3/17/2023 0 Comments Road not taken poem![]() ![]() The wonderful title evokes the rural hinterland of New England, away from the Boston society and economy. In North of Boston, Frost establishes himself as a close and careful observer of man in the natural world. 1915 became the year in which he became recognized as America’s quintessential poet in August, the Atlantic Monthly published what is perhaps Frost’s most well-known work, “The Road Not Taken.” What mattered to Frost was that his English trip had worked. The years in England were crucial to Frost, but they have also caused confusion in straightening out his publishing history – the books appeared in reverse order in America and the poems that appeared in the magazines had in fact already appeared in print, albeit in England. Frost’s career was as well-launched as he could have hoped, and when he returned to the United States in early 1915, he had an American publisher and a dawning fame as his work appeared before the general public in journals like The New Republic and The Atlantic Monthly. ![]() While reviews of the first book, A Boy’s Will, were generally favorable, but mixed, when it was published in 1913, North of Boston was immediately recognized as the work of a major poet. Frost had gone to England to add further polish to his writing skills and to make valuable contacts with the leading figures in Anglo-American literature, especially English writer Edward Thomas and expatriate American Ezra Pound Pound would be a crucial early supporter of Frost. Frost was very careful about how he managed the start of his career, wanting to make the strongest debut possible, and he diligently assembled the strongest lineup of poems possible for his books A Boy’s Will and North of Boston. But, since he can't really predict the future, he can only see part of the path.It’s a small irony in the career of Robert Frost that this most New England of poets published his first two books of poetry during the short period when he was living in Old England. ![]() If our speaker is, as we suspect, at a fork in the road of his life, and not at an actual road, he could be trying to peer into his future as far as he can. This is where we start to think about the metaphorical meanings of this poem.But he can only see up to the first bend, where the undergrowth, the small plants and greenery of the woods, blocks his view. He's staring down one road, trying to see where it goes. The speaker really wants to go down both paths – he's thinking hard about his choice.Because he's standing, we know that he's on foot, and not in a carriage or a car. Because of the impossibility of traveling both roads, the speaker stands there trying to choose which path he's going to take.The speaker is "sorry" he can't travel both roads, suggesting regret.The speaker wants to go down both roads at once, but since it's impossible to walk down two roads at once, he has to choose one road."Diverged" is just another word for split.The woods are yellow, which means that it's probably fall and the leaves are turning colors.This poem was first published in 1916, when cars were only just beginning to become prominent, so these roads in the wood are probably more like paths, not roads like we'd think of them today. Our speaker is describing a fork in the road. ![]()
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