Road Not Taken, The, by Robert Frost, is one of the most beloved of American poems. For many readers, it is a celebration of courageous individualism. The poem was first published in 1916, in the magazine Mountain Interval. At the time, Frost was a married man with a large family, living in rural New England. Although familiar with the daring poetic experiments of fellow American poets, such as Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot, Frost felt an obligation to write poetry that would appeal to a wide range of readers. By selling his verse to popular journals and magazines, he could more easily provide for his family’s needs.
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same, And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.
The final two lines of the poem are some of the best-known words written by Frost. Taken out of context (as commonly happens), they serve as a triumphant statement about the benefits of pursuing a “less traveled” path. In context, however, the lines seem somewhat ironic. The second stanza of the poem reminds us that the speaker’s choice was not as unusual as he later might represent it, “ages and ages hence.” The speaker seems to be mocking his future self for taking more credit for his fate than he actually deserves.
The image of the path in the wood links this poem with a tradition of allegory (symbolic stories) in literature. This tradition uses the path as a symbol for a person’s way through life. Read with this in mind, some of the poem’s details acquire unexpected significance. The road the speaker did not choose (the one “bent in the undergrowth”) becomes an immoral (or “crooked”) path. It was thus a temptation into sin narrowly avoided. The speaker’s accidental choice of the moral (or “straight”) path through life, then, has made what we assume is a positive difference to his future.
If the speaker’s future self takes more credit than he deserves for his fate, he also seems to be elevating himself in unjustifiable ways. Despite its deceptively simple appearance, this poem may be commenting ironically on the philosophy of heroic individualism that it seems to support. With his tale of two roads, Frost managed to tease countless future readers with his message.
For more information about Frost, see Frost, Robert. See also American literature (Modernist poetry).
