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can someone tell me about 'road not taken'?
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It's Robert Frost's poem, and i have to write this speech congratulating the graduates. Can anyone tell me what this poem is exactly about, and what i can say to the students?
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Summary
This poem tells the story of the poet who is travelling on a road in a wood when he comes upon a fork in the road and, even though he would like to travel both, he has to make a choice. He contemplates where both roads will take him. While one road is well trodden and safe, the other road is grassy and has not yet gone through the rigours of time and thus, as he says, had the better claim. He also remarks as to the fact that on that morning, neither road had been travelled upon. He took the road less trodden, keeping the first road for another day. But he realizes that he may probably not have a chance to go back on his choice, because one choice leads to another and the world moves too fast for one to look back.
Later on, when he is recounting his tale, he says that he has no regrets of his choice and that choice has made all the difference and led him to where he was that day.
Autobiographical background
Born in San Francisco, Robert Frost spent most of his adult life in rural New England and his laconic language and emphasis on individualism in his poetry reflects this region. He attended Dartmouth and Harvard but never earned a degree and as a young man with a growing family he attempted to write poetry while working on a farm or teaching in a school.
However, American editors rejected his submitted poems. Frost moved his family to England in 1912 and in the following year, a London publisher brought out his first book. After publishing his second book, Frost returned to America determined to win a reputation in his own country, which he gradually achieved. He became one of the country's best loved poets. Unlike his contemporaries, Frost chose not to experiment with new verse forms but to employ traditional patterns, or, as he said, he chose "the old fashioned way to be new".
This poem tells the story of the poet who is travelling on a road in a wood when he comes upon a fork in the road and, even though he would like to travel both, he has to make a choice. He contemplates where both roads will take him. While one road is well trodden and safe, the other road is grassy and has not yet gone through the rigours of time and thus, as he says, had the better claim. He also remarks as to the fact that on that morning, neither road had been travelled upon. He took the road less trodden, keeping the first road for another day. But he realizes that he may probably not have a chance to go back on his choice, because one choice leads to another and the world moves too fast for one to look back.
Later on, when he is recounting his tale, he says that he has no regrets of his choice and that choice has made all the difference and led him to where he was that day.
Autobiographical background
Born in San Francisco, Robert Frost spent most of his adult life in rural New England and his laconic language and emphasis on individualism in his poetry reflects this region. He attended Dartmouth and Harvard but never earned a degree and as a young man with a growing family he attempted to write poetry while working on a farm or teaching in a school.
However, American editors rejected his submitted poems. Frost moved his family to England in 1912 and in the following year, a London publisher brought out his first book. After publishing his second book, Frost returned to America determined to win a reputation in his own country, which he gradually achieved. He became one of the country's best loved poets. Unlike his contemporaries, Frost chose not to experiment with new verse forms but to employ traditional patterns, or, as he said, he chose "the old fashioned way to be new".
Explanation and Misinterpretations
The most popular explanation of this poem is that it is a call for the reader to forge his or her own way in life and not follow the path that others have already taken.
However, it is also possible to read it as an ironic statement against such notions [1]. Frost is said to have written the poem as a sly joke on his friend Edward Thomas, and to have warned audiences, "You have to be careful of that one; it's a tricky poem�very tricky."
For though this poem is often cited as a source for inspiration and encouraging individuality it contains key contradictions and ambiguities. After all, lines 9-10 state, "Though as for that the passing there/Had worn them really about the same." So, even though it is often read and taught that the speaker chooses "the one less traveled by", the speaker of the poem contradicts himself by saying the roads were ultimately the same. This is further illuminated in line 11's declaration that, "And both that morning equally lay" (emphasis added).
The misreading that the speaker takes "the one less traveled by" is the first of two popular misinterpretations. According to Frost, the key to the poem is found in line 16, "I shall be telling this with a sigh". Also, the ambiguity of the closing lines, "I took the one less traveled by,/And that has made all the difference". A close reading of this highly anthologized poem must admit that the speaker leaves the reader wondering whether they mean it has made a good or bad difference in the speaker's life-and of course, why is the speaker telling it with a sigh?
But readers must acknowledge that though the poem closes in ambiguity, it is clear the initial choice of the road taken has made all the difference, for because of that choice, "way leads on to way".
The most popular explanation of this poem is that it is a call for the reader to forge his or her own way in life and not follow the path that others have already taken.
However, it is also possible to read it as an ironic statement against such notions [1]. Frost is said to have written the poem as a sly joke on his friend Edward Thomas, and to have warned audiences, "You have to be careful of that one; it's a tricky poem�very tricky."
For though this poem is often cited as a source for inspiration and encouraging individuality it contains key contradictions and ambiguities. After all, lines 9-10 state, "Though as for that the passing there/Had worn them really about the same." So, even though it is often read and taught that the speaker chooses "the one less traveled by", the speaker of the poem contradicts himself by saying the roads were ultimately the same. This is further illuminated in line 11's declaration that, "And both that morning equally lay" (emphasis added).
The misreading that the speaker takes "the one less traveled by" is the first of two popular misinterpretations. According to Frost, the key to the poem is found in line 16, "I shall be telling this with a sigh". Also, the ambiguity of the closing lines, "I took the one less traveled by,/And that has made all the difference". A close reading of this highly anthologized poem must admit that the speaker leaves the reader wondering whether they mean it has made a good or bad difference in the speaker's life-and of course, why is the speaker telling it with a sigh?
But readers must acknowledge that though the poem closes in ambiguity, it is clear the initial choice of the road taken has made all the difference, for because of that choice, "way leads on to way".
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