The Road Not Taken (poem)

"The Road Not Taken"

 is a poem by Robert Frost, published in 1916 in his collection Mountain Interval. It is the first poem in the volume, and the first poem Frost had printed in italics. The title is often misremembered as "The Road Less Traveled", from the penultimate line: "I took the one less traveled by".

• Poem
  

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.

1.  Interpretation
   

The poem has two recognized interpretations. One is a more literal interpretation, while the other is more ironic.

Readers often see the poem literally, as an expression of individualism. Critics typically view the poem as ironic. – "'The Road Not Taken,' perhaps the most famous example of Frost's own claims to conscious irony and 'the best example in all of American poetry of a wolf in sheep's clothing.'" – and Frost himself warned "You have to be careful of that one; it's a tricky poem – very tricky."

Frost intended the poem as a gentle jab at his great friend and fellow poet Edward Thomas, and seemed amused at this certain interpretation of the poem as inspirational.

•  Literal interpretation
  

According to the literal (and more common) interpretation, the poem is inspirational, a paean to individualism and non-conformism.

The poem's last lines, where the narrator declares that taking the road "less traveled by" has "made all the difference," can be seen as a declaration of the importance of independence and personal freedom. "The Road Not Taken" seems to illustrate that once one takes a certain road, there is no turning back. Although one might change paths later on, the past cannot be changed. It can be seen as showing that choice is very important, and is a thing to be considered.

This interpretation seems connected with misremembering the title as "The Road Less Traveled", since it places emphasis on the choice made, not the opportunities foregone.

•  Ironic interpretation
  

The ironic interpretation, widely held by critics, is that the poem is instead about regret and personal myth-making, rationalizing our decisions.

In this interpretation, the final two lines:

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

are ironic – the choice made little or no difference at all, the speaker's protestations to the contrary. The speaker admits in the second and third stanzas that both paths may be equally worn and equally leaf-covered, and it is only in his future recollection that he will call one road "less traveled by".

The sigh, widely interpreted as a sigh of regret, might also be interpreted ironically: in a 1925 letter to Crystine Yates of Dickson, Tennessee, asking about the sigh, Frost replied: "It was my rather private jest at the expense of those who might think I would yet live to be sorry for the way I had taken in life."