未选择的路

An analysis of the poem “The Road Not T aken”

Abstract:The beauty of the poem lies in their linguist features including phonological features, sound effects and figures of speech. This paper is going to analyzing these features in a poem written by Robert Frost---The Road Not Taken. Key words: Robert Frost, phonological, sound effects and figures of speech

About the author

Robert Frost (1874---1963) is a poet of the America.He frequently employs settings from rural life in New England in the early twentieth century, using them to examine complex social and philosophical themes. Among his volumes of volumes of poetry are A Boy's Will(1913), North of Boston(1914),New Hampshire(1923), Collected Poems (1930), A Further Range (1936), and A Witness Tree (1942).

About the poem

This poem consists of four quatrains, each line being an iambic tetrameter. The poem is about life choice. One can assume hat the speaker is a traveler, or perhaps is the poet himself.

At the beginning, the poet shows the inability of human beings to foresee the future, especially the results of choices. At the split in the road, the speaker looks far down both the two paths to see what each of the paths will bring. However, his eyes can only see the path until it bends into “the undergrowth”. Both roads diverge into a “yellow wood” and appear to be “about the same” in their purposes. But the first path is a more common route; the other is less traveled, which “was grass and want ed wear”. The poet presents a conflict here—the decision between the common easy path and exceptional challenging path. This forms contrast with familiar lives of most people. After vacillating between the two roads, the poet finally decides to take the ro ad “less traveled by” and leads a different life from common people. This may indicate his choice to be a poet, other than other jobs. Once the decision is made, there will be no way to return to the original choice to experience the other route. Here, he must be courageous enough to shoulder the result of his choice, whether it is good or not. At the end he may regret of having never come back, but he remains proud of his decision “took the road less traveled by”.

Major theme of the poem

The Road Not Taken tells about life choice. Man's life metaphorically related to a journey filled with twists and turns. One has to consider a lot before making a wise choice. Though the diverged roads seem identical, they actually lead to different directions which symbolize different fates.

Sound effects

1. End rhyme

The poem is built of four stanzas, each consisting of five lines. The rhyme scheme is, in the first stanza—abaac, in the second—dedde, in the third—fgffg, and in the fourth—hihhi.

There are eight end rhymes as follow:

1.[ud] wood stood could

2.[əuθ]both undergrowth

3.[ɛə] fair wear there

4. [eim] claim same

5. [ei] lay day way

6. [æk] black back

7. [ai] sign I by