"The Road Not Taken" is a poem by Robert Frost, published in 1916 as the first poem in the collection Mountain Interval.
History
Frost spent the years 1912 to 1915 in England, where among his acquaintances was the writer Edward Thomas. Thomas and Frost became close friends and took many walks together. After Frost returned to New Hampshire in 1915, he 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. Frost later expressed chagrin that most audiences took the poem more seriously than he had intended; in particular, Thomas took it seriously and personally, and it provided the last straw in Thomas' decision to enlist in World War I. Thomas was killed two years later in the Battle of Arras.
Analysis
"The Road Not Taken" is a narrative and autobiographical poem consisting of four stanzas of iambic tetrameter (though it is hypermetric by one beat â€" there are nine syllables per line instead of the strict eight required for tetrameter) and is one of Frost's most popular works. Besides being among the best known poems, some claim that it is one of the most misunderstood.
Frost's biographer Lawrance Thompson is also cited as saying that the speaker of the poem is "one who habitually wastes energy in regretting any choice made: belatedly but wistfully he sighs over the attractive alternative rejected."
While a case could be made for the sigh being one of satisfaction, given the critical support of the 'regret' analysis it seems fair to say that this poem is about the human tendency to look back and attribute blame to minor events in one's life, or to attribute more meaning to things than they may deserve.
References
External links
- The Road Not Taken at Poets.org
- 3 audio readings of The Road Not Taken
- Information about the poem and about Frost's life
- Critical essays on "The Road Not Taken"