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"The Road Not Taken" is a narrative poem by Robert Frost, first published in the August 1915 issue of the Atlantic Monthly, and later published as the first poem in the 1916 poetry collection, Mountain Interval. Its central theme is the divergence of paths, both literally and figuratively, although its interpretation is noted for being complex ...
Robert Frost wrote “ The Road Not Taken ” as a joke for a friend, the poet Edward Thomas. When they went walking together, Thomas was chronically indecisive about which road they ought to take and—in retrospect—often lamented that they should, in fact, have taken the other one.
“The Road Not Taken” acts as a kind of thaumatrope, rotating its two opposed visions so that they seem at times to merge. And that merging is produced not by a careful blending of the two—a union—but by “rapid and frequent transition,” as Whateley puts it.
Facing the “two roads”—a reiteration of the poem’s opening line—the speaker falters when forced to make the final decision. The two “I”s can also be read as a statement about the fluidity of personal identity.
Analysis (ai): This poem explores the theme of choice and its consequences, with the speaker faced with a decision between two paths. The choice is not straightforward, as both paths appear equally promising.
‘The Road Not Taken’ by Robert Frost (Bio | Poems) describes how the speaker struggles to choose between two roads diverging in the yellowish woods on an autumn morning. In the poem, the individual arrives at a critical juncture in his life, arriving at crossroads at last near “a yellow wood.”
A close look at the poem reveals that Frost's walker encounters two nearlv identical paths: so he insists, repeatedly. The walker looks down one, first, then the other, "as just as fair." Indeed, "the passing there / Had worn them reallv about the same."
