The document provides biographical information about American poet Robert Frost and analyzes his famous poem "The Road Not Taken." It discusses how the poem describes coming to a fork in the road in the woods and choosing the path less traveled. Though commonly seen as promoting individualism, the poem actually does not moralize and says that any choice inevitably changes one's life in unknown ways.

1. ROBERT FROST
(1874-1963)

2. ROBERT FROST
• Robert Lee Frost (March 26, 1874 – January
29, 1963) an American poet, was born on 26
March 1874 in San Francisco, California. He is
highly regarded for his realistic depictions of
rural life . His work frequently employed
settings from rural life in the early twentieth
century, using them to examine complex social
and philosophical themes.

3. ROBERT FROST
• On January 29, 1963, he died, in Boston,
of complications from prostate surgery. He
was buried at the Old Bennington
Cemetery in Bennington, Vermont. His
epitaph reads, "I had a lover's quarrel with
the world."

4. PULITZER PRIZES
A popular and often-quoted poet, Frost was
honored frequently during his lifetime, receiving
four Pulitzer prizes.
• 1924 for New Hampshire: A Poem With
Notes and Grace Notes
• 1931 for Collected Poems
• 1937 for A Further Range
• 1943 for A Witness Tree

5. OFT QUOTED FamOUS WORkS
• The Road Not Taken
‘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.’
• Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening
‘The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.’

6. OFT QUOTED FamOUS WORkS
• Mending Wall
‘Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.’
• After Apple-Picking
‘My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still,
And there's a barrel that I didn't fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.’

7. NOTES FROM THE POET
• Frost claims that he wrote this poem about his friend
Edward Thomas, with whom he had walked many times
in the woods near London. Frost has said that while
walking they would come to different paths and after
choosing one, Thomas would always fret wondering
what they might have missed by not taking the other
path.
• About the poem, Frost asserted, "You have to be careful
of that one; it's a tricky poem - very tricky." And he is, of
course, correct. The poem has been and continues to be
used as an inspirational poem, one that to the
undiscerning eye seems to be encouraging self-reliance,
not following where others have led.
• But a close reading of the poem proves otherwise. It
does not moralize about choice, it simply says that
choice is inevitable but you never know what your choice
will mean until you have lived it.

8. This poem starts with the author
walking through the woods. He comes
to a fork in the path and is in dilemma
about which path to take...does he
take the path that is traveled by
everybody, or the one rarely traveled
upon? He decides to take the road less
traveled by. By taking this path he
changes his life in some way unknown
to the reader.

9. The Road Not Taken is a twenty-line
poem with the rhyme scheme abaab
The poem consists of four stanzas.
In the first stanza, the speaker
describes his position.
He has been out walking the woods
and comes to two roads, and he stands
looking as far down each one as he can
see.
He would like to try out both, but
doubts he could do that, therefore he
continues to look down the roads for a
long time trying to make his decision
about which road to take.

10. The poet had looked down the first one ‘ to where
it bent in the undergrowth’ and in the second
stanza, he reports that he decided to take the
other path, because it seemed to have less traffic
than the first.
But then he goes on to say that they actually
were very similarly worn. The second one that he
took seems less traveled, but as he thinks about
it, he realizes that they were ‘really about the
same.’ Not exactly same but only ‘about the
same.’

11. The third stanza states the possible
differences between the two roads. He
had noticed that the leaves were freshly
fallen on them both and had not been
walked on, but then again claims that
maybe he would come back and also walk
the first one sometime, but he doubted he
would be able to, because in life one thing
leads to another and time is short

12. The fourth stanza holds the key to the trickiness
of the poem: as stated with the word ‘sigh’.
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.
However we can interpret this poem as
suggesting non-conformity. Take the word
“difference” to be a positive difference.

13. WORD CONNOTATION
Though we usually associate the word
‘sigh’ with regret , the word ‘sigh’ in
the poem can however be interpreted
in terms of connoting a positive
difference. The sigh can be taken to
be as one of nostalgic relief;. Frost
asserts that the choice was all which
made the difference.

14. THEME OF THE POEM
This is a wonderful poem with many different
themes and ideas. One of the prime themes is
not being afraid to take a chance. Some of the
other themes include, not following the crowd,
trying new things and standing for something.
This poem stated that the author "took the one
(road) less traveled by, and that has made all
the difference" so the author is telling the
reader that we too should not be afraid to take
a less frequented path.

15. POET’S MESSAGE
•Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” has
been one of the most analyzed, quoted,
anthologized poems in American poetry. A
wide-spread interpretation claims that the
speaker in the poem is promoting
individualism and non-conformity.