The Road Not Taken

Mar 01, 2009 23:14

Why did no one ever tell me that "The Road Not Taken" is a joke? That's what I get for not actually reading the classics.

Leave a comment

Comments 3

jabberwok March 2 2009, 16:20:04 UTC
Wasn't aware of that, though I barely remembered the poem existed at all. Frost is so prolific that it seems like teachers don't bother with him after high school.

Sounds like many who did read it didn't get that either. Course, it's not just a joke, it's still a meaningful poem even with the irony, right?

Reply

hookersforjesus March 2 2009, 16:34:26 UTC
Yeah, but the meaning is a 180 from the myth. To me, it's about how people self-mythologize. Like my dad has these little stories he tell that have great symbolic importance to him, but like the narrator in "The Road Not Taken," the objective difference between the two paths at the time were probably not that big.

I like that Frost is so self-aware of his future self-aggrandizement, it makes me laugh. If you just read the last two lines, which I know is all I knew of the poem, it seems like an honest and somewhat wanky tribute to individualism. Reading the first half of the poem, it's clear that the road wasn't really less traveled, he is just planning on saying that to his kids, haha.

I dunno, I think because those two lines seem so ingrained as a straight-forward tribute to individualism, actually reading it and learning that the two paths were traveled equally just blows my mind.

Reply

jabberwok March 3 2009, 02:28:12 UTC
yeah, i would imagine it is frequently quoted out of context and spirit.
like Born In the USA

Reply


Leave a comment

Up