Robert Frost is one of the most critically
acclaimed American poets of the 20th century, which is a roundabout way of saying you almost
certainly studied one of his poems in school. Most likely, it was a short piece called The
Road Not Taken- a poem famous for being one of the most misunderstood and misinterpreted
poems ever written, and a testament to how twisted the meaning of something can be by
taking a quote out of context. Oh, and it also played a small role in the
death of the guy it was written about. To begin with, the part of the poem most everyone
is intimately familiar is the last three lines: "Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference." From this, and this alone, it would seem the
protagonist of the poem took the road less traveled by and this positively benefited
his life over taking the more commonly trodden path… While poems can have many different meanings
to different people, and certainly parts of this particular poem are very much open to
interpretation, what cannot be denied is that the central character of this poem unequivocally
does not actually take the road “less traveled”. You see, while it may come as a shock to those
of us that had a habit of occasionally nodding off in school, the poem has more than just
three lines, and the true meaning of (most of) it is fairly obvious if you just read
the entire thing all the way through. To wit, the protagonist of the poem goes out
of his way to make it clear that the two paths are virtually identical- neither is more traveled
than the other. The setup:
"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;" From this, you might actually think one was
less trodden, except for the next line when the traveler explains he was really just casting
about trying to find some reason to take one road or the other in the previous lines and
that in truth the roads seemed equally traveled: "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." Of course, one can’t just stand around in
a wood all day, so a choice must be made. With no reason to choose one road over the
other, the traveler takes one, then consoles himself that he will simply come back another
time and see where the other road goes… before admitting that in this thought he was
really just trying to fool himself once again, as he had tried to do previously by attempting
to convince himself one path was less traveled than the other:
"Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back." In the end, he states the most famous part
of this poem, though including two key lines that are generally omitted when people are
quoting the last stanza of this piece: "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." So, in the end, while he was very clear in
the present that the two roads were identical with no real reason to take one over the other,
later in life he knew he’d once again fool himself, this time successfully, by instead
remembering that one road was “less traveled by” and that this influenced his decision,
when in fact he really decided on a whim. Of course, it isn’t wholly clear at this
point whether in “ages and ages hence” he is sighing and noting “that has made
all the difference” out of contentment- that his reasoning was sound and that he made
the correct choice- or regret, that he’d not been able to see where the other path
went, perhaps to a better place than the one he chose on that fateful day. It is generally thought that the latter, “regret”,
notion is the “correct” interpretation, at least as far as the original intent of
the author. Perhaps speculatively backing this up is the
fact that the poem is called “The Road Not Taken”, rather than “The Road Less Traveled”,
priming the reader to focus on the former, rather than the latter. But is there any actual evidence to support
one interpretation over the other, at least as far as Frost was intending when he wrote
it (if he had any real intent at all)? Frost would later state of the poem, “You
have to be careful of that one; it’s a tricky poem – very tricky” (Letters xiv-xv). Frost also called the poem his “private
jest“. You see, Frost was well aware that people
would misunderstand “The Road Not Taken”. He experienced this fact when he first began
sharing it, with everyone taking the poem “pretty seriously”, as he noted after
reading it to a group of college students. He also later stated this was despite the
fact that he had been “doing my best to make it obvious by my manner that I was fooling
… Mea culpa.” To delve further into the mystery, we must
look into the interesting origin of the poem. According to Frost, the poem was about his
very close friend Edward Thomas, a fellow writer and (eventual) poet in his last years
who Frost got to know very well during his time in England in the early 20th century. Frost later noted in a letter he wrote to
Amy Lowell that “the closest I ever came in friendship to anyone in England or anywhere
else in the world I think was with Edward Thomas”. During their time together, Frost and Thomas
took to frequently taking “talks–walking”- walks through the English countryside to look
for wild flowers and spot birds, and most importantly discuss all manner of topics from
politics and the war, to poetry and their wives, and everything in between. Frost later noted that during their random
walking about, frequently a choice had to be made over which path to take. Inevitably one would be chosen for one reason
or another and after their walks, Thomas would sometimes kick himself for not taking the
other path if their walk failed to result in the sighting of anything interesting. This ultimately caused Frost to quip that
Thomas was "a person who, whichever road he went, would
be sorry he didn’t go the other." When he returned to America, Frost penned
the poem as a friendly, humorous jab about Thomas’ indecisiveness, sending an early
draft to Thomas titled, “Two Roads” in the early summer of 1915. Thomas reportedly misinterpreted it. Frost then explained the poem’s actual meaning,
even going so far as saying that “the sigh was a mock sigh, hypocritical for the fun
of the thing”. In response, Thomas noted that he felt that
Frost had “carried himself and his ironies too subtly” and that
"I doubt if you can get anybody to see the fun of the thing, without showing them and
advising them which kind of laugh they are to turn on." Nonetheless, the poem had an effect on Thomas
and not long after reading it, as you’ll soon see, he decided to enlist in the army. This is something of a surprise move as Thomas
was not noted for being particularly patriotic, at least in terms of caring one way or the
other about the politics of the conflict resulting in WWI. Indeed, he was noted as being an anti-nationalist
who despised the propaganda and blatant racism against Germans being thrown about in the
British media at the time. He even went so far as to state that his real
countrymen were not Englishmen, but the birds. However, during the pairs’ walks, two things
occurred to begin making Thomas seriously consider what he’d do if the war was brought
to him. Would he flee for safer shores, or stand and
defend his country? One of the events occurred shortly after the
start of WWI. Thomas noted in his journal,
"a sky of dark rough horizontal masses in N.W. with a 1/3 moon bright and almost orange
low down clear of cloud and I thought of men east-ward seeing it at the same moment. It seems foolish to have loved England up
to now without knowing it could perhaps be ravaged and I could and perhaps would do nothing
to prevent it…" He later noted, “Something, I felt, had
to be done before I could look again composedly at English landscape”. So while up to this point he had been indifferent
to the politics behind the war, he now began to consider that it really didn’t matter
what the war was being fought over; if the land and all that was on it was directly threatened,
it needed defending if it was to be preserved. The second event that influenced his decision
was something he often lamented after in letters. This concerned a matter of what he perceived
to be cowardice on his part, though most of us might consider that he was being the only
reasonable one in the ordeal. During one of Frost and Thomas’ walks in
later 1914, they were confronted with a shotgun wielding gamekeeper who told them to leave
the area. Frost felt he was fully in his rights to walk
the land in question and wasn’t inclined to bugger off, never mind the gun pointed
at him. Frost even nearly decided to bring his fists
to the gun fight, but put them down after observing Thomas backing away as Frost was
escalating the situation. A few more choice words later and the pair
parted ways with the gamekeeper. But this wasn’t the end of it. Frost decided to go find the gamekeeper’s
home, and after banging on the door, the gamekeeper answered. At this point, Frost, no doubt using eloquence
befitting a wordsmith of his stature, told the gamekeeper off once again, explaining
what would happen if said gamekeeper ever chose to threaten the pair again while they
walked. With that said, Frost and Thomas turned to
leave. As they were leaving, the gamekeeper grabbed
his shotgun and chose his first target as Thomas. Once again, Thomas, reasonably, reacted by
trying to exit the situation rapidly without provoking the person who had a gun trained
on him. In the end, the pair left unharmed. However, Thomas couldn’t help but dwell
on the fact that his friend had not backed down to a shotgun in his face, while he himself
reacted the opposite. He became woefully ashamed of what he perceived
as his cowardice in the matter. It also wasn’t lost on him that at that
very moment some of his other friends were off demonstrating their bravery fighting in
the war while he was safe at home. Frost later attributed this feeling Thomas
had of his perceived cowardice as the core reason he went to war. Essentially, Frost felt Thomas wanted a do-over
and was making another attempt at testing his mettle, this time in France. This brings us back to the poem and the decision
Thomas had been long agonizing over. He had strong thoughts of emigrating to America
to come live near Frost, stating, “I am thinking about America as my only chance (apart
from Paradise)”, but that he also felt drawn to the war: “Frankly I do not want to go,
but hardly a day passes without my thinking I should. With no call, the problem is endless”. Then the poem arrived on his doorstep in the
early summer of 1915. And so it was that shortly thereafter in early
July of that year, he wrote to Frost telling him of his final decision on which road he’d
take: “Last week I had screwed myself up to the point of believing I should come out
to America… But I have altered my mind. I am going to enlist on Wednesday if the doctor
will pass me”. Today, the poem and its thought provoking
lines are generally regarded as being the “final straw” that made Thomas decide
to stop brooding over what to do and finally pick a road- finding his courage and enlisting. This came as a surprise to virtually everyone
in Thomas’ life due to the fact he was a 37 year old married father of three who, as
noted, was staunchly anti-nationalist and otherwise was not required to enlist. The decision cost him his life. On April 9, 1917 during the battle of Arras
in France, he was shot in the chest and killed- a death that was seemingly premature. Of course, had he taken the other road, perhaps
instead of a bullet through his chest, he may have met with a watery grave if his ship
to the states had been sunk. Or perhaps he would have spent many years
writing incredible poetry that was the hallmark of the last couple years of his life- happily
living and working next to his great friend, Robert Frost.
