The Almost Universally Misinterpreted Poem "The Road Not Taken" and the Fascinating Story Behind It
Вставка
- Опубліковано 26 лис 2019
- Check out Brilliant: brilliant.org/todayifoundout
If you happen to like our videos and have a few bucks to spare to support our efforts, check out our Patreon page where we've got a variety of perks for our Patrons, including Simon's voice on your GPS and the ever requested Simon Whistler whistling package: / todayifoundout
This video is #sponsored by Brilliant.
→Some of our favorites: • Featured
→Subscribe for new videos every day!
ua-cam.com/users/TodayIFo...
Follow Simon on social media:
/ simonwhistler
/ simonwhistler
Never run out of things to say at the water cooler with TodayIFoundOut! Brand new videos 7 days a week!
More from TodayIFoundOut:
How Airplane Oxygen Masks Work Given They Aren't Hooked to Tanks & How Planes Get Oxygen at Altitude
• How Airplane Oxygen Ma...
Why are Anvils Shaped as They Are and Why Do Blacksmiths Tap the Anvil After a Few Strikes?
• Why are Anvils Shaped ...
In this video:
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.
Want the text version?: www.todayifoundout.com/index.p...
Sources:
www.theguardian.com/books/2011...
www.nytimes.com/2008/05/11/boo...
www.businessinsider.com/frosts...
www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2...
www.sparknotes.com/poetry/fros...
books.google.co.uk/books?id=a...
www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/...
www.english.illinois.edu/maps/...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_...
Check out Brilliant: brilliant.org/todayifoundout
"Mending Wall" is similarly misunderstood.
When and who invented the first British fish and chips shop, where was it located and what did they actually sell? On a side note please please please can you find out how they made the chip shop curry sauce. You know the good stuff they made when you was a kid. Not the rubbish, (Add 250ml to 200g of powder) they try to sell you now days.
commercials should go at the end with patreon begs.
When will this "learned" channel comprehend the meaning of the word "racist"? A comment made about a nationality is not racist. If, as is often the case, a comment is made that Americans are fat, it is not a racist comment. Please quit being lazy and using the term so loosely and incorrectly.
@@mathewfullerton8577 Fairly true for Americans, but there are many countries (Ireland, Scotland, Japan, Denmark, Finland, etc) where the nation is basically identical with a particular ethnic group.
Too bad the English teacher who gave me a C for making THIS EXACT ARGUMENT on a middle school term paper is dead or I would share this with her.
From my experience people get bad results in English, not because your arguments were thought to be wrong, but because the way you discussed it was bad.
She's dead? I take it you killed her over your grade? Sounds reasonable.
I kid.
Only slightly related, but while learning about WWII I told my fifth grade teacher about a video I had watched of the testing of a nuclear weapon in a New Mexico desert. She told me I was crazy they only ever made one nuke. I pointed out that even the textbook shows that we dropped two nukes on japan and she sent me to the principal's office lol. I do not know what happened to her.
@@punctuationman334
You are lucky.
I had a teacher say that heavy water is H3O. I corrected him.
Later when he said that P=I/V or something like that I did not correct him.
@@maxwellpauric00 Obviously, you did not go to school in Alabama in the 80s! This teacher was convinced the road less traveled mattered to the author's life. This was also the teacher whose only criticism of a later creative writing assignment was that I used the improper syntax of "said I." She died in a car accident due to letting her boyfriend drive drunk from a party. I was high school valedictorian and went on to minor in English, graduating summa cum laude . The evidence would suggest she was the one with poor comprehension skills.
"if you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there" ~George Harrison
- Lewis Carroll
@@tusharg8452
I thought it was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. ; )
It's from the Talmud.
And also my mom when dad inevitably got his comeuponce for saying he didn't need a map while driving.
Harrison was a mystical, drug fueled, con man, who only understood one thing - how to scam money out of misguided kids!
So instead of being about choosing the road less traveled, it's actually about not regretting the direction you took in life.
This is how I saw it... this was my mother's favorite poem.. I will always love this poem no matter the interpretation
The thing about art, literature, and even media in general is that the interpretation we get is subjective. Not everyone will feel the same way towards something
@@chinuaalibatya7345 Exactly! As a poet myself, I have always been fascinated when people have read something I wrote and interpreted something different than what I intended. It opens my eyes to different perspectives. Also, apart from all that, I feel it's beautiful that people can take and learn what they want independently of other interpretations.
@@skyhigh4984 FYI, as a commander, I've also been fascinated and annoyed with the way people interpreted policies, regulations or procedures I wrote :) Human's all see things through their own lenses, and as you've noticed, it's always interesting hearing someone interpreting something incorrectly, as fact, because it's something you wrote in the first place.
@@chinuaalibatya7345 Wrong. Art must have objective meaning or it is inherently meaningless and therefore pointless.
So frost trolled the world accidentally while trolling his friend intentionally. Classic frost.
The problem with most English teachers is that they award more points for answering just the way they teach us and not how we understand a poem.
That happens very often. The students who have the same perspective as the teacher receive more points because it's "more" accurate.
@@vindric8330 very true.
@@vindric8330 then technically
Philosophies in literature shouldn't be included in academics
Giving marks to someone's perspective and interpretation is not fair
@@vindric8330 Which is truly sad. I taught science. There IS a correct answer. But I would bring in HOW it affected such things as the production of the novel Frankenstein. (eruption of the volcano Tabora caused famine caused mobs and violence caused the privileged to hide behind walls with their food they got BORED and wrote poems and that novel). Never docked a kid for their opinion of it but always asked for it. Some opinions are valuable without comment on them.
@@suzannehartmann946 unfortunately, the very idea that anything has a correct answer is being taken to task nowadays :/
If both roads were equally traveled before the protagonist chose, then the road not taken is definitely less traveled after the choice is made.
nah, its the one down the middle. clearly its the least traveled because there isn't any evidence its even a road. ;D
@@Kittsuera F*ck it, we'll build our own road.
@@michaeledmunds7266 with Black Jack And Hookers
Well unless you had extensive knowledge about the roads and the traffic that's traveled over them, you wouldn't really know which one had been less traveled anyway.
@@Ciwe In fact, forget the road and the Blackjack...
Alice in Wonderland -
“Cat: Where are you going?
Alice: Which way should I go?
Cat: That depends on where you are going.
Alice: I don’t know.
Cat: Then it doesn’t matter which way you go.”
Perfect, precise analysis via Carroll.
I hate smart Pusey's. I have an Akita. They are so intelligent.
Zen cat.
@@safetybeachlife I took the road less travelled by and that has made all the difference
That's like the George Harrison song "Any Road".
"And if you don't know where you're going
Any road will take you there"
When I read this poem as a child, I interpreted it as meaning "find your own path, don't follow the herd" as an adult I reread it, and the only message I took away from it was regret...
Exactly
It's better not to decide
Does the poet regret his decision?
@@pratishthabajracharya7 We can’t know for sure, people interpret it based on their own experiences.
@@pratishthabajracharya7 If the decision is caused by your indecisiveness then you regret it, usually mostly..
“Yes, there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run, there’s still time to change the road you’re on.. “
On the other hand:
"You can choose a ready guide
In some celestial voice. If you choose not to decide You still have made a choice."
Sweet. we just singing?
"Another turning point a fork stuck in the road, life grabs you by the hands directs you where to go!"
Another:
“No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn.”
Drew Taylor beat me to it lol
You may always change the road you are on but the old road you didn't take might be closed now
I've always thought it was just a roundabout way of saying "The grass is always greener..."
Wait, did these roads diverge at a fork or a roundabout?!
That was what I was leaning towards.
I think the guy in the video would agree with you. It's funny that the poem was meant as a lighthearted jab and the world has gotten so much wisdom from it.
I suppose wisdom can be found in anything if you analyze it closely enough
@@calebwilliams586 That's how we got MODERN ART out of heaps of garbage and splashes of paint.
@@mgratk I really can't tell what your opinion on modern art is from your comment lol.
I used to babysit a wee fellow. When taking him out in the stroller whenever we came to a corner I would ask him, which way? He would point and off we would go. Loved those random trips to wherever.
I still sometimes do that with my kids.
I do the same with my baby brother ☺️
@@aghnadash9638 That's so sweet! I, too, have a baby brother (by 3.5 years), and although we're both adults of many years, he will always be my dear baby brother. Always.
"Hey friend, I wrote this poem mocking you, would you like to read it?"
It isn't a mock of his cowardice, its a mock of the indecisiveness. The reader took it as the former, as most readers have misinterpreted it ever since.
That's what friends are for. Making sure we don't take ourselves too seriously. 😊
And sadly that friend got himself killed over it. Edward Thomas was my favorite poet, but I never knew this story.
It doesn't matter what path you take in life: you'll just screw things up in an entirely different way and have a completely different set of regrets.
Or put another way: you can learn from the mistakes of others, which gives you free reign to commit completely new and unexpected mistakes of your own.
Which is exactly what Frost implies, tongue in cheek.
No matter how you decide, the joke is, it will NOT make all the difference. Who you are, that is what will always travel with you.
That's not to say you cannot change/learn/grow...but you will do all of that no matter which decisions you make.
Frost seems both amused and slightly resigned at our ability to agonize over choices, thinking our whole lives hinge upon them, when in truth the way isn't important. It's the travel.
@@p.s.shnabel3409 The irony is it wasn't that way with Thomas. He would have lived had he chosen to stay in England rather than fight. And most likely would have lived had he emigrated to America. Most u-boats weren't targeting vessels heading West, they were targeting vessels heading East, presumably with munitions (like the Lusitania which I believe is known it actually did have munitions on board).
@@jimmym3352 Lusitania had weapons aboard, yup.
And as for Thomas living, obviously not. Because of who he was, his choices would have brought him to this point.
What might appear to be choices, you'll end up doing what is true to your self. That is why the two paths look the same. It's an illusion we all like to have, we're free to take any road. But we don't and we won't.
Realizing that is in a strange way very liberating. Instead of agonizing over choices, it leaves us free to follow our desires without regret.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating for hedonism. There's room for some changes, some deliberate decisions. However, these steps are small and will result in very incremental progress.
And I'm not arguing Frost claimed you cannot change. But in a spesific moment, presented with a specific situation, you will always end up doing pretty much the same thing. It is how we learn. Next time, you aren't the same person anymore. So you can act differently.
I never make the same mistake twice. I am infinitely more creative than that.
I always thought that the person in the poem was saying that he didn’t actually see any difference in the path and that he admitted that he would later pretend it was different to make it seem more special. People adding meaning to their past when it suits their own narrative.
That is exactly what Simon is saying that the poem is about.
MurderMostFowl my biggest problem with the poem was that it was somewhat hard to read at the time(for me).
I used to think two poems completely separate from each other by two authors with two meanings. I just could never tell you the other author.
It's all those and something else we are not understanding...
@@CrochetEnclave What native American cultures are you referring to? The only ones who had mirrors before Europeans came were in Mexico and they viewed them as potential portals to other worlds as well as divination instruments.
"The lives we make
Never seem to ever get us anywhere but dead." -Soundgarden
RIP Chris Cornell
yes, beginning and the end are certain. If you begun, you must end. The part between is a mistery and it's all that is so interesting. :D
For me, even more interesting is that me, as a being so short lived, i'm composed of the most ancient bricks universe made in the beginning of our time. That's something worht to give a thought :)
And to the Person we must answer to.
As a poet, I can tell you that poems, although usually written in relation to the poet's own experiences, are not written for the poet but for the reader to interpret. The beauty is how the reader relates to poem to themselves, i.e. "what it means to me." Therefore , "The Road Not Taken," is not incorrectly interpreted; it's just interpreted differently based on how the reader relates to it.
Yes Sir, i think you have made the most serious comment in this matter.
All interpretations are good, if they mean something to you. I'm not a pure artist. But i make things sometimes. I love to give them to people. I LOVE when they use it, or just put away as a decoration, make them into different things or even destroy (love to make wooden spoons). If they put them in the fire, it will give them wormth for a bit:)
My most hated and narrow minded question of all times during school is "what was poet thinking at that time?"
The most freethinking and open for interpretation subject of all time at school - learning your own language... with all poets and language masters, can be turned into something dull, stiff and stinky like an old outhouse by bad, narrowminded teachers.
This is why i love "Dead Man's Society" movie so much...
Not always the case . Some poems have a very specific meaning. Many are open to interpretation but some are . To assume all poets write with the same motivation & intent as you is kind of arrogant , not all writers write for the readers , some write for themselves and even other poems are meant for a particular person/event . So to assume that all poet's always write for the readers interpretation just demonstrates you're naivete'.
"No one ever always or nevers"
No only short poems are like that. That's not the point of most epic poems.
Exactly
@@ogi22 - I think you meant "Dead Poets Society" one of my favorite Robin Williams films.
"No matter where you go, there you are."
--Buckaroo Banzai
Love that movie!
Wherever you go, there you are!
I love that movie too! However, that saying is waaay older than the movie. My dad used to say that to me when I was young. Now I'm old and he's dead.
Classic
That line was also used in Mad Max - Beyond Thunderdome, by a character called "Pig Killer", which came out a year after Banzai.
It's crazy how the poem was written as an internal joke between the two but however the death of Thomas added a different meaning to it, and yet it fits so perfectly well as if Frost was Master Oogway or something daaamn
Yes, Thomas added a very sombre meaning to it. If only he hadn't read that poem, he might have had a long, happy life with his family.
I thought it was just a melancholy observation that every choice you make opens new possibilities and closes others, and nobody ever gets to know what might have been.
I think thats the way we were taught it in school india. The poem never says one road is better or that the difference made was good.
@@blackhare1346 yaa even i was taught it thus way
@@blackhare1346 What? Are you serious? In india CBSE we are taught that the guy chooses the less traveled road.
@@Justaguy10723 and that is wrong
Oh my god. Frost must be laughing at all of us for succeeding on such an epic troll
Yeah, right?
Or should we laugh at Frost for missing the potentially much deeper meaning in his own poem?
Robert Frost’s interpretation is probably the right one.
Probably, but you have to be careful, "it's tricky."
Yeah, but there's Death of the Author and all that. Although in this it was more like Death of the Author's Friend.
“You shouldn't trust the storyteller; only trust the story.”
― Neil Gaiman, Fables & Reflections
"Death of the author," as a golden rule of literary interpretation, needs to die.
Just because he wrote it doesn't mean his interpretation is the right one! ;-)
I always thought this was about someone at the end of life looking back on how their life had played out and wondering how life would be if they made different choices. Not better or worse, just different. Like if chose to be a doctor instead of a lawyer. Both could lead to good lives but different lives.
I am an English teacher, and I had never known of this interpretation. Thank you, sirs, for this enlightenment. And folks out there, never stop learning! There's always something we can be learning and seeing.
This drove me crazy in high school - everyone else seemed to miss the “worn them really about the same” line, even when I pointed it out.
“There's a saying that all roads lead to Ankh-Morpork. ... All roads lead away from Ankh-Morpork, but sometimes people just walk along them the wrong way.”- Terry Pratchett
This comment made my year. 😍
I love Terry Pratchett. One if not the most clever authors I’ve read by
@@nicholaskling2425 definitely the most clever.
I could only ever get one of his books in south africa it was guards! Gaurds! But I never got to finish it cause I lost it moving houses, now I can't find it or buy a new one, oh woe betide me by the gods of fate not for what I know.
@@lowleypeasentmr.l8836 If you would like, i have most of them in pdf format. Just give me a notice and i can upload them for you. All of them are worth of reading:)
I remember highschool, holding my hand up and then telling the teach this. He told me I was wrong and the whole class laughed at me. I've hated him ever since.
If even the author himself isn't certain what it means, what hope do the rest of us have? :)
The only wrong answers are the ones i dont agree with
@Dodge Morningstar Ironic, considering the poem and the video
@@270yis7
Writing is largely up for interpretation, there is one thing I have always hated as a writer.
People would make comments about my work and say things such as, "What the writer was sating...", or "What the writer meant was...".
This has long pissed me off particularly when I write back and they argue with me. The only proper thing to say when giving an opinion on any work is, "What I think this means is...".
On a side note, notice my first name. People have argued with me saying that I am spelling it wrong, and that I am pronouncing it wrong.
Take solace that idiots and assholes abound.
Have a great day.
That's a shame. I loved teaching poetry- I never told a student they were wrong. I would tell them, " there are wrong answers in poetry!" Most of the time I could see how a poem could read a certain way. Students bring different life experiences to the poetry table, and that makes it a meal outside my control. Poetry isn't always like
e. e. Cummings... I hope you have given it another go.
ah yes, high school literature's problem.
Teacher: this piece of poem is a masterpiece with deep meaning.
Poet: I am just doing it for fun
Glad Asia isn't the only place with this bs.
I would say that these are not mutually exclusive facts. In the same way a creator can make something with very serious intent but that anyone with eyes and ears will rightly see as laughable, ridiculous, or outright comical; so also could a creator make, on a whim, something for the sake of their own cheap amusement, than nevertheless the rest of us find to really have great meaning. Artists are people like anyone else. And people don't always perfectly understand even the things they choose to do on their own.
“Some times the road less travelled, is less travelled because it passes the skunk rendering plant.” -Me
And this is also a good interpretation :)
Roads less travelled are usually less travelled for a reason :)
Love it!!!
A true poet
@@kktt725 Or because it goes up hill, both ways, in the snow.
I have always found this poem to make me feel sad, and now that I have heard it's backstory it makes me even sadder.
Don't be sad :( Life may be an unstoppable, unrewindable stream of time in which anyone and everyone will pass and where every choice we make is cemented into the past and barring us from an infinite amount of "things that could have been", but it's also the only place where we can find happiness. Every choice you make, every situation you end up in is the one where you are able to decide that this is the place and time where you will be happy. It's yours. It's home.
I think he realized both roads were equal- but as he is retelling the story later on in life- he gets to embellish...perhaps even convincing himself about such a difficult road- and that makes all the difference.
This poem is about choices, and how they impact our lives. I think it is common, as we get older and some choices are no longer an option, to ponder where we would be now if we had chosen differently.
You point out what I think. 謝謝。
He also wrote a poem about a lovely walk in a orchard in the fall, which all English teachers insist is “ACTUALLY” about DEATH DEATH DEAAATH!!!
Excellent Post, I agree with you
@Hot Rod I guess you know better than the author then, since he complained about it.
death - autumn is a time-honoured association; it is a steeper challenge to write a fall poem that avoids the notion of death, which Frost met perhaps with The Wood-Pile.
Man it’s almost as if a wordsmith of his caliber could write a work very personal yet broad enough to be interpreted differently by different people and differently by the same people at different points in their lives.
Thank you.
Yogi Berra: “When you come to a fork in the road, take it” 🤪
Apparently directions to his house, as he lived on a road that forked and then converged later at his house site.
Was thinking of the same "Yogism" during the whole video.
LOLZ
🤦🤷
Unless you're eating ice cream in which case you'll want a spoon. Just sayin'.
"I had a lover's quarrel with the world" - Epitaph on the grave of Robert Frost in Bennington, Vermont
I am ashamed at the age of 43 that I just learning of its meaning; however, grateful we are living in a time where this and other information are more tangible than we think. All these years never corrected when referenced, and if so, wasn’t profound enough for me to remember.
I've always taken the meaning from that poem to be that every time you make a choice you alter the course of your life. You are where you are because of the choices that brought you here. I don't regret past choices. What I need to do is consider what choices will bring me to where I want to be next year.
This poem had always affected me ever since i first studied it.
I’m a massive overthinker and i would always worry about the road not taken, the chances and decisions we don’t take. You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take, but due to my overthinking nature, it pushed me down a mental hole of worry and anxiety. Not being able to turn back time and having to make sure i don’t live with regrets.
It’s pushed alot of people away. I’m sorry.
In the same boat right now and if anything, it's piling up regrets by the day.
Stuck in the tines of a fork.
Regret is for weak people when you make the decision that's what you want to do at that time whether it turns out to be a good one
Shawn Matney Gee, and my own thought, inspired by your Reply, is that an inability (or more aptly, an unwillingness) to feel regret is for people afraid of confronting their own deeper feelings. My admiration and sympathy goes to those capable of reflecting on their own past choices.
@@MendTheWorld regret is pointless the best thing about choices is that you can make another one.
At the time you make that choice that is what you wanted to do whether you change your mind later is irrelevant.
Here's the meta-genius of the poem: for a lot of people the road not taken is actually reading and understanding the whole poem.
"But I would walk 500 miles
And I would walk 500 more
Just to be the man who walks a thousand miles
To fall down at your door"...................................Da da da dun diddle un diddle un diddle uh da
All I can see is the How I Met Your Mother guys in the car with the stuck tape. Little know fact: On the series StumpTown the lead actress's car also has a stuck tape...and she was on HIMYM.
Proclaimers.
@@rconger24 These are often bullshitters.
- white girls
Soooooo deep
I thought the Frost poem everyone got wrong is “Mending Wall”. The two landowners are strangers except when they repair the wall that separates them.
ZoneFighter1 People quote “Good fences make good neighbors” out of context as if it’s similar to, “Let there be spaces in your togetherness.” The neighbors have no relationship at all.
@@Scyllax I didn't know it, but have just read it because of your comment. Seems amazing that anyone would get this wrong. The speaker is completely contemptuous of the neighbour for repeating the, to him, hackneyed phrase 'good fences make good neighbours.'
I actually did a project in high school about the misinterpretation of this poem
Years ago I was looking for a job in a town where I was comfortable, and would have happily stayed there if I found work. Unfortunately, I didn't, so I moved to a city 90 miles away to try my luck. One thing led to another, and I stayed. I worked, made friends, and got married, the things people do. I have no regrets about it at all, but I sometimes muse about the life I might have had, but for lack of a job. Whether it would have been worse or better, I cannot say. There is no one alive who hasn't picked this job or another, this spouse or another, or this place to live or another, and all these decisions make the difference in how our lives play out. Perhaps fortunately, we can never know what might have been.
"It's a Wonderful Life"
Yea I remember I used to hire people for a tech company. Often times I would notice that the choice between on candidate and another was essentially a dice roll. But that dice roll would be world changing for the candidate. It is so easy too forget how much randomness matters in life.
Whoa Mandela effect moment. I always remembered this poem as “the road less traveled”
The only poem I know. By William Hughes Mearns "Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn't there!
He wasn't there again today,
Oh how I wish he'd go away!"
When I came home last night at three,
The man was waiting there for me
But when I looked around the hall,
I couldn't see him there at all!
Go away, go away, don't you come back any more!
Go away, go away, and please don't slam the door...
Last night I saw upon the stair,
A little man who wasn't there,
He wasn't there again today
Oh, how I wish he'd go away...
"When I came home last night at three,"
Clearly this poem is about alcoholism. He's coming home drunk and hallucinating. It's a cry for help with his addiction.
@@stefanl5183 Or it could be about ghosts, referring to 3am, "the witching hour".
@@thassalantekreskel5742 But Ghosts don't exist. Alcoholics do. I'm more inclined to believe the tangible. The dude drinks too much if he's seeing men on his stairs that don't exist.
Or maybe it's about loneliness...think that your not but in reality you are
Good art of any kind makes you think...and what it means to you personally...could have another meaning altogether to someone else
that to me is the beauty good of art
@@TheNeeenha I guess I'm that deep. It just stood out to me as a kid. I was like 8 or 9 when my cousin told it to me( he was in like 25 or 30?). To me it it is just a silly poem,but maybe there is more to it. I am glad you and other people have enjoyed it. Thanks for the like.
It seems Simon records videos 16 hours a day 😂 he's everywhere
Lol it seems like it doesn't it He's one very busy man at work Simon is. A good hard working fella good for you Simon.
Well... it's his (and the rest of the company's) job. He's gotta eat too!
Or does he?
Unless I've completely lost my mind, this is a rerun. I'm positive I've seen this one before
@@SteelJM1 Maybe they feed him by IV while he sleeps.
@@Victor.-.E You have in fact completely lost your mind. As to whether or not this is a rerun, I don't know.
To me, the most emotional lines of that poem are actually the last two lines of the _third_ stanza: "I kept the first for another day; yet knowing how way leads to way, I doubted if I should ever come back". That speaks strongly of hiraeth and fills me with deep sadness and longing. ("Con te partirò su navi per mari; non esistono più, con te io li rivivrò.")
As for the last three lines of the _fourth_ stanza, they're about an old man telling comforting lies to himself (the alternative being hiraeth and depression), and have little to do with the rest of the poem, and indeed seem to me to be its least-interesting part.
Andrea Bocelli’s song would make a beautiful accompaniment to a video about the Road Less Travelled.
wait till you are an old man yourself
@@DrWhom : I already _am_ an old man. Growing old does not necessitate growing stupid-and-dishonest. Each human should remain true to themself throughout their life; that avoids the necessity of compartmentalization to hide from one's self the fact that one is lying to one's self. It also increases effectiveness on-the-job and at-home, increases self esteem, and decreases depression. (Self-deception may be a band-aid for depression in the short term, but in the long term it makes it worse, due to the guilt. Read Sam Harris's excellent book "Lying" for more on this.)
Interesting words on his epitaph:
"And I rose up and knew
That I was timid -
And continued on my journey"
'I can't go on, I'll go on'
- Samuel Beckett
Okay I don't quite understand what he's trying to say but what my teacher told was.
" If you are confused between choosing between two different things that let's say two career paths then try from experiencing one career then if you don't like it move to other, many people go directly to one career but what you'll be doing is rare like the road less travelled by, it will reach you to the same destination like others but just different path, so never regret the choice you made and do what your heart really says.
Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening is still one of my favorite poems ever
I always took it as taking the correct road. Had I taken the one mapped out for me I would have been miserable. Instead I took the road less traveled & am truly happy. I am glad I "misinterpreted" it. It gave me solace during the harder times.
Awesome production as usual and brilliant deduction by you and your crew, Simone. I've always thought of this poem as a regret. No matter what road/path in life you decide to take the other will always be a mystery, one that you either regret or lie to yourself as most tend to do because the truth is you will never know - but mostly, I came here for the comments and all the wacky wonderful quotes. :)
That was incredibly enjoyable. Backstories to great poems or literature - can you do more of these please
Frost does seem to like calling his poems “tricky.”
I remember watching an interview with him talking about “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” and describing that one as “tricky” as well. I don’t remember the interview word-for-word, but basically the interviewer asked “Is it about suicide?” and Frost replied “Well, you have to be careful with that one, it’s tricky.”
John Early It sounds perhaps like he was undecided about exactly what he wanted to say and kept it ambiguous.
Sometimes when the author says "the curtains were blue." to mean, the curtains were indeed only blue.
An apocryphal story I've heard was that he attended a reading after which an attendant gushed to him about all the symbolism and hidden meaning in Stopping by the Woods. To which he replied "my horse was tired and it was snowing."
adamsbja and that I think is part of Frost’s brilliance, his ability to take an ordinary event we can all relate to and tell a story that is both beautiful and also allows for myriad interpretations.
"Not Santa Claus" was penciled in the margin of a used collection of Frost's poems.
That seems more profound than it should be.
Thanks for this post. I have loved Robert frost’s work since childhood. He lived close by and through my early twenties met quite a few people that knew him fairly well.
His poetry at present seems out of fashion and by this video you may help bring back to a new audience.
Than you again.
My group used this poem for our performance poetry waited assessment and this video has definitely helped us in the delivery of our poem. Thank you so much!
Not knowing the history behind this poem, in college, some fifteen years ago, I wrote a paper that addressed what I interpreted as the regret experienced by the poem’s protagonist in having chosen “the road less traveled by.”
I want to send this video to my professor and see if she’ll change my grade. 😆
I think the poem shows the regret that "one cannot take both roads in life and see what impacts each road would have had on one's life". In short, it matters not whether the road is less or more traveled, but the fact that one must choose only one road and since time only travels in one direction you will most likely never know what the other road would have changed in your life. I imagine most every person has wondered if they had married a different person how their life might have turned out different.
I think it fairly well felt that all of us, at the ends of our lives, will regret much more everything we didn't do, as opposed to anything that we did.
This poem is a significant part of my life. I was raised in Sunnybrook Children's Home in Jackson, Mississippi and I had as one of my houseparents, Bryan James (Mr Jimmy) Martin, an English teacher. He encouraged me to write. At that time, I had never written any stories or poems before. But as I grew older, I began to write. It was very scary in the beginning, and I told Mr. Jimmy this. He gave me a collection of Robert Frost's poems. When I came across "The Road Not Taken", I was enthralled. The impression that I got out of it mirrored my own chaotic life before I came to Sunnybrook. I became more confident in my writing skills. Now I have written one book called "The Journey" about my life before I went to Sunnybrook, and I am working on another called "Sunnybrook Memories" about my time at Sunnybrook. Sadly, Mr. Jimmy passed away in 2008, but I will always remember him as the one who encouraged me to go down "The Road Not Taken."
Thank you so much for this! I remember my comment (more like a question) in my high school poetry class years ago. I asked, "what if a poet is just messing with our heads, and that we are reading too deeply into something to find meaning where there is none?"
I love this poem even more now after this! Thank you!!!
There’s probably a reason the road is less travelled probably leads to a cliff or something
Or maybe it's a toll road and the toll is too high!
One has too much chicken traffic crossing it.
watch the video, they're equally travelled!
This. This is the right interpretation.
We literally read this in English class the other day. I see the UA-cam algorithm is watching me
THANK YOU!
I wrote this piece. Yes I did. It was decades before you were born. I was in 8th grade, revamped it up for high school then once more 1st year of college.
I still bring up the principle from time to time!
That last piece included contextualizing using this an an example of how distorting models can lead to further distorted outcomes.
That is a truly excellent video! Poetry is open to interpretation by its nature and consequently provokes thought. Something somewhat objective quickly becomes subjective via the rationalization of what someone thinks or believes the author is saying.
However, knowing the context of why/who/how/when/where something was written adds to that picture and enables you to then reflect on why you had seen the poem, perhaps, differently.
You managed to add that context with this video....good stuff mate!
This has been one of the most interesting pieces you've done..., to me anyway!
Ahhhhh only if I had this recommended an year earlier I woulda been able to flex in front of the class
Thanks for this! This was my Uncle's favorite poem. I feel that the last stanza represents how people always look back at the past with rose colored glasses and sometimes embellish it. He's admitting that he'll probably do that in the future when retelling it to family and friends or when recalling it himself. Thanks.
This has been one of the most profoundly interesting and worthwhile videos I have ever seen on UA-cam. I am about to make my first-ever donation to a You-Tube broadcaster.
Frost: Ha ha you are indecisive on our walks
Thomas: Good point. I'm joining the army to fight the Bosh
Frost: Hold up
I'm really glad you covered this. I had to get a Bachelor's in creative writing for people to actually be talking about this.
My teacher told me the road less traveled, is a career path not many take, is very treacherous, but if you're successful, you'll be one of a kind.
The road more travelled is what everyone generally does i.e the more common career paths, which is easier, but since there are so many people it's tough to stand out
Thank you so much for this video. I had to do a project on this poem for school and this video has helped me do really well on it.
Yes, there are two paths you can go by
But in the long run
There's still time to change the road you're on
And it makes me wonder
The reason why a poet wrote a poem has little to do anything with the enjoyment of reading it.
Yes, that is the beauty of art and literature: our interpretations are colored by our existence.
This was very interesting! One of the best you've done so far
Thank you for using ur platform to inform & educate.
When you read the whole poem it seems obvious that it is in jest. Though if he had written the same poem about pie and called it "the slice not eaten" it would have been more clear but no one would have cared.
The only reason the poem is popular is because the "misinterpretation" carries the weight of an archetypal truth. The road you perceive to be less traveled will lead you to a more meaningful place. It's like King Arthur's knights of the round entering the woods at the place that seemed the darkest to them. The path with the most mystery holds the most potential; the place that is the least known has the most to be discovered.
there is a bizarre analog with song lyrics that you could not quite make out as a child. the missing syllables seemed imbued with meaning, and when you happen to look up the lyrics years later it is always a let-down
or when you pass a person from behind and then turn around to see if they are as beautiful as you imagined them.
It’s so amazing that this poem captures such a crucial time in his life. He did what he felt was right and defended what he loved to the end of his life. Sigma male 100%
Labeling types of males is so beta.
That was an AMAZING video. A blessed insight to a wonderful poem. THANK YOU.
I also LOVE Business Blaze.
While watching one of your videos, I was looking for something about Frost and... well I'm back!
I'm 100% convinced your content it 45% of UA-cam and I won't complain!
Another of Frost’s poems that is widely misinterpreted is the one about walls making good neighbors. That line is said by an ignorant wall building neighbor, and the whole point of the poem was that walls were bad.
Seems to be about justifying ones choices after the fact.
This. Rationalizing and glamourizing or arbitrary decisions
Huge thanks for this video. Since 1990, I've been trying to explain the brilliance of this poem to my skeptical friends. Like "After Apple Picking", this poem has a superficial meaning grasped by most and also a deeper, more profound, meaning that awaits the observant reader. I like that. A lot.
I still cherish the last few lines bc of my personal interpretation and I thank Mr. Frost for writing it💜
One time i walked over to a friends house and when i got there i said "today I came across a fork in the road"
Friend asked "and you took the road less traveled?"
I said "no i put it in my pocket" and produced a flattened out salad fork with dents, evidently from being run over repeatedly.
We both laughed.
@@elevatedaspirations I don't care if they're cultured or not. I cannot let a good pun that pops into my head go unspoken. And a dad joke would break my teeth trying to get out if I tried to keep my mouth shut.
@@elevatedaspirations I agree, sort of. I mean, without the person I spoke to knowing the poem I could say I found a fork in the road somewhere and if they were unaware and we were traveling they might still fall for it. Of course, it would require rewording it, but hey, that's part of the fun. And the essence of a dad joke is the horrific quality of it most of the time. xD
@@elevatedaspirations thats exactly it. I saw the fork and knew "my friend is well read enough to bust a gut over this one".
But even without that, the irony of finding a literal salad fork in the literal road... Priceless
Making friend laugh was just icing on the figurative cake
Clever.
@@kathleenmuchka2559 yes. You are. And intelligent too
"You can't get there from here." - Firesign Theater
We say that a lot here in WVa
What I enjoy about this poem is in how,it speaks to me. I view it as I could,have taken the safe way in my life's goals, but i went the way if an artist which is the road less traveled. I know this may not have been his intention, but it is why I love it.
Once again, a fantastically researched story well-told!
I guess the key word is, "INTERPRETATION," as all art is subject to be understood by individuals through the lense(s) of perception.
I always get a laugh from artists of all type, any media, any genre, getting all worked up and upset by people finding different meaning from their work of art than the meaning they had in mind when creating it. I always thought they kind of missed the point, to some degree, and definitely, in my view, are missing out on some of the enjoyment of artistic expression, the opportunities to expand one's imagination, or to learn from the perspective of another's experiences and point of view. I find it all the more amusing when life's travels, trials, triumphs, and tragedies, affect the artist in such a way, as life often does, that the artist will find completely different meaning from their own work created at some earlier stage of life.
Metalbass10000 Well said
4:26 So the poem itself contains the idea that how one interprets an experience can change over time resulting in a false memory and it therefore predicts how it will be remembered and misinterpreted ages and ages hence. Robert Frost may very well be one of the best practical jokers as well as one of the best poets!
I always considered the poem in a timeline like fashion, as nothing is ever the same because time has passed. Thank you for the discussion it is something for myself to consider.
Wow Simon!…from first hearing as a school boy, that’s always been my favorite poem, yet I never knew this ‘backstory’!
BRAVO Simon, BRAVO!!
I see an alternate interpretation, even if it is at odds with the author's inspiration and intention.
Each road was no more trodden than the other, and so the decision was arbitrary; this we know. But years hence it is not himself he fools into believing he took the right or wrong path, instead he fools those around him when he tells the tale of the road not taken. He is telling others to take the road less travelled, even when he knows he didn't make such a decision (one way or the other), and what "has made all the difference" is either for himself in that it has made him sound wiser to those around him, or to others in that it might make the difference to their lives which path they take.
Yeah, that's how I see it too. Flip a coin, make the best of the situation, and convince yourself that you made the right decision.
@@joecary3586
I'm not saying he convinces himself he made the right decision; his own later opinion is irrelevant to my interpretation of the poem. I'm saying he convinces others he made the right decision, whether by some false logical or spiritual reason (or whatever else).
I can't stand being indecisive or second guessing, wastes too much time. When given more than one option weigh the benefits and disadvantages then make a decision and stick to it. Life is too short to cry about lost opportunities or the myriad number of "woulda, coulda, shoulda" moments. That stuff will drive you crazy.
Oh shet. So it's a take on the psychological need to impress others?
I have to agree with Thomas. :D Frost's words are so beautiful that it breaks my heart to think that they are anything but completely in earnest. Too subtle irony indeed. :) Thanks for the video anyhow; I'm too gullible a person.
Thank u. After reading many analyses I had never really felt I understood the real meaning, but now I feel I do. Best interpretation ever.
Excellent backstory and explication of the subtleties of this famous poem. Would that we took such care to understand not only poetry, but each other. Well done,!
"The poem has more than 3 lines." Hahaha!!
LIEZ ALL LIESSS
but memory on the other hand... that only records 3 lines per memory Cluster. ;D
Luke
I am your father.
Nooooo!
That is why that lifting those lines completely changes meaning. Common practice, especially in regard to religious works.
I've read that Thomas wasn't thrilled to have his own indecisiveness lampooned in verse.
Finally, something truly interesting! Do more like this one please!