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LOOK FOR SUBTLETY IN FROST POEMEVERY TIME I READ A REFERENCE TO ROBERT FROST'S "THE ROAD NOT TAKEN," I AM REMINDED HOW WONDERFULLY SUBTLE AND IRONIC HE WAS. MICHAEL P. QUINLAN ("

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From: The Boston Globe
Date: 20021109
Author:

A poetic choice in Lawrence," op ed, Oct. 25) makes the same mistake that millions of others make, ignoring the middle two stanzas of the poem.

Quinlan says the poem shows "Frost's preference for Yankee individualism." Not so fast. Robert Frost was a cool observer of human nature. Far from celebrating people, he was making a sly statement about how we rewrite our own histories to make ourselves look better.

The middle two stanzas are clear that there is no difference between the roads: "Though as for that, the passing there/Had worn them really about the same."

One can imagine Frost's narrator ...

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