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mathman444
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The Road Not Taken
This thread is for all of you literary types and English majors out there. Help me out.
In order to land Olympic gold medallist Sarah Hughes, a dean at Yale University sent her a poem: the Road Not Taken, by Robert Frost. This is a poem about choices, and Sarah faced a choice of colleges, not to mention choices about figure skating and school. Here's the poem.
The Road Not Taken
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.
What do you think this poem is about?
<strong>First attempt</strong> Let's read from the bottom up. "I took the road less traveled by, and that has made all of the difference." Aha -- the poem is a happy and self-congratulatory little ditty about the rewards of making bold choices. Yet somehow, when I finish reading, I don’t feel cheerful and pleased with myself at all.
<strong>Second attempt</strong>. Let's read from the top down. "The Road <strong>Not</strong> Taken." Oh wait. That’s not "the road less traveled by," that’s the <strong>other</strong> road, the road about which the poet says later (wistfully, regretfully?), "knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back." So it’s kind of a sad poem after all, about the regret of never knowing how your life might have turned out if you had chosen a different path.
<strong>Third attempt</strong>. Now let's read from the middle outward. "Though as for that, the passing there had worn them really about the same." So both roads are pretty much the same and it doesn't matter which one you chose? In this case, in the last stanza the poet is mocking himself, saying that "ages and ages hence" he will have told this story so many times that he almost will have come to believe it himself: that "he took the road less traveled by" (but it wasn't, really), and that this choice made a difference (but it didn't, really).
From the commentary that I have read about this poem, the third attempt seems to have the most support among scholars (including some famous ones who actually knew Robert Frost). I doesn't really matter which road you choose, because in the end all roads lead to the same place -- your destiny. It was Robert Frost's destiny to become a poet, regardless of the little choices that life threw at him along the way.
But I don’t think so. If that were all the poem is saying, I don't think that it would continue to hold our attention almost a century later. I have a recording of Frost himself reading this poem. He used a deadpan delivery that, to me, gives no hint about what he actually thought about choice and destiny -- and anyway we don't want to fall prey to the "intentional fallacy."
So the first attempt strikes back: The two roads were <strong>about</strong> the same, but one was a little less traveled by even so, or so it seemed to the traveler. And over time, that tiny choice has grown/will grow in importance until finally, he will look back and see that it <strong>did</strong> make all the difference after all.
Shall I make this into a poll, :lol: ? Will more than two people vote, :lol: ?
What is your main impression of this poem.
a. It exhorts us boldly to explore untraveled paths.
b. It invites us nostalgically to reflect on what might have been.
c. It tells us that we can’t escape our destiny.
d. It raises the question of choice versus destiny without giving an answer.
e. It’s more about how we think about and rationalize choice versus destiny than about these topics in the objective.
f. Other, or none.
This thread is for all of you literary types and English majors out there. Help me out.
In order to land Olympic gold medallist Sarah Hughes, a dean at Yale University sent her a poem: the Road Not Taken, by Robert Frost. This is a poem about choices, and Sarah faced a choice of colleges, not to mention choices about figure skating and school. Here's the poem.
The Road Not Taken
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.
What do you think this poem is about?
<strong>First attempt</strong> Let's read from the bottom up. "I took the road less traveled by, and that has made all of the difference." Aha -- the poem is a happy and self-congratulatory little ditty about the rewards of making bold choices. Yet somehow, when I finish reading, I don’t feel cheerful and pleased with myself at all.
<strong>Second attempt</strong>. Let's read from the top down. "The Road <strong>Not</strong> Taken." Oh wait. That’s not "the road less traveled by," that’s the <strong>other</strong> road, the road about which the poet says later (wistfully, regretfully?), "knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back." So it’s kind of a sad poem after all, about the regret of never knowing how your life might have turned out if you had chosen a different path.
<strong>Third attempt</strong>. Now let's read from the middle outward. "Though as for that, the passing there had worn them really about the same." So both roads are pretty much the same and it doesn't matter which one you chose? In this case, in the last stanza the poet is mocking himself, saying that "ages and ages hence" he will have told this story so many times that he almost will have come to believe it himself: that "he took the road less traveled by" (but it wasn't, really), and that this choice made a difference (but it didn't, really).
From the commentary that I have read about this poem, the third attempt seems to have the most support among scholars (including some famous ones who actually knew Robert Frost). I doesn't really matter which road you choose, because in the end all roads lead to the same place -- your destiny. It was Robert Frost's destiny to become a poet, regardless of the little choices that life threw at him along the way.
But I don’t think so. If that were all the poem is saying, I don't think that it would continue to hold our attention almost a century later. I have a recording of Frost himself reading this poem. He used a deadpan delivery that, to me, gives no hint about what he actually thought about choice and destiny -- and anyway we don't want to fall prey to the "intentional fallacy."
So the first attempt strikes back: The two roads were <strong>about</strong> the same, but one was a little less traveled by even so, or so it seemed to the traveler. And over time, that tiny choice has grown/will grow in importance until finally, he will look back and see that it <strong>did</strong> make all the difference after all.
Shall I make this into a poll, :lol: ? Will more than two people vote, :lol: ?
What is your main impression of this poem.
a. It exhorts us boldly to explore untraveled paths.
b. It invites us nostalgically to reflect on what might have been.
c. It tells us that we can’t escape our destiny.
d. It raises the question of choice versus destiny without giving an answer.
e. It’s more about how we think about and rationalize choice versus destiny than about these topics in the objective.
f. Other, or none.
