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So the road he will later call less traveled is actually the road equally traveled. The two roads are interchangeable. Orr concluded by noting: "It is a poem about the necessity of choosing that somehow, like its author, never makes a choice itself—that instead repeatedly returns us to the same enigmatic, leaf-shadowed crossroads."
The Road Not Taken. By Robert Frost. Share. Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood ... I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. See All Poems. Subscribe to our newsletter. Poems & Essays Programs Events Awards Shop. About Resources Newsletter
“The Road Not Taken” has become well known for its perceived encouragement to take the “[road] less traveled by.” In other words, many people interpret this poem as a call to blaze new trails and break away from the status quo.
The popular belief is that Frost meant for this poem to be about hope, success, and defying the odds by choosing a path well, “less traveled by.” On the other hand, if the poem is reviewed, it is quite obvious that it has fairly the opposite connotation. It is Robert Frost’s first poem in his book “Mountain Interval” (1916).
Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken”. Read the iconic poem by Robert Frost alongside a video animated by TED-Ed, and discover additional reading materials, related poems, and educator resources to help you engage more deeply with the poem or teach it in the classroom. Poets.org.
Although commonly interpreted as a celebration of rugged individualism, the poem actually contains multiple different meanings. The speaker in the poem, faced with a choice between two roads, takes the road "less traveled," a decision which he or she supposes "made all the difference."
And the road not taken, of course, is the road one didn’t take—which means that the title passes over the “less traveled” road the speaker claims to have followed in order to foreground the road he never tried. The title isn’t about what he did; it’s about what he didn’t do.
