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“The Road Not Taken”

The poem, The Road Not Taken, is composed by Robert Frost. Actually, he
rejected the free verse movement. He was known for his stylish, philosophical, and
speculative verse. As a poet of nature, he had obvious affinities with romantic writers,
notably Wordsworth and Emerson Frost rejected the revolutionary poetic principles,
choosing instead the old-fashioned way to be new. He employed the plain speech of rural
New Englanders and preferred the short, traditional forms of lyric and narrative. The
poem discusses the idea of a path splitting into two and the difficulties of making a
decision about which path to take. In this context, this essay will explore the content and
form of Frost's poem.

Basically, "The Road Not Taken" is a poem that describes the dilemma of a person
standing on a road with a diversion. This diversion symbolizes real-life situations.
Sometimes, in our real lives, when we have to make tough decisions, we cannot decide what
is right or wrong for us. The speaker stands in the woods, considering a fork in the road.
Both ways are equally worn and equally overlaid with untrodden leaves. The speaker
chooses one, telling himself that he will take the other later on. Yet he knows that it is
unlikely that he will have the opportunity to do so. And he admits that someday in the
future, he will recreate the scene with a slight twist. He will claim that he took the less-
traveled road.

The entire poem, The Road Not Taken, consists of four stanzas of five lines. This stanza
consists of…..Each line has either 8 or 10 syllables with an iambic rhythm. The lines
alternate between iambic tetrameters and pentameters. In fact, "The Road Not Taken"
follows a strict ABAAB rhyme scheme. There are four stressed syllables per line, varying
on an iambic tetrameter base. Moreover, Frost uses a lot of literary devices to make his
poems more beautiful. For example, there is a metaphor in "the road." Also, we have
assonance in "as just as." Furthermore, we have consonance, as in "diverged and wood."
There is a pun in "with a sigh." Generally speaking, the whole poem is an extended
metaphor for life.

To sum up, we see how the content and the form support each other and flow together
to make things clearer, so the reader is not going to get lost. And from my point of view, this
way makes the reader get the notion properly and easily. In addition, Frost's way is so
understandable because his language is accessible to everybody. Moreover, choosing
between two things is too difficult because we do not know which one is better for us and
maybe you think that you will regret if you choose the wrong thing.

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