Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken"

Kevin Murphy, Professor of English at Ithaca College, examines the discrepancy between Robert Frost's popularity during his lifetime and the darker implications of his poetry, as exemplified by one of his most cherished poems.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• murphy
• english
• frost
• poetry

[PurityGuru]

One of the greatest lectures I have ever heard!

[pogopogopogo3]

Sounds like.. he took the interpretation less traveled by.

[seacrest73]

@ShiftyJackal I don't see how "deceiving" and "rationalizing" are a part of the poem. but I like your last sentence which explains the poem in a neutral way. Yes, it's about how a person views their decision after they've made it. the guy in the lecture says that the "all the difference" line could be positive or negative.

[Dismitum]

The lecture is from 1992 (1916+76). (13:27)

[ShiftyJackal]

@seacrest73 Still not what the poem's about... it's about rationalising your own decisions and deceiving yourself in order to retain a positive self-image. It's not about either road, but how one views a decision after they've made it, both shortly after, and long after

[Bosirant]

Thanks for these great insights!

[seacrest73]

i wrote my last comment before finishing the video. lol. I'm psychic.

[seacrest73]

i never understood the poem as showing support for non-conformity. i understood it as a guy made a choice life thinking he would take the other later but knowing how one path leads to another knew he would never be able to go back. it's NOT about the path he did take. it is about the one he didn't. the title really says it all.

[caty54321]

whenever i hear Robert Frost i always think of snow...

[chuksnwagbaraji]

He just BLEW my mind.

and boom goes the dynamite

[Gromitdog1]

I think this is more of a poem ridiculing the notion of free will, and how we will retrospectively justify our decisions and use free will as a crutch. He doesn't say why he takes one path or another, but correctly asserts that in the future he will boast of how clever his 'decision' was.

[DeMarkieSade]

Won the Pulitzer Prize four times, Wow! Dynamic. Lawrence Thompson maybe an individual to look into as well, given that Frost hand picked Thompson to pen his biography.