Your ideas on this famous poem

[Sospira]

This isn't for the aficionados, but for the fledgling literary enthusiasts.

What do you think this poem is about? Please back up your ideas with text quotes if you can.


1. The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost 1874–1963). Mountain Interval. 1920.


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; 5

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, 10

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. 15

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. 20

[Poetaster]

The paths we pick during the course of our lives. I don't need to quote.

[Sospira]

The paths we pick mean what?

[Lykren]

I wonder if the lines

"I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:"

make the ending of the poem a sort of quotation of what he will say in the future, and thus not strictly accurate. Perhaps the narrator is saying something along the lines of, "Though for all I know these paths are identical, in the future I will tell people that my decision to take a particular one was very significant." It's also worth noting that the narrator says

"Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,"

so that the narrator contradicts him or herself in saying that he took the road less traveled. If I understand it correctly (and I doubt I do) this poem consists of the narrator's prediction of his or her future mendacity. To expand on that idea, maybe as a larger theme the poem is looking ahead at the narrator's own perversion, in the sense that an adult will have lost the artlessness of childhood, and further, will have lost contact with a reality that once presented itself with vivid immediacy.

[Poetaster]

The paths we pick mean what?

Exactly! What do the paths mean?

[YALASH]

Peace be on you.

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

So he couraged to find new things.

"sigh" and "the title" indicates:
But things did not come out well.

Sorry for him. Good wishes for him, try next time.

[mona amon]

Hmm...seems easy, compared to most poems. It is about how difficult it is to make choices, when there is nothing to indicate what each choice will lead to, or which is the better choice.

The poet decides to take the road less travelled, but since he has not come to the end of it yet, he is still having doubts. Yes, it will make a difference, but what sort of difference? And he isn't even sure it really is the road less travelled ( "the passing there Had worn them really about the same" and "And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black.")

I like it. Sounds nice, simple, but more to it than is apparent at first.

[Calidore]

Clearly this was composed by Dorothy while reflecting on the choice she made when the Yellow Brick Road forked near the Scarecrow. It was mentioned later (in another book?) that she had chosen the more difficult path ("the road less traveled"), but that's the one she met the rest of her friends on; and "that made all the difference", because without them, she would never have made it back home.

Hey, this interpretation stuff is easy when you put your mind to it.

[Sospira]

Clearly this was composed by Dorothy while reflecting on the choice she made when the Yellow Brick Road forked near the Scarecrow. It was mentioned later (in another book?) that she had chosen the more difficult path ("the road less traveled"), but that's the one she met the rest of her friends on; and "that made all the difference", because without them, she would never have made it back home.

Hey, this interpretation stuff is easy when you put your mind to it.

Nice try, but thats the mistake most people make when reading. A closer reading will show you he isn't really saying that all.

[luhsun]

Dorothy should just click her heels (wearing the evil witch's shoes) and be back to Kansas..
I feel Frost refused to commit himself.. perhaps the play on ambiguity as to what ultimately happened made the piece even more charming.
Me, I prefer Emily's truculent sullenness :
"I’ll walk where my own nature would be leading:
It vexes me to choose another guide:
Where the gray flocks in ferny glens are feeding;
Where the wild wind blows on the mountain side."

[free]

The point is that all the ways we choose lead to the same place, the difference is how do we travel. As for the choice.... with all the experice of mine, I wonder if we have it.

[Paulclem]

The yellow wood - Autumn, perhaps his Autumn? Which perhaps accounts for why he can't travel both.

The theme could be about the choice he made to be a poet in which he has made a difference.

There's a sense of, not regret, but an awareness that his choice has blocked off other choices, but this is tempered by it making all the difference. Yet he muses on the other path and tries at the time to see where it will lead.

A great poem.

[ennison]

Ok let me be Kincaid and fire a random rifle shot or two.
Yellow: certainly autumn so this is no inexperienced traveller but one long on the road - past middle age so aware of the process of choosing and the consequences thereof.
Stands long : so perhaps a man of indecision but perhaps it's the nature of the choice. Either seems attractive or else equally unattractive.
Can see so far but only so far. When I'm on the open moor I can see for miles but the moor is not flat but full of ups and downs glens valleys and alltan. Here it's trees block his view as the path snakes through. Easily grasped image. But onward as I cast my eye I guess and fear as Burns may have said. This is life. We are not seers. Such a gift would be a curse. Not seeing ahead is a blessing.
He wants to be one traveller. To have his proverbial cake and eat it.
Nuff for one random rifle shot!

[Pompey Bum]

For Frost, yellow can also be the color of spring/youth:

Nature's first green is gold
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

In The Road Not Taken, I think the yellow wood represents the naive and somewhat self-indulgent idealism of youth: the voice inside that says Oh my non-conformity really separates me from my fellow humans. It doesn't, of course, because everyone ultimately goes his or her own way (way leading to way). In fact, the idea that there even was a "road less traveled by" turns out to be a youthful illusion: both roads are equally worn. As Frost envisions his youthful "choice" to be different (or perhaps even to become a poet), he retrojects--almost like a voice-over for the image of the two paths--an ironic and gently self-reproaching reflection:

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.

This is why the title of the poem is "The Road Not Taken" rather than "The Road Less Traveled By" (as many people call it). With maturity, one comes to understand that The Road Not Taken is exactly where one has always walked.

Many young people, of course, love this poem because they see their own supposed non-conformity reflected in the stanza above. The polite thing to do is to let them figure it out for themselves, as Frost did.

[ennison]

Points taken. Kincaid has reloaded.
Undergrowth - that's not trees so I shouldn't have said that. But it's the briars and ferns and primroses etc. enough to hide sight off the path once it takes a bend. What path is straight? (That which leads to ....)
In stanza the second he makes up his mind and yes there's the egotism of the soul that will not leap with the common herd but there's also the rueful acknowledgement that the desire to be different was not that different after all. Perhaps he was then at a stage in his life where he could not distinguish all that well between conformity and posing rebellion. Maybe the emphasis though should be placed on the Now and not the Then of the speaking voice.
The tone is wry, serious, reflective, dry.
There is deliberate ambiguity. Kincaid could afford no ambiguities on the battlefield. Nor false heroism. When he had to git he git.
Are we satis so far Sospira?

[Sospira]

For Frost, yellow can also be the color of spring/youth:

Nature's first green is gold
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

In The Road Not Taken, I think the yellow wood represents the naive and somewhat self-indulgent idealism of youth: the voice inside that says Oh my non-conformity really separates me from my fellow humans. It doesn't, of course, because everyone ultimately goes his or her own way (way leading to way). In fact, the idea that there even was a "road less traveled by" turns out to be a youthful illusion: both roads are equally worn. As Frost envisions his youthful "choice" to be different (or perhaps even to become a poet), he retrojects--almost like a voice-over for the image of the two paths--an ironic and gently self-reproaching reflection:

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.

This is why the title of the poem is "The Road Not Taken" rather than "The Road Less Traveled By" (as many people call it). With maturity, one comes to understand that The Road Not Taken is exactly where one has always walked.

Many young people, of course, love this poem because they see their own supposed non-conformity reflected in the stanza above. The polite thing to do is to let them figure it out for themselves, as Frost did.



You seem familiar with this poem? I agree with just about everything you said except that we all take 'the road not taken.' He takes the other road.

[Sospira]

Points taken. Kincaid has reloaded.
Undergrowth - that's not trees so I shouldn't have said that. But it's the briars and ferns and primroses etc. enough to hide sight off the path once it takes a bend. What path is straight? (That which leads to ....)
In stanza the second he makes up his mind and yes there's the egotism of the soul that will not leap with the common herd but there's also the rueful acknowledgement that the desire to be different was not that different after all. Perhaps he was then at a stage in his life where he could not distinguish all that well between conformity and posing rebellion. Maybe the emphasis though should be placed on the Now and not the Then of the speaking voice.
The tone is wry, serious, reflective, dry.
There is deliberate ambiguity. Kincaid could afford no ambiguities on the battlefield. Nor false heroism. When he had to git he git.
Are we satis so far Sospira?

I like your analysis especially the idea that maybe as a young person he couldn't distinguish between conformity and rebellion.

[Pompey Bum]

You seem familiar with this poem?

I grew up in New England where we had Frost read to us starting in elementary school. I don't want to get off topic, but there is one poem of his, called Storm Fear, that gets to me still after all these years (I'm 55 now). It reminds me of the first few years of my marriage, when we had a house but not much money, and I used to sit up at night when a blizzard would come, after my wife had gone to bed, to be sure that the house was okay. I had a book of Frost's poetry in those days, and sometimes I would read it as the storm howled. I remember reading Storm Fear on one of those nights, and looking out the window, and just feeling the poem go through me.

STORM FEAR

When the wind works against us in the dark,
And pelts with snow
The lowest chamber window on the east,
And whispers with a sort of stifled bark,
The beast,
'Come out! Come out!'-
It costs no inward struggle not to go,
Ah, no!
I count our strength,
Two and a child,
Those of us not asleep subdued to mark
How the cold creeps as the fire dies at length,-
How drifts are piled,
Dooryard and road ungraded,
Till even the comforting barn grows far away
And my heart owns a doubt
Whether 'tis in us to arise with day
And save ourselves unaided.

On a more intellectual, less visceral level, I believe it to be a poem about needing God so much that one begins to doubt one's own atheism. But for me, in those days, it was just about trying to hold on.

Okay, sorry for the OT.

[ennison]

OT? Old (Man's) Testament. Stanza the third. Morning suggests youth but there are leaves on the path as yet untrodden into black mush so I'll stick with autumn of his life rather than yellow for callow youth. Which I see and know it as a symbol both private and common of such.
I read the rest of the stanza too as the words of one already experienced enough to know most roads tend to criss cross and certainly all head for the same end.
And just as usually we don't get second chances.
I don't know what age he was when he wrote this so I'm just guessing but Frost was sharp enough to create a middle aged persona so perhaps this is not the voice of experience in the way I see it.
Last stanza. Sigh Regret etc. Hyperbole follows unless he means the poem itself - the speaking text. Ah wonderful to be so sure of ones work lasting!
So Post- Calvinist summation. It's a poem about the illusion of choice in a predestined universe but as humans we have to act as if we have choice and determine our own destiny. And that's what makes us human and therefore different. Kincaid's got to git now

[Pompey Bum]

Yes, the Old Testament. I feel really bad about it now. Especially Leviticus. Honest to God, just dress how you like. (No dwarves in the Temple, though).

[AuntShecky]

Frost's idea for this poem may have come from observing the behavior of one of his contemporaries, a lesser- known poet. If you happen to have a copy of the Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry, please take a look at the footnote on the bottom of page 196, where the editor states:


"According to Lawrence Thompson, this poem was a slightly mocking parody of the behavuior of Frost's friend, Edward Thomas, who used to choose a direction for their country walks, then, before they had finished, berate himself for not having chose a different, more interesting way. Frost, says Thompson, did not approve of romantic "sighing over what might have been."

As I see it, the difficulty in making even the most trivial decisions as well as insecurity over past actions are aspects of the perculiarly American character. The theme can be found in the literature of the last and current centuries, among poets such as Delmore Schwartz and especially in the novels of Richard Ford and Richard Russo.

As a sidebar, take a look at this online article (http://www.thescreamonline.com/essays/essays08-01/poetry.html) on rampant misinterpretations of "The Road Not Taken."



http://www.thescreamonline.com/essays/essays08-01/poetry.html

[Hawkman]

Somewhere in the famous quoted line poetry completion thread I wrote a very silly parody this one.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
Though why it was yellow was not understood.
Were all the trees cowards, afraid of the axe,
That could smite them to lumber for putting in sacks,
Or was it disease that affected the trees,
Infected by X-file type, modified bees?

The answer, I felt, lay down one of the paths,
One strewn with stones and the other with laths.
The mystery now I just had to unravel,
So I followed the one that was covered with gravel.
The custard wood lured me deeper within
And I wished that a priest could have shriven my sin.

But at last, in a clearing, the answer I found,
It was obvious now that I looked all around,
At the top of a ladder, quite close to a tree,
A man with a spray-gun was looking at me.
He pointed his weapon and right then I fainted
And found when I woke, that I too, had been painted.

[YesNo]

As a sidebar, take a look at this online article (http://www.thescreamonline.com/essays/essays08-01/poetry.html) on rampant misinterpretations of "The Road Not Taken."


In the article you linked to, John Kilgore writes:


Frost, of course, is not celebrating anything–not his own dark and difficult life, not a flimsy, Marlboro-man vision of heroic selfhood–nor is he re-casting the Biblical injunction to shun the broad and beaten way in favor of the virtuous straight and narrow. He is lamenting life's choices and the relentless one-way march of time, in a wistful, quiet, lonely little poem whose speaker has no idea whether he took the right path or not, does not brag, offers no advice, hints that life is rather unfair, and seems on the whole more oppressed and puzzled than anyone.

Now how do we know that Kilgore's interpretation is itself not a misunderstanding?

I don't see any lamenting of life's choices in the poem, just an acknowledgement that one choice was made. Sure, time is a one-way road, but does that make this a "lonely" poem or a "little" poem? Where does Frost hint that life is "unfair"? Where is Frost "oppressed"? Where in the poem is he "puzzled"? Why reference Frost's "dark and difficult life"?

[Paulclem]

In the article you linked to, John Kilgore writes:


Frost, of course, is not celebrating anything–not his own dark and difficult life, not a flimsy, Marlboro-man vision of heroic selfhood–nor is he re-casting the Biblical injunction to shun the broad and beaten way in favor of the virtuous straight and narrow. He is lamenting life's choices and the relentless one-way march of time, in a wistful, quiet, lonely little poem whose speaker has no idea whether he took the right path or not, does not brag, offers no advice, hints that life is rather unfair, and seems on the whole more oppressed and puzzled than anyone.

Now how do we know that Kilgore's interpretation is itself not a misunderstanding?

I don't see any lamenting of life's choices in the poem, just an acknowledgement that one choice was made. Sure, time is a one-way road, but does that make this a "lonely" poem or a "little" poem? Where does Frost hint that life is "unfair"? Where is Frost "oppressed"? Where in the poem is he "puzzled"? Why reference Frost's "dark and difficult life"?

It says he's sorry he could not take both (roads).

I think the simplicity but universality of his particular experience is what makes it resonate with readers. There's not a lot to say about what happens, but the basic choice of path and the significance of whichever way is chosen is recognisable in everyone's experience, whatever interpretation might be attributed Frosts particular circumstance.

[Pompey Bum]

I thought the Kilgore article was funny but a little mean spirited. (Any teacher who enjoys disillusioning students that much needs a vacation if not a career change). Also I don't see the common, erroneous interpretation of The Road Not Taken as representative of a "Marlboro Man" mentality (which I take to mean that of a macho loner). Young people just like to think that they are special. And they are special--but not always in the ways they think.

[YesNo]

I often make such decisions when walking. Shall I follow this trail or that through the forest preserve? I would like to follow both, but then there is only so much daylight. I can also see this poem originating because of Frost's walks with Edward Thomas as Aunt Shecky and this article note: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_Not_Taken

However, even the Wikipedia article I cite has this to say:


The poem, besides being among the best known, is also one of the most misunderstood.

More than the poem itself, that idea is what I think needs to be critically examined. Is this poem really so "misunderstood"? I don't think so. The interpretations of the poem provided by many in this thread show adequate understanding of the poem and Kilgore's alternate interpretation doesn't fit the poem well at all.

Although Frost writes that he's "sorry", Paulclem, how does this validate Kilgore's interpretation: "He is lamenting life's choices and the relentless one-way march of time, in a wistful, quiet, lonely little poem whose speaker has no idea whether he took the right path or not, does not brag, offers no advice, hints that life is rather unfair, and seems on the whole more oppressed and puzzled than anyone."

Frost, or perhaps it was Edward Thomas, whom Frost may have been describing, doesn't seem any more oppressed and puzzled than I would be choosing trails to walk through the forest preserves around Chicago.

[ennison]

This is a great poem partly because it conceals its poetry under a conversational quietness.

[mazHur]

which great poem>> sorry I can't find it.
Seems folks are talking about Robert Frost??

[ennison]

Har har iron eye iron aye Mr / Mrs mazHur good try good try

[Paulclem]

I often make such decisions when walking. Shall I follow this trail or that through the forest preserve? I would like to follow both, but then there is only so much daylight. I can also see this poem originating because of Frost's walks with Edward Thomas as Aunt Shecky and this article note: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_Not_Taken

However, even the Wikipedia article I cite has this to say:


The poem, besides being among the best known, is also one of the most misunderstood.

More than the poem itself, that idea is what I think needs to be critically examined. Is this poem really so "misunderstood"? I don't think so. The interpretations of the poem provided by many in this thread show adequate understanding of the poem and Kilgore's alternate interpretation doesn't fit the poem well at all.

Although Frost writes that he's "sorry", Paulclem, how does this validate Kilgore's interpretation: "He is lamenting life's choices and the relentless one-way march of time, in a wistful, quiet, lonely little poem whose speaker has no idea whether he took the right path or not, does not brag, offers no advice, hints that life is rather unfair, and seems on the whole more oppressed and puzzled than anyone."

Frost, or perhaps it was Edward Thomas, whom Frost may have been describing, doesn't seem any more oppressed and puzzled than I would be choosing trails to walk through the forest preserves around Chicago.

Hi YesNo. I wasn't clear. I think Kilgore overstates it, but for me the sorry he couldn't take two paths adds an air of lamentation to it. I should have explained what I meant.

[mazHur]

Har har iron eye iron aye Mr / Mrs mazHur good try good try

Sat Sri Akaal
Kali Billi ko
Kuwayn mein daal!!lol

[YesNo]

Hi YesNo. I wasn't clear. I think Kilgore overstates it, but for me the sorry he couldn't take two paths adds an air of lamentation to it. I should have explained what I meant.

There may be lamentation in the word or just a mild regret. I don't think that word as much as the word "road" contains multiple meanings. The road is initially a fork in a hiker's trail, but can at the end of the poem be seen as a career decision or any other choice that the narrator may have made changing him afterwards.

What I find amazing about the poem is the very successful last line about that small decision making all the difference. How could such a minor choice of choosing one path make that much difference or stand out many years later? Then one thinks of "road" in that larger context and the poem "trips the reader head foremost into the boundless" as Frost described the process in "Selected Letters of Robert Frost" (page 344). (I found the quote in Robert Faggen's "The Cambridge Introduction to Robert Frost".)

Compare this with William Carlos William's "The Red Wheelbarrow" which claims that "so much depends upon" those chickens, rain and wheelbarrow. Obviously, nothing depends on them. Does that poem trip readers into the boundless or annoy them by its puzzles? That poem is not "misunderstood" by readers, so much as rejected by them. A misunderstanding assumes that the reader likes the poem enough to offer an interpretation.

[Lykren]

It's neither obvious nor true that 'nothing depends on them.' There are several senses in which there are things that depend on the chickens and wheelbarrow and rain. Of course a farmer needs the wheelbarrow and chickens and rain for his or her livelihood.

From there it's no 'puzzle' to see other ways in which those objects are important. For instance, we depend on the familiarity of the sights around us for comfort. That simple reading does not represent an overly-intellectual challenge, instead it relies on a fairly straightforward emotional reaction. After that there are numerous ways to proceed in one's reading of the poem, assuming one is still engaged by the rhythm and balance of it. You could think about the perspective of the poem, the way there is no you or I, no mention of any particular place, so that it assumes a certain broadness that intriguingly contrasts with the vivid specificity of the description. And so on.

You're free to dislike the poem, obviously. But saying that the poem is not misunderstood by its readers, because a misunderstanding first requires enjoyment, is tantamount to saying that no one enjoys the poem. Why would you feel the need to so impose your personal preferences on the rest of us? I don't understand. I for one am moved and entertained by the poem, and I think it is rather rude to dismiss the possibility of that reaction.

[YesNo]

I agree, Lykren, that to a poor farmer, the chickens, rain and that wheelbarrow might be important. However, that poor farmer is not part of the poem, but a sentimental addition to the poem offered by admirers of the poem to generate empathy and acceptance of the poem. In Frost's poem, nothing needs to be added to reach the brilliance of the last stanza.

The idea that people generally misunderstand Frost's poem is false. There is little in the poem to misunderstand. One can add various interpretations to the poem and I found Calidore's interpretation that references the yellow brick road in the Wizard of Oz enjoyable. Kilgore's interpretation, on the other hand, seemed mean spirited. The whole idea that the poem is misunderstood is mean spirited. It attempts to belittle the reader for enjoying a truly great poem and may even be an attempt to disparage the poem itself.

It is possible to misunderstand a poem especially if the poet is trying to be deceptive or to manipulate the reader, that is, giving the reader one idea but intending something else. However, I don't think Frost was doing that although my only information about him comes from the brief summary of his life in Robert Faggen's introduction to him.

[Eiseabhal]

Ambiguity by accident is usually bad but deliberate ambiguity may be a strength. if Frost knew definitely all the ways in which a decision makes a difference he would have a god-like omniscience not given to human beings. There are readers who look for certainties from their writers but it is normal to be sometimes riven by doubt about things as small as whether to roll our trouser legs up, not only the bigger issues. If the poem appears to admit of different interpretations that may mean some of the interpretations are off-kilter but it may mean that Frost intended it thus. Readers who want only crystal clear statements would be more at home with a telephone directory than even the nuances of a dictionary and would be non-plussed by following even the simplest cookery book only to find that the results are not as imagined.

[YesNo]

I don't think one can save Williams' poem based on arguments of ambiguity. Consider the following ambiguous poem:


so much depends upon
this
that
something else

Add in whatever sentiment you want and then interpret the poem. I prefer poems that have enough in them already that the remaining ambiguity "trips the reader head foremost into the boundless" as Frost described what he wants to achieve.

"The Red Wheelbarrow" reminds me of a three-card tarot spread. In the tarot spread, we at least have real images to look at to prompt our subconscious to give us intuitive insight.

[ennison]

I think it was Frost that was being defended. The other poem is just drivel.

[Ecurb]

LitNet posters may wonder about differing interpretations of "The Road Not Taken". Perhaps, however, we can agree that all roads lead to poem.

[Pompey Bum]

LitNet posters may wonder differing interpretations of "The Road Not Taken". Perhaps, however, we can agree that all roads lead to poem.

:)

As opposed to all tao, which lead to om.

[Paulclem]

I like The Red Wheelbarrow and its simplicity upon which William's modernist ideas seem to rest -( I just read that in a Guardian article that I was unable to copy to this page).

I like The Road Less Taken for similar reasons - evocative, simple, but containing a recognised but significant memory which has repercussions.

[Lykren]

I don't think one can save Williams' poem based on arguments of ambiguity. Consider the following ambiguous poem:


so much depends upon
this
that
something else

Add in whatever sentiment you want and then interpret the poem. I prefer poems that have enough in them already that the remaining ambiguity "trips the reader head foremost into the boundless" as Frost described what he wants to achieve.

Your notion that Williams' poem needs saving is foolish and naive. Many readers better versed in literature than either of us have found much to be admired in the poem, not to mention the leagues of amateur readers who have also gained pleasure from it. The poem has lasted longer, of course, than your re-writing of it will. But judging from many of your previous posts, I am willing to bet that you think those readers are pretentious, deluded blowhards merely claiming to enjoy the poem for the sake of an illusory cultural cachet.

If I'm wrong about what you believe (and when someone guesses what someone else thinks, error is usually the result), let me know. Let's continue this discussion.

[mona amon]

The idea that people generally misunderstand Frost's poem is false. There is little in the poem to misunderstand. One can add various interpretations to the poem and I found Calidore's interpretation that references the yellow brick road in the Wizard of Oz enjoyable. Kilgore's interpretation, on the other hand, seemed mean spirited. The whole idea that the poem is misunderstood is mean spirited. It attempts to belittle the reader for enjoying a truly great poem and may even be an attempt to disparage the poem itself.

It is possible to misunderstand a poem especially if the poet is trying to be deceptive or to manipulate the reader, that is, giving the reader one idea but intending something else. However, I don't think Frost was doing that although my only information about him comes from the brief summary of his life in Robert Faggen's introduction to him.

The "Marlboro-man vision of heroic selfhood" is clearly and demonstrably a misunderstanding, since there is not a line in the poem to support it. However, Kilgore's attitude is rather uppity and he's obviously having fun taking down those students and teachers who have this misconception about the poem, so that makes me wonder if his bias isn't making him represent the poem as more misunderstood than it actually is. Now we never had this poem in school, for us it was always "the woods are lovely dark and deep" one, and although to me it seems easy enough to get the gist of this poem, I also know that the idea of taking the road less travelled has sunk into our cultural consciousness as one of the "right answers", like World Peace, and could lead to misinterpretation.

So my question is, is this poem really as widely misinterpreted as Kilgore claims?

[YesNo]

I would think it should be very difficult to misunderstand Frost's poem, but I have to admit that there are people, like Kilgore, who do misunderstand it.

[mona amon]

To be fair, Kilgore seems to be on the right track with his interpretations. We may not agree with each and every shade of meaning, but I do not feel he's come up with anything completely contradictory to what is expressed in the text of the poem. I just feel that owing to his preconceptions, he may be misjudging the ability of most people to understand the poem.

[YesNo]

Frost likely started the idea that people can't understand this poem. Elaine Barry, Robert Frost, page 12, writes this:


Without a proper attention to the speaking voice of Frost's poems, we may well get his subjects out of perspective. How many of us, for example, first read "The Road Not Taken" as a serious, if wistful, comment on the irrevocable decisions that govern our lives? Frost himself was fond of teasing his readers on their gullibility here ("I bet not one reader in ten knows what 'The Road Not Taken' is about").

Now step back and ask, is this poem not about the irrevocable decisions that govern our lives as seen from the perspective of one person imagining he is looking back on a choice he is about to make?

She continues:


He once declared that the most perceptive question anyone ever raised with regard to the poem was "Why the 'sigh'?" in the line "I shall be telling this with a sigh." The "sigh", of course, helps to characterize the "I," and provides the first hint that the poem is a gentle parody of the kind of person whose life in the present is distorted by nostalgic regrets for the possibilities of the past, who is less concerned for the road taken than for the "road not taken."

Looking back on a past choice there will be regrets or at least wonder about the option not taken and a sense of justification for the one that was taken. I don't think this is peculiar to a personality type that Edward Thomas might have had.

So, I'm confused by what is going on here with saying this poem is misunderstood. Are people saying it because Frost said it first and they are trying to justify what Frost claimed? If most readers misunderstand the poem, what was that misunderstanding? What is it about the poem that we are too stupid to see? A misunderstanding assumes there is a correct understanding. What is it?

I watched Billy Cristal's 700 Mornings last night and he referenced this quote by Yogi Berra, number 15 in this list: http://listverse.com/2011/04/13/25-funny-quotes-of-yogi-berra/.


When you come to a fork in the road, take it.

It reminded me of Frost's poem.

[Ecurb]

One Robert Frost anecdote suggests that he placed little credibility on his own analyses of his poems. A young woman (the story goes) told him, "I love your new poem, Mr. Frost. But I'm not sure what it means. What were you trying to say?"

"What? Do you want me to say the poem over again in worser English?" replied the poet.

[YesNo]

If Frost's own analyses of his poems is in doubt that might explain why he thought others didn't understand this poem, but I wonder if he had a different motivation for saying that most readers didn't understand "The Road Not Taken" which was supposedly prompted by a walk he and Edward Thomas took.

I don't know much about Frost, but this is how I imagine it happened, and I could be full of it.

Frost and Thomas were taking a walk. They came to a fork in the road and Thomas wasn't sure which way to go. He looked this way for some hint that it might be better than that way, but he couldn't decide. Frost became impatient, like many of us would, and told Thomas to make up his mind. Eventually Frost convinced him to go on the road that, for all they knew, might have been less used.

Later when Frost wrote about the event he could have said something less kind about Thomas' indecision, but left it as "I took the one less traveled by" and then added "And that has made all the difference." When Frost was done, what he wrote surprised him. He was not stupid. He could see all the heroic individualism and ideas about taking the straight and narrow implied in those lines and he was glad he wrote them. He sent the book to Thomas whom he hoped would be pleased as well. A few years later Thomas was killed in the first world war.

Frost should have written another poem about Edward Thomas after Thomas' death, but Frost was not a confessional poet. So instead of writing another poem, he said that readers did not understand the earlier one. They didn't notice that the title was the road not taken not the one that was. He said that the "sigh" was important to understanding the poem implying that there was regret that something wasn't done right and most readers missed that.

I imagine Frost thought back to that walk where Thomas confronted the fork in the road and he remembered how he pressured Thomas with his impatience to decide and Thomas choose the one less traveled by while wondering where the road not taken would have led. Frost also made choices that day. If Frost could have replayed his own choices all over again, I think he would have said, "Edward, take all the time you need."

[Paulclem]

I'm not of the opinion that the meaning of a poem can be inferred from outside reading. We tend to read around when we study but how can anything not written in the poem be brought to bear on it?

[YesNo]

The life of the poet is often irrelevant to understanding a poem. If people weren't claiming that this particular poem is misunderstood by most people, there would be no problem. But since questions arise about the poem, then looking for information outside the poem makes sense.

We had this discussion in the thread about Pablo Neruda. Should one consider Neruda's life when reading his poetry? In that case, for me at least, lines in Neruda's "Residencia en la tierra" raised questions about Neruda's intentions. When I looked further into his life, even his earlier "Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada" made me suspect the poems were not about what I thought they were about originally. I can see that I misunderstood them, but it was a misunderstanding that Neruda wanted me to have.

In the case of "The Road Not Taken", I don't think the obvious understanding is a misunderstanding. There is just more to see, if one wants to do so, but it is not necessary to do so to enjoy the poem. I don't know if I am right, but at least there is an hypothesis in my mind that can be falsified when more information comes in.

[Carousel]

To be honest I don’t dissect a poem to figure out what the guy was on about, if I feel the need to solve a problem I turn to the chess board. Poetry is the shortest form of the written word and as so it requires an immediate impact on the reader, not six paragraphs of explanation. Thomas’s ‘Fern Hill’ connects with the first line. Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs. Connects immediately with the reader i.e. a young boy’s imagination and so for me I’m completely with the poem as I read. As for "The Road Not Taken" I leave it for others.

[Paulclem]

To be honest I don’t dissect a poem to figure out what the guy was on about, if I feel the need to solve a problem I turn to the chess board. Poetry is the shortest form of the written word and as so it requires an immediate impact on the reader, not six paragraphs of explanation. Thomas’s ‘Fern Hill’ connects with the first line. Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs. Connects immediately with the reader i.e. a young boy’s imagination and so for me I’m completely with the poem as I read. As for "The Road Not Taken" I leave it for others.

I don't agree with this entirely. Poetry is the shortest form, but it can also be the most dense, metaphor rich and technique laden form there is. It depends upon the poem.

A study of Eliot's poetry bears insight and understanding. Other forms are more obvious but are no less powerful for that.

I think The Road Less Travelled benefits from being unlinked to a specific time place and meaning.

[Paulclem]

As an aside, this thread has been interesting and has provoked some good discussion. It's likely that the older members have discussed this particular poem before - I seem to remember a comment to when a poetry discussion was set up in the past about not discussing the same old author - yet the discussions undertaken were probably too ambitious to be sustained. There's clearly an appetite for such discussion, though it might be more sustainable on an individual poem basis.

There is a poem of the week thread that could be used for this. Or perhaps create another poem discussion thread?

What do you think?

[ennison]

I enjoyed this. Especially as no one seemed to get too ratty or miss the point by a mile as I have seen happening before. On a writer's biography it is common sense that life experiences inform our thinking, attitudes, behaviour and words. Well to me that is Common Sense but to others it is apostasy and heresy and whatever else they like to call anything that's not their own impractical criticism.

[Paulclem]

I enjoyed this. Especially as no one seemed to get too ratty or miss the point by a mile as I have seen happening before. On a writer's biography it is common sense that life experiences inform our thinking, attitudes, behaviour and words. Well to me that is Common Sense but to others it is apostasy and heresy and whatever else they like to call anything that's not their own impractical criticism.

It is an interesting point about how you read and read around a poem. It seems true that a poem will be based upon a writer's experience, yet it is written to be complete in itself without an expectation that something else should be read to complement it. I'm not saying that reading around a poem will not provide interesting insights into a poem's inspiration and the subject it is written about, but in the end, if a poem cannot be read, appreciated and say something significant or entertain as it is, then is that poem entirely successful?

It reminds me of Blake's The Tyger, which we studied at Uni. It had been in vogue to relate the poem to The French revolution, but by the time I studied it, this reading was discredited. Reading the poem myself I just could not see what in the text related to The French Revolution, and I still think it is an erroneous reading.

[YesNo]

Here is another way one can understand The Road Not Taken based on looking at this description of Edward Thomas: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Thomas_(poet)


Thomas enlisted in the Artists Rifles in July 1915, despite being a mature married man who could have avoided enlisting. He was unintentionally influenced in this decision by his friend Frost, who had returned to the U.S. but sent Thomas an advance copy of "The Road Not Taken". The poem was intended by Frost as a gentle mocking of indecision, particularly the indecision that Thomas had shown on their many walks together; however, most audiences took the poem more seriously than Frost intended, and Thomas similarly took it seriously and personally, and it provided the last straw in Thomas' decision to enlist.

Frost and Thomas were likely discussing whether Thomas should enlist. He didn't have to and so there was a choice about which he could be indecisive and with good reason. He had a family to take care of and he was in his late 30s.

Which choice was the "road not taken" and which was the "road less traveled by"? I don't think it is clear what Frost's intention was. Thomas, if the story is correct, felt there was a message in the poem.

Looking at this from the perspective of a choice whether to enlist or not is just one understanding of the poem. It is not the only one.

[Carousel]

I don't agree with this entirely. Poetry is the shortest form, but it can also be the most dense, metaphor rich and technique laden form there is. It depends upon the poem.

A study of Eliot's poetry bears insight and understanding. Other forms are more obvious but are no less powerful for that.

I think The Road Less Travelled benefits from being unlinked to a specific time place and meaning.

Well possibly but this desire to fathom what the poets thoughts on his/her poem when the writer has been dead for years is at its best mere speculation. I remember a pundit on TV spending twenty minutes trying to convince me that the little dog in the bottom left hand corner of a painting was a secret display of the artist’s Jacobean tendencies that he dare not voice publicly under pain of death.

Well maybe, but equally the artist could have thought, well there’s nothing much going on in that corner, I’ll stick a cuddly little pooch in to liven it up. Since the artist had left this world 300yrs ago no one knows and more to the point does anyone care?

Everyone has their own thoughts on poems they read but why should a poet deliberately mask the meaning of a poem, which I feel that some creative writing students are persuaded to do often with the result of making the piece incomprehensible.

For me the attraction of poetry is in the phrasing, the ability to say with a few words what it would take me two or three lines to say and yet add nothing to those few words. The meaning is crystal clear but the reader sees it through a new window.

[YesNo]

I agree that poets should not deliberately mask their meaning and the attraction of poetry is in the phrasing.

There is another book by Mark Richardson, "The Ordeal of Robert Frost", that I hoped to find something interesting in. There was this on page 181:


Which one, after all, is the road "not taken". Is it the one the speaker takes, which, according to his last description of it, is "less traveled"--that is to say, not taken by others. Or does the title refer to the supposedly better-traveled road that the speaker himself fails to take?

So, the road not taken, could have been the one less traveled by and then there is no problem between the title and the last stanza.

I wonder what Thomas took too seriously in the poem. If his decision to enlist was a road less traveled by people of Thomas' age and family status, does this not push the meaning of the poem right back into that Marlboro-man idea of heroic selfhood that Kilgore insisted the poem was not about?

[Paulclem]

Carousel - did you read my next post in which I think we are saying similar things?

The discussion may well come down to what the nature of a poem is. It is meant to be a piece of art complete in itself without anything necessary to read to support it. It will be written with an audience in mind - Eliot used classical references no doubt with the idea that these would be comprehended by a certain standard of education and thus class. It is interesting though that his notes relating to The Wasteland are of very little help in reading and understanding the poem.

This though, does bring in the fact that poem's take on a life of their own beyond the author - even more so now. In later years Eliot wished he had not written the Wasteland in that form. John Donne said he regretted his earlier metaphysical poem's when he became a preacher.

I think what I'm saying is once a poem is complete, what may be written about it does not pin it down - and this may also be the poet. This leaves it open to relevant reinterpretation by later generations, but because of this you have to stick primarily with the text of the poem in order to glean an understanding of it. A good poem may well evolve, as may attitudes to it.

[YesNo]

The text of a poem may be all one has, but in the case of The Road Not Taken there is a lot more surrounding the poem. We also have Frost's performance of it and comments on it, in particular the comment that his poem was misunderstood. This extra information is like an aura around the poem. It is not necessary to look at it, but looking can increase one's enjoyment of the poem.

There is an underlying rule of sorts that insists that one should not judge an artist's work by an artist's life. I think the reason for that is the artist's life might be quite ugly.

I found the following last night while at the library in Louis Untermeyer's "Robert Frost The Road Not Taken" (1971, page 269)


Robert Frost has gone his own way. He could not help it, his destination--and perhaps his destiny--was directed by the spirit behind the man. This inevitable progress is indicated in a much-quoted and much-misunderstood poem, "The Road Not Taken."

I don't agree with the inevitability part, but notice that here, again, we have the idea that the poem is misunderstood. Is there any other poem by Frost that is so acknowledged as misunderstood? I don't know, but I doubt it. Having the poem be "misunderstood" is part of Frost's performance of it that goes beyond the text itself. There is nothing to understand about this misunderstanding. Just enjoy the performance.

One benefit of this mythical misunderstanding is that it brings up an association with Edward Thomas which may be also part of the performance of the poem. I don't think Frost would have objected to calling attention to Thomas' own poetry. You can read the poems here: http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/22423/pg22423.html I have enjoyed them as much as I've enjoyed Frost's poems. There is also a collection called "Last Poems".