The Road Not Taken

Name:

Pragya

Chaturve

di

Class:

Ninth “B”

Roll number: 16

Topic: The

Road Not

Taken

Subject

Teacher: Mr. PS

Madhusoodhan

School: KV AFS

Yelahanka Bangalore-560 063.

-by Robert Frost

• Robert Frost (1874-1963) was born in San Francisco, Frost spent most of his adult life in rural New England and his laconic language and emphasis on individualism in his poetry reflect this region. He attended Dartmouth and Harvard but never earned a degree, and as a young man with a growing family he attempted to write poetry while working on a farm or teaching in a school. American editors rejected his submitted poems.

• 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;

First stanza

What does First stanza mean?

• The Speaker describes his position. He has been out walking the woods and come 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 to that, so therefore he continues to look down the roads for a long time trying to make his decision about which road to take.

• 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,

Second stanza

What does Second stanza mean?

• He 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 then 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 that same but only “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.

Third stanza

What does Third stanza mean?

• The third stanza continues with the cogitation about the possible differences between the two roads. He had noticed that the leaves were both fresh 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.

• 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 travelled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Fourth stanza

What does Fourth stanza mean?

• Tells how the choice he made him the person he is.

Bibliography

You can find more information about Robert Frost at the following websites:

http://www.poets.org/poets/poets.cfm?prmID=1961.

Hear the poet (who died almost forty years ago!) reading the poem at

http://www.poets.org/poems/poems.cfm ?prmID= 1645

To view a beautiful New England scene with each poem in this web site: "IllustratedPoetry of Robert Frost":

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Olympus/1487/index.html

THANK YOU