The meter is basically iambic tetrameter, with each line having four two-syllable feet, though in almost every line, in different positions, an iamb is replaced with an anapest. With the rhyme scheme as 'ABAAB', the first line rhymes with the third and fourth, and the second line rhymes with the fifth. The poem consists of four stanzas of five lines each. Thomas was killed two years later in the Battle of Arras. Thomas took the poem seriously and personally, and it may have been significant in Thomas' decision to enlist in World War I. After Frost returned to New Hampshire in 1915, he sent Thomas an advance copy of "The Road Not Taken". Thomas was indecisive about which road to take, and in retrospect often lamented that they should have taken the other one. One day, as they were walking together, they came across two roads. Thomas and Frost became close friends and took many walks together. The first 1915 publication differs from the 1916 republication in Mountain Interval: In line 13, "marked" is replaced by "kept" and a dash replaces a comma in line 18.įrost spent the years 1912 to 1915 in England, where among his acquaintances was the writer Edward Thomas. Its central theme is the divergence of paths, both literally and figuratively, although its interpretation is noted for being complex and potentially divergent. " 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 collection Mountain Interval of 1916. Greenwood Press, 2001.First published in the August, 1915 issue of The Atlantic Monthly. Collected Poems, Prose, and Plays (Library of America). Frost tells that in our ordered and organized world one feels sometimes the need for a change. Romantic and lengthy descriptions of nature are intertwined with grating people’s sufferings. The author shows that human being submitted to nature and has a connection with the earth. In sum, Frost uses different symbols of nature in several dimensions to unveil human life. “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I- / I took the one less traveled by” (Frost). The path represents the life cycle of nature in comparison to human life. Human life flows like a non-trodden small path, it is comparable with the rain or snow weather. The theme of “path in the wood” was always one of the topical ones. Using unique symbols, Frost raises a dilemma of choice”…And looked down one as far as I could to where it bent in the undergrowth”. Nature serves as a symbol that represents dilemma and the knowledge retrieval, the desire to find old truth. Roads in the poem are “non-trodden, so it means that a person has to pave the way in his life by life expectations and aims: “And both that morning equally lay in leaves no step had trodden black. In the poem, the path is a symbol of the future, and a person has a choice to choose his road. Nature is different as a human’s inner world does: winter is a piece of mind and autumn means mediation (Kennedy and Gioia 11). In the poem, the theme of wood implies not only wisdom but also the whole life of a person, who has a right to choose which path to go. “Wood” means the life experience of a particular person, and it brings a message to everyone to think over the next step in his life. “I thought that only someone who lived in turning to fresh tasks could so forget his handiwork on which He spent himself the labor of his axe”. It is possible to assume that the theme of “wood” means “great, century-old wisdom” of nature and a human being. Beauty is depicted and enhanced by the poet’s rendering of delicate expressions that come together to form a beautiful composition of nature at its best (Juten and Zubizarreta 81). In the poem, a glorious scene of nature grasps the readers’ imagination: “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood”. The author gives only some hints to the reader to comprehend the meaning of the poem, and under “paths” he means our life with non-trodden paths, which we have to carve. Nature, and the theme of wood, in particular, is used as a symbol to describe the deep personal feelings and life experience of a human. The poem depicts nature and discusses how beautiful it is.
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