read through, similar this one about Dylan Thomas' "Do not get gentle into that good night" or this article that explains 10 different sonnets! Information technology's much easier to analyze poetry when you accept the right tools to do information technology! Don't miss our in-depth guides to poetic devices similar assonance, iambic pentameter, and allusion. If you lot're more almost writing poetry than analyzing it, we've got you covered! Here are v great tips for writing poetry (and a few scholarships for budding poets, too).
Robert Frost Biography
Robert Frost, "The Route Not Taken" Poem
"The Road Non Taken" by Robert Frost
And sorry I could not travel both
And be i traveler, long I stood
And looked down 1 as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
And having peradventure the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing in that location
Had worn them actually about the same,
In leaves no footstep had trodden blackness.
Oh, I kept the kickoff for another day!
Withal knowing how way leads on to fashion,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Ii roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the 1 less traveled past,
And that has made all the difference.
The Groundwork Backside "The Road Not Taken" Poem
Robert Frost "The Road Not Taken" Assay: Meaning and Themes
Robert Frost "The Road Not Taken" Significant
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the commencement for another twenty-four hours!
Withal knowing how manner leads on to way,
I doubted if I should e'er come up back. Robert Frost "The Road Not Taken" Theme 1: The Power of Retrospect
And that has made all the divergence.
Robert Frost "The Route Not Taken" Theme 2: Perspective and Retentiveness
The Acme 2 Poetic Devices in "The Road Not Taken"
Poetic Device 1: Iambic Meter
Poetic Device two: Voice
What's Next?
Ashley Sufflé Robinson has a Ph.D. in 19th Century English Literature. Every bit a content writer for PrepScholar, Ashley is passionate about giving higher-bound students the in-depth data they need to get into the school of their dreams.
Source: https://blog.prepscholar.com/robert-frost-the-road-not-taken-meaning
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