The Road Not Taken
The Road Not Taken
Choose two critical analyses of The Road Not Taken and explain how it has helped you understand the significance of the poem.
George Montiero and Mark Richardson outline the significance of the poem, The Road Not Taken, by Robert Frost. Their critical analyses of the poem broaden your understanding of the meanings hidden in the text. By detailing some of Robert Frosts history, and his background you get a better understanding of the message he is portraying within the text.
â âTHE ROAD NOT TAKENâ can be read against a literally and pictorial tradition that might be called âThe Choices of Two Paths,â reaching not only back to the Gospels and beyond them to the Greeks but to ancient English verse as well. â
George Montiero starts off by describing how the title of the text is referring to a common issue we face everyday, which has been perceived in other literature dating way back. This issue is choice. Nearly everything we do is the reaction of a decision we made, due to a choice we had. â âThe Choice of Two Pathsâ is suggested in Frostâs decision to make his two roads not very much different from one another, for passing over one of them had the effect of wearing them âreally about the same.â â This shows how Frostâs decision of which road to travel was difficult as the roads as far as he could see (in his near future) were similar.
Montiero compares Frostâs poem with other texts dealing with similar issues: John Lydgateâs Reson and Sensuallyte. Each text deals with two roads, each road representing choices. Lydgateâs choices are symbolized by his encounter with âDame Natureâ who âoffered him the choice between the Road of Reason and the Road of Sensuality.â
âConvinced that the poem