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General Discussion & Feedback => Just Chat! => Topic started by: Musicforawhile on 11/11/2014 15:30:07
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Robert Frost (1874–1963). Mountain Interval. 1920.
1. 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; 5
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, 10
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. 15
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. 20
What do you think the poem is about? I am interested to see how people (who aren't literary enthusiasts) read and analyse poetry.
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Have a go! Pretty please. Just a sentence...or two.
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I'm a harsh critic of literature and don't generally have a lot of time for poetry, but that poem's okay. Slightly positive, if anything. (I should look the poet up and read more.) I don't know if I count as a literary enthusiast because I have an intense dislike of Shakespeare's plays, but I do have a significant interest in literature even though I consider most of it to be a waste of paper. I may also be disqualified on the basis that I am 200 pages into writing a 600 page children's novel (similar to those of Arthur Ransome).
The poem is about what it says, but you can treat it as a metaphor for something else if it fits what you want it to fit. At any time when you make a decision it may change the rest of your life, and you'll never know how different things might have been if you had done something differently. We've all been in situations like that many times and are left wondering what we might have missed out on, or what disasters we may have avoided. The poem ties this all up nicely in a way that puts us in a lonely spot in a wood and uses the atmosphere of that place well to draw us in; a neutral example which most readers can to relate to directly.
If you read more into it than that, I'd be interested to hear what it means to you.
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Ok, interesting and thank you for the reply! [:)]
I do have quite a bit to add to what you've said, and don't agree with certain things you've said, namely one thing.
But before giving my analysis of the poem, I'd like to see if a few other people have any ideas to add.
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You'll be lucky to get anyone else - who wants to fall into a trap?
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I am sorry, are you angry? I wanted to wait a couple days that's all.
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I believe the poem could be just as is or done in metaphores... the two diverging
roads being two loves or women. A man who has traveled..or
lived a good portion of his life with one women...stands at a
fork....he has fallen in love with another woman...and now
having two loves that were very much in his heart..he wanted
both..but had to decide so he really struggled with a decision
of what he was to do....looked longingly at the one as far as
he could see, but the deciding factor was claim..and he had
to chose the one who had the better claim..his family, ie...
more specifically his (children) or true love so there he
stood..he chose the one with the better claim on him....
which depending on his idea of a better claim...children
will always be your children but true love is very hard to
find! So he kept the first for 1 more day! ..Now knowing
he would likely never come back that way again Then
he says "and yet way leads to way".......He chose the
road less traveled..which I think means he chose True
love.. the other women....being the road less traveled.
He knowing the first woman very well..meaning she
was the road well traveled..after he kept her for 1
more day...doubted he'd come back that way..well
so he realizes he will likely not come back...
But then he chooses the road less traveled...here
is a confusing area...this is where I could screw it
up... It could go either way as far as the claim..but my
clarification comes in the road less traveled..
Meaning the other love or women..She was less
traveled by him..he would be taking a new route... I
think, anyway that is what I think..but I could be
wrong...it could be the opposite.
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As with any modern poem, it seems designed to make you think rather than to inform/amuse/inspire. I always think of Frost in the same mental breath as Steinbeck - sharp observation and brilliant, concise use of vernacular, but the other side of that coin: Steinbeck tells stories, Frost invites you to dream up your own.
But it did inspire me, an education ago, to always consider the road less travelled and poke about for the rare fruit in life's shrubbery. There's a haunting caution in "Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back." that is the burden of the maverick and Frost's epitaph "I had a lover's quarrel with the world" is a pretty neat summary of a life of value.
I've fought with David in the past over Shakespeare, but this is a rare case of disagreeing with Karen. This surely isn't about a mid-course or mid-life change of direction, it's an initial choice to "do different", going for the unknown, or at least the unpopular, right from the start, with no certainty of being able to retrace your steps at all.
So much for content - mostly holes through which you can see the world from a new perspective. As for style, whoever tortures the language to rhyme hence with difference should be arraigned for his crime, though it's pretty neat to end a poem on a descender.
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I am sorry, are you angry? I wanted to wait a couple days that's all.
No - you can leave it as long as you like. "Who wants to fall into a trap" was a bit of reverse psychology designed to encourage more people to respond.
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But what is the trap? That I didn't respond with my analysis? I will do that soon. And if you really wanted to know what critics think about the poem, there's spark notes and wikipedia for a short analysis.
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The more interesting question is "who cares what critics think of anything?" It's reasonable to read about an expensive wine because there's a fair chance that, for instance, if a critic says "very oaky" and you don't like oaked wines, you'd be wasting your money on it. But there's little investment in reading a poem, which is almost certain to be shorter, and better written, than anything written about it.
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Reading about a critic's analysis of a wine isn't comparable to reading a critical analysis of a poem. The first you do, as you said, to see if it's the kind of wine you like, the latter you do to get a better understanding of what you just read. So the wine analysis you read first and then may or may not drink the wine; with the poem, you read it first totally blind and then if you are interested to see other opinions on it you read up on it. When I read a poem, I like to think about what it really means - all good poetry means something beyond just pretty words. Sometimes
I draw a blank or have some ideas but know there is more to it, so I look for an analysis. When I read the analysis I think things like - 'That's interesting not sure I agree,' 'Yes, I can see now that is what the poet is really saying,' 'I don't really agree with that, but nice theory,' 'I think he maybe he is saying similar something to that.'
If you wanted to become a good critic of wine then maybe you would treat it like a poem. Drink it first, make your opinions up, then look for what a more experienced critic than you has said.
And actually I don't often read poems totally blind - the very fact they have been published means quite a lot of appreciators of literature think that this is good poetry. However on the internet when you come across poems (many of which are not really poems), you don't always know if they have been published or not, so you really can read it blind. If the 'poem' is really bad I don't finish reading it and definitely don't look for anyone else's opinion on it.
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So are poems codes, to be read by specialists? Not the opinion I hear from self-styled feminist poets, nor, I suspect, those who appointed the poets laureate in the past to write stirring populist stuff. Perhaps it's the difference between Radio 4 where poets try to communicate with the public by spoken word (no time for criticism in a live broadcast!) and some late-night corner of Radio 3 where ancient academics discuss the angulation of Wordsworth's commas?
When Ronald Reagan asked at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory how fundamental particle physics contributed to the defense of the nation he was told "it's what makes the nation worth defending". I dined recently with a charming lady who critiques medieval theological poetry for a living. Alas, the college port ran out before I was convinced that her work had the same effect. Yet critics abound like flies upon a corpse where'er the word is written. Can you try a little harder to convince me?
the very fact they have been published means quite a lot of appreciators of literature think that this is good poetry
or at least the publisher's reader and editor think it will sell. Vide Clive James - doggerel at its worst, but commercial.
As for "a meaning beyond pretty words" I guess that might distinguish between Eliot and Tennyson (nothing pretty about the Light Brigade, but utterly memorable and to the point) but where does that put eecummings?
Oh god, I'm falling into the trap! [;)]
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My sister's English class was once visited by a well-known poet (I forget which one). He read out some of his poems (one of them was about a frog), and then the English teacher commented on them, attempting to interpret them by reading ideas into them that weren't expressed by them directly. Each time she did this, the poet interrupted her and said something like, "No, the poem is actually just about a frog."
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Poems are codes wrapped up in, usually, beautiful words. You can appreciate poems on the level of the beautiful images and sounds or you can look deeper. The choice is yours. But why would people do a degree in literature only to find out that every poem about an animal/sunset/journey etc. is just about that and not about gender politics, religion, politics, sexuality etc. real poetry disturbs you, moves you and makes you think. You can't write 2000 words on a poem that is only about a frog and doesn't have wider reaching themes
However maybe the poet really intended it to be just about the frog, there are poems which were intended to be simply observations about nature, but the interpreter can interpret it in their own way as long as it makes sense. That is how literary criticism works, it annoys people, it turns people off. It turns me off to to an extent, too. But I like to see what they say and compare that with my own ideas. Thats my choice. You can read The Charge of the Light brigade, Lady of Shallot, To Autumn, Daffodils, The Windhover, and many other poems and enjoy reading them without ever looking uo any critics' opinions. However in order to write university essays, or school essays you would probably have to and search for meanings - whether they were intentionally put there or not.
Surely the reason why Shakespeare has lasted so long is that his work can be analysed in so many ways. Any writer surely would like it that someone found their own meaning in their writing. Or are writers to be dictators with the ideas their work conjures?
The artist's intention isn't where it begins or ends. And artists do not have access to the subconscious workings of their own mind - where arguably spontaneous poetry and creative ideas flow from. Poets aren't psycho-analysers and they can't necessarily analyse their own creative thoughts. One writer said that his purpose isn't to analyse himself but to just write it, others can do the analysing. Critics do write all kinds of things, but who knows what the writer intended? The writer doesn't even know everything about his spontaneous creative ideas.
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The writer invariably knows what's behind his/her work - it doesn't stay in the subconscious and magically appear in the words of a poem without him/her noticing. Sometimes they have definite ideas about how it should be interpreted beyond the surface meaning, but at other times they don't. They are usuallly happy to leave things open for readers to come up with their own interpretations, so those interpretations are not automatically wrong just because the ideas they contain never went through the writer's head. What is wrong though is to come up with your own interpretation(s) of a piece of writing and assert that your interpretation is what the writer intended you to think, unless you know for fact that the writer really did intend you to think that, but you are always free to speculate. Sometimes the writer will talk about the work and confirm your theory, and sometimes the clues are there in the work itself and once you find them you know that your interpretation is almost certainly correct (particularly if the writer is in the habit of constructing works of this kind where there are clues there to confirm your interpretation if you've gone the right way).
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However in order to write university essays, or school essays you would probably have to and search for meanings - whether they were intentionally put there or not.
That's a dangerous analysis - it makes the study of literature into pure narcissism and devalues the original work of art. If a scientist said it, he'd be given the slow handclap, but if an English lecturer said it, he'd be feted as a controversial critic of the genre, bete noire, you name it, and be assured of endless dinners and lecturing engagements - remember Leavis and Snow.
Surely the reason why Shakespeare has lasted so long is that his work can be analysed in so many ways.
Or, more like, because/
the public likes his pithy plays and poems /
and actors find them easy to present
(You'll find nowt for analysis there, but memorable metrication of a simple theme)
which is quite different from the eminently forgettable and indeed lumpy prose of some of his contemporary playwrights and many others, right up to but not including Noel Coward and including this clumsily assembled set of words.
Any writer surely would like it that someone found their own meaning in their writing. Or are writers to be dictators with the ideas their work conjures?
I was brought up on Gowers' Plain Words. The test of good writing is the absence of ambiguity, unless you are writing a farce. And even then, an intentional triple entendre is about the limit.
real poetry disturbs you, moves you and makes you think. You can't write 2000 words on that.
a perfect example! An entire profession dismissed in two sentences. Precision, economy, what more could anyone ask of an author?
And artists do not have access to the subconscious workings of their own mind - where arguably spontaneous poetry and creative ideas flow from.
So what is the value or validity of a third-party analysis? Lawyers haggle over equivocal intentions, but only where lives and property are at stake.
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However in order to write university essays, or school essays you would probably have to and search for meanings - whether they were intentionally put there or not.
That's a dangerous analysis - it makes the study of literature into pure narcissism and devalues the original work of art. If a scientist said it, he'd be given the slow handclap, but if an English lecturer said it, he'd be feted as a controversial critic of the genre, bete noire, you name it, and be assured of endless dinners and lecturing engagements - remember Leavis and Snow.
Surely the reason why Shakespeare has lasted so long is that his work can be analysed in so many ways.
Or, more like, because/
the public likes his pithy plays and poems /
and actors find them easy to present
(You'll find nowt for analysis there, but memorable metrication of a simple theme)
which is quite different from the eminently forgettable and indeed lumpy prose of some of his contemporary playwrights and many others, right up to Noel Coward.
Any writer surely would like it that someone found their own meaning in their writing. Or are writers to be dictators with the ideas their work conjures?
I was brought up on Gowers' Plain Words. The test of good writing is the absence of ambiguity, unless you are writing a farce. And even then, an intentional triple entendre is about the limit.
real poetry disturbs you, moves you and makes you think. You can't write 2000 words on that.
a perfect example! An entire profession dismissed in two sentences. Precision, economy, what more could anyone ask of an author?
And artists do not have access to the subconscious workings of their own mind - where arguably spontaneous poetry and creative ideas flow from.
So what is the value or validity of a third-party analysis? Lawyers haggle over equivocal intentions, but only where lives and property are at stake.
First I agree with Davids last post and agree we can only guess
the real motivation and or if there its written one way or another
as above that poem could be about or written to be about many
different things..the author knows like David said..My interpretation
was just an example of what it could mean or lean to.. I see many
different interpretations myself..It would be interesting to know
the authors thoughts!
I kind of think that poetry is sort of a code. The author knows
what he's writing about in his life, but I think in analyzing a poem,
or reading one, rather than analyzing it, that each poem is read by
a different person and they can take away a different meaning!
I think when a writer is writing, that It's kind of intended to be a sort
of poem I mean you can write about love, or you can write of the love
of a man, or woman and then you can write about the love of a tree or
an emotion etc... You can compare it to whatever you like, but it can be
close, you know to the real meaning of what the author is writing about.
Poetry can be cloaked in somewhat of a veil....in a way that is a tad
illusive in that it becons one to think as if solving a riddle... One has to
pick out what it means to you and I think that good writing allows others
to read it and draw out what they need to take from the poetry! We all
read certain things during different times in our lives or while
experiencing stress or extreme joy or sadness...and when we
read certain things those moods or times of our life etc can really
weigh in on how one interprets a piece of literature, and I think it is
especially true with poetry. The way they are written can strike us
each differently than they do in the minds of the author or someone
else that might be reading it! I think that, that's really important, but
we all take away what we need to read and what we need to get
from it. It's nice to kind of hear what the author wrote about if
you can, you know to read what the author was thinking when
he wrote the poem, but we don't always have that advantage.
I do believe, that it is, when I write anyway, that I have written
in a semi code. It could be about things that I love, and or
needed to write about. Someone else can take away from that
something totally different like, maybe it's not about people
at all! It may just be a feeling that needed expressing. I think
good poetry is like that and it can be taken many different
ways, but I think we all take what we want from it at the time.
Not always what the author was writing about. I think, somebody
said that to me once quite some time ago, and I think that he
was right, and I kind of kept that in my head, because it really
it really is! It is a rather cool thought!
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I think it is a good poem. The writer was probably a naturalist, and this in me already starts to conjure up dreams and adventures of the unknown. The road less traveled is to make your own way in life and in your own unique styles and it is always of new ideas, new thoughts, new viewpoints, new paradigms, new moments of pleasure and pain. This is really just the way life naturally is, but if unrecognized, it could seem sad, bad and not the the nature of true life that it is. Naturalists may be dreamers, and adventure lovers, but they are realists as well. The poem is popular because it gets right down to saying that it is not bad to be unique and travel your own unique road, but it is the natural thing to do. And that makes all the difference! [;)]
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Robert Frost is by far my favourite poet. I know a few of his works off by heart, then recite them during my trips to the woods. Personally, I would put him on a par with Albert Einstein and Emily Dickenson. A lot of my own science works were inspired by these three. As for the poem"Two Roads Diverged in a Yellow Wood" I dare not hold it to a general concept. The pictures he paints in his lines are too beautiful and numerous that I fear a general concept would not do them justice. However, one of my favourite stanzas, "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 onto way I doubted I should ever come back." Probably, only in my mind, I interpret as equally pure, untrodden roads and doubting he should ever come back, is Frost's realization of finite infinity. That he is forever somewhere, but always too far down the road of time to return. That doesn't really do it justice, either. Course there are hints towards the untrodden road that could be black and the reader gets the best of both worlds. Too many concepts. Love the thread.
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Robert Frost is by far my favourite poet. I know a few of his works off by heart, then recite them during my trips to the woods. Personally, I would put him on a par with Albert Einstein and Emily Dickens. A lot of my own science works were inspired by these three. As for the poem"Two Roads Diverged in a Yellow Wood" I dare not hold it to a general concept. The pictures he paints in his lines are too beautiful and numerous that I fear a general concept would not do them justice. However, one of my favourite stanzas, "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 onto way I doubted I should ever come back." Probably, only in my mind, I interpret as equally pure, untrodden roads and doubting he should ever come back, is Frost's realization of finite infinity. That he is forever somewhere, but always too far down the road of time to return. That doesn't really do it justice, either. Course there are hints towards the untrodden road that could be black and the reader gets the best of both worlds. Too many concepts. Love the thread.
Good poet, I agree, but you think better than Rumi?
This being human is a guest-house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
Who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture.
Still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
Jalrudin Rumi
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I haven't read a lot of Rumi poems. I've read many of his quotes though. The poem you posted made me think of this: another of my favourites by Frost:
Robert Frost - Asking For Roses
"A house that lacks, seemingly, mistress and master,
With doors that none but the wind ever closes,
Its floor all littered with glass and with plaster;
It stands in a garden of old-fashioned roses.
I pass by that way in the gloaming with Mary;
'I wonder,' I say, 'who the owner of those is.'
'Oh, no one you know,' she answers me airy,
'But one we must ask if we want any roses.'
So we must join hands in the dew coming coldly
There in the hush of the wood that reposes,
And turn and go up to the open door boldly,
And knock to the echoes as beggars for roses.
'Pray, are you within there, Mistress Who-were-you?'
'Tis Mary that speaks and our errand discloses.
'Pray, are you within there? Bestir you, bestir you!
'Tis summer again; there's two come for roses.
'A word with you, that of the singer recalling--
Old Herrick: a saying that every maid knows is
A flower unplucked is but left to the falling,
And nothing is gained by not gathering roses.'
We do not loosen our hands' intertwining
(Not caring so very much what she supposes),
There when she comes on us mistily shining
And grants us by silence the boon of her roses.
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Quite beautiful! [:)]
With the Beloved's water of life, no illness remains
In the Beloved's rose garden of union, no thorn remains.
They say there is a window from one heart to another
How can there be a window where no wall remains?
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Those are very beautiful!
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I love this thread and wonder if anyone would like to submit another poem if the starter of the thread is ok with it for another to be discussed and shared