“The Road Not Taken” Introduction

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“The Road Not Taken” Summary

“The Road Not Taken” Themes

• 

  Choices and Uncertainty

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• 

  Individualism and Nonconformity

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• 

  Making Meaning

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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “The Road Not Taken”

• Lines 1-3

  Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
  And sorry I could not travel both
  And be one traveler,

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 3-5

  long I stood
  And looked down one as far as I could
  To where it bent in the undergrowth;

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 6-8

  Then took the other, as just as fair,
  And having perhaps the better claim,
  Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 9-12

  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.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 13-15

  Oh, I kept the first for another day!
  Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
  I doubted if I should ever come back.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 16-17

  I shall be telling this with a sigh
  Somewhere ages and ages hence:

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 18-20

  Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
  I took the one less traveled by,
  And that has made all the difference.

  

  

  

  

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“The Road Not Taken” Symbols

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  Diverging Roads

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  The Road Less Traveled

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“The Road Not Taken” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

• Extended Metaphor

  

  

  

  

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• Irony

  

  

  

  

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• Epizeuxis

  

  

  

  

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• Repetition

  

  

  

  

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• Enjambment

  

  

  

  

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• Assonance

  

  

  

  

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“The Road Not Taken” Vocabulary

Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

• Diverge
• Yellow wood
• Undergrowth
• Fair
• Wanted
• Passing
• Trodden
• Hence

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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “The Road Not Taken”

• Form

• Meter

• Rhyme Scheme

“The Road Not Taken” Speaker

“The Road Not Taken” Setting

Literary and Historical Context of “The Road Not Taken”

More “The Road Not Taken” Resources

• External Resources

  • "The Most Misread Poem in America" — An insightful article in the Paris Review, which goes into depth about some of the different ways of reading (or misreading) "The Road Not Taken."

  • Robert Frost reads "The Road Not Taken" — Listen to Robert Frost read the poem.

  • Book Review: "The Road Not Taken," by David Orr — Those looking for an even more in-depth treatment of the poem might be interested in David Orr's book, "The Road Not Taken: Finding America in the Poem Everyone Loves and Almost Everyone Gets Wrong."

• LitCharts on Other Poems by Robert Frost

  • Acquainted with the Night

  • After Apple-Picking

  • A Roadside Stand

  • Birches

  • Desert Places

  • Design

  • Dust of Snow

  • Fire and Ice

  • Home Burial

  • Mending Wall

  • Mowing

  • My November Guest

  • Nothing Gold Can Stay

  • Out, Out—

  • Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

  • The Death of the Hired Man

  • The Oven Bird

  • The Sound of the Trees

  • The Tuft of Flowers

  • The Wood-Pile