While walking along a path with a non-American friend of mine, I asked whether he’d heard the Robert Frost poem, “The Road Not Taken”.<\/p>\n
Of course, any American friend of mine would have already heard of it, but this guy hadn’t. So once I got home, I looked it up and sent it to him. Upon re-reading it, it occurred to me for the thousandth time that everyone (including me) usually thinks of the poem meaning one thing, when it clearly must mean something else.<\/p>\n
As a refresher, the poem ends this way:<\/p>\n
—<\/p>\n
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nI took the one less traveled by,
\nAnd that has made all the difference.<\/p>\n
—<\/p>\n
So most people assume that the poem is Frost’s advice that people should take the road less traveled. That they should venture into unknown territory, dance to the tune of their own drummer, be different, be unconventional, be unique.<\/p>\n
But a look at the actual poem discredits that idea. He actually says that the paths were more or less the same. Ok, one was ever-so-slightly less traveled. But barely so, and neither were traveled greatly at all.<\/p>\n
Frost was just saying that he chose a particular way, and he can’t change that. The poem would have the exact same meaning if he had chosen the path more traveled, or if he had said that he chose the road with fewer oak trees, or any other distinguishing item. He made a choice and can’t have them both.<\/p>\n
If reading the poem doesn’t convince you, do a little research and you’ll see that I’m right.<\/p>\n
Here’s the whole poem:<\/p>\n
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
\nAnd sorry I could not travel both
\nAnd be one traveler, long I stood
\nAnd looked down one as far as I could
\nTo where it bent in the undergrowth;<\/p>\n
Then took the other, as just as fair,
\nAnd having perhaps the better claim,
\nBecause it was grassy and wanted wear;
\nThough as for that the passing there
\nHad worn them really about the same,<\/p>\n
And both that morning equally lay
\nIn leaves no step had trodden black.
\nOh, I kept the first for another day!
\nYet knowing how way leads on to way,
\nI doubted if I should ever come back.<\/p>\n
I shall be telling this with a sigh
\nSomewhere ages and ages hence:
\nTwo roads diverged in a wood, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nI took the one less traveled by,
\nAnd that has made all the difference.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
While walking along a path with a non-American friend of mine, I asked whether he’d heard the Robert Frost poem, “The Road Not Taken”. Of course, any American friend of mine would have already heard of it, but this guy hadn’t. So once I got home, I looked it up and sent it to him. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-languagelit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyrob.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyrob.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyrob.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyrob.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyrob.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyrob.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyrob.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyrob.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyrob.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}