“The Road not Taken” by Robert Frost (poetry reading)
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This is an ambiguous poem. At first glance it seems that he's saying he made the right choice. If so, why would he be telling it with a sigh? Frost himself said it was "tricky". Here's Robert himself reading it: www.poets.org
December 27th, 2011 - 19:13
I have to memorize this poem by Halloween for school! It was either this, how do I love thee, 2 shake spree ones, or funeral blues! This was my fav. I only have a little memorized!
lol
2 roads diverged in a yellow wood
And sorry I could not b on traveler long I stood? Idk if that’s right
I’m in 7th grade
December 27th, 2011 - 19:57
@MrsMoonshine8 Autumn leaves
December 27th, 2011 - 20:10
Oh, I also wonder why Frost opted for a ‘yellow wood’ (the colour). Does anybody know? Maybe mainly because of the association with the sun at its earliest stages in the day. Not quite the dawn of life, not quite the middle of it. Suggestions?
December 27th, 2011 - 20:23
Yep, of course (upon reading some comments on here). The last verse could mostly be meant sarcastically. It really makes no difference at all whichever road you take. Relativity of viewpoint. What’s more valuable about ‘a road less traveled’ as compared to ‘the common road’? Exactly: nothing. (Btw, great reading once again: I’m quite puzzled by the fairly large part of dissatisfied voters.)
December 27th, 2011 - 20:56
If you are a truth seeker, search “Truth Contest” in Google and click on the 1st result, then open The Present and read what it says. Everyone needs to see this. The Present will turn this world right-side up if it reaches enough people. You will see what I mean when you read the first page.
December 27th, 2011 - 21:38
Road to remember there i came from:-(
December 27th, 2011 - 21:55
Surely the ultimate irony is when people like myself read the last stanza. Most of us, if we are honest, are unexceptional and lead ordinary lives. This is not a bad thing, but whenever I read the last stanza – and I, I took the one lest travelled by and that has made all the difference – I am reminded that I haven’t taken any roads lest travelled by and am leading a fairly orthodox life. In short, the ‘I’ isn’t me. By the way, I enjoy reading all the other comments by other contributors.
December 27th, 2011 - 22:26
this story is about the dilemma the the poet faced
December 27th, 2011 - 22:53
@reybuono1 Totally agree. It’s the ironic graduation-speaker poem.
December 27th, 2011 - 23:12
@reybuono1 (cont) The crux of all of this is that, in the beginning, this did not seem like a major ‘fork in the road’ or a ‘major decision’ & both paths seemed ‘equal’ at that point in time. However, when he looks back he realizes that what may have (at the time) ‘seemed’ like a simple decision having not much consequence, ended up been the difference between, ‘a life worth living & no life at all.’ (excuse the grammar & spelling;)
December 27th, 2011 - 23:20
@reybuono1 (cont) He goes on to say, “though at the passing there had worn them really about the same.” How I see it, is at the ‘meeting point’ of these 2 paths of passing, it was ‘equally worn’ & well traveled, however that was not the case with both paths. Until this point, no step had ‘trodden black.’ ‘Possibly meaning, ‘No step had serious consequence until that point.’ He later mentions, this point is a point of no return, hence, ”i doubted if I should ever return.” (cont)
December 27th, 2011 - 23:39
@reybuono1 I completely ‘disagree’ with you. This is 1st time i have ever heard or read this this Poem & this is what I believe he is saying: He is looking back over the life he has lead. At one point he reached a fork in the road. Both roads lay open but the one that caught his was less traveled, described as he put it, “having perhaps the better claim, because it was grassy & wanted wear.’ This also tell’s me that he is not to certain ‘why’ he chose that path, but in the end, he did. (cont)
December 28th, 2011 - 00:14
Thats a good poem
December 28th, 2011 - 01:09
At the year of eight, when the world was new
For school I spoke this poem I knew
At that year plus ten, I swore I knew
What the world would give (so little few)
December 28th, 2011 - 01:26
This is how I’m memorizing my poem that I need to read aloud to the class tomorrow.
December 28th, 2011 - 01:51
The poem is not about choice. It’s about how we remember choice — how we ascribe importance to past events that were not all that significant at the time. It’s also a satire. The voice that shall be “telling this with a sigh” is pretentious and a bit sententious. Frost is ironically looking ahead to his future when he will be describing this this choice as if he knew what it meant. The key is the dash before the two “I”s in the third stanza. The poem has been abused by so many English teachers.
December 28th, 2011 - 02:39
Love this poem
December 28th, 2011 - 03:09
Amazing voice you have. Had made me love the poem all the more
December 28th, 2011 - 03:32
though i have read the poem and love it from the time i was a teenager,it took years to go by and me reaching the other side of thirties to understand it truly.maynot be in the way the poet wanted but standing at the juncture of life with a sigh of regret over the road of love i chose to travel instead of waiting for the right moment to hold the right man’s hand chose by my parents.as truly said,roads leads to others and that is it u never get to the starting point again. decisions are it about.
December 28th, 2011 - 03:48
i think he tells it with a sigh because years from now he will look back and be wondering what the other road had been like and where it might have led because life has a tendency to go forward never back he would not meet that first road in the future and would never realy know thats why even though the less travled road was not a wrong choice it was a tricky one as he will never know if it was the better choice because in life there are no “do overs” but he is not sorry for the coice he made
December 28th, 2011 - 04:45
I love this narrator’s voice!
Who,
Who are you?
Amazing
Blazing inflection
and audio direction~
As a poet
I wish I not only knew it
but could utter with such
audacity and authority
with voice’ golden!
December 28th, 2011 - 05:19
@cupofsugarful I agree with you entirely here. It seems that this poem is rarely truly understood! It is a poem about a kind of active procrastination! It is, as Frost himself admitted later, about a man who always regretted whatever decision he ever made believing the untrodden grass on the other path was always going to be greener. In the film “The Dead Poets’ Society” Robin Williams completely misunderstands the poem and consequently so did many who read the poem in the film’s wake…
December 28th, 2011 - 05:38
Can you imagine him, at 60, telling friends, “Hey, remember that time when everyone was doing Y and I did Y, too”? No: it doesn’t make for a great story. What has made all the difference to the speaker is the making of the choice, not how the choice unfolds (though he hasn’t even begun traveling the road, he states, right now, that choosing it is the important thing to him; it’s irrelevant if he dies walking it, or wins the lottery walking it.) And his sigh would be a sigh of relief, not regret.
December 28th, 2011 - 05:59
instead, I interpret his use of the word “difference” as the meaning behind why he chose the road in the first place, because it was different in his eyes at first glance, and for that reason more appealing.
December 28th, 2011 - 06:27
“Though as for that, the passing there, had worn them really about the same”
“I kept the first for another day, yet knowing how way leads onto way, I doubted if I should ever come back”
These few lines are a focal point in the poem, these two diverging roads aren’t so different that the speaker can make an easy choice, and with his decision, a faint regret follows. The speaker then uses the word “difference” in a playful manner, really there was no difference at all, as was just stated.