In high school we examined “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost. I think I was obscenely bored in that class. I remember reading and processing the poem (yellow wood = fall). I remember wringing every bit of meaning out of the poem. I remember the class consensus that the poem was exalting the idea of taking the least traveled path. Telling us that wandering the less traveled path will somehow improve our lives. I was still bored in the class. The poem didn’t resonate. It didn’t sparkle and jump off the page. It was just another poem and through reading it we’d come to the obvious conclusion.
Yesterday on NPR for one of their stories they played a 1941 recording of Robert Frost reading this poem. Listening to him I suddenly had an insight into the poem. The poem isn’t about taking the less trodden path.. it’s about our recollections when we’re old. He’s saying that when we’re old (some future time from now) we’ll look back on this decision and say that we took “the road less traveled”. Even though in all actuality both paths were about the same. Through a filter of life lessons we’ll look back and remember the paths differently.. and regardless of which one we take, we’ll remember that we took the best one. It’s not about the paths.. it’s about us looking back on our paths and remember them. So there.. I’ve inflicted my interpretation on you. I feel all the better for it.
The Road Not Taken
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.
