I. Robert Frost

Robert Lee Frost, an American poet, is honored for his colloquial rhythms, his clarity of diction, his simplicity of images, and his realistic description of rural life. He received four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry (1924, 1931, 1937, and 1943).

Playing the rhythms of ordinary speech against formal patterns of line and verse, Frost achieved an internal dynamic in his poems. Through the description of landscape and everyday events, Frost managed to probe into the depths of life and social or philosophical problems. Lyric poems such as Mending Wall, The Road Not Taken, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, and Death of the Hired Man were counted among Frost best-known poems.

II. Historical Background

1.America Modern Literature

The 20th century began with a strong sense of social breakdown. The two World Wars, especially the First World War (1914-1918), became the emblem of all wars in the 20th century, which means violence, devastation, blood and death, and made a big impact on the life of the American people and their literary writings.

With all these wars the whole world had undergone a dramatic social change, a transformation from order to disorder, America in this period was characterized by economic boom and material prosperity but social chaos, spiritual waste and moral decay.

The impact of Marxism, Freudianism and European modern art on America modern literature: between the mid-19th century and the first decade od the 20th century, there had been a big flush of new theories and new ideas in both social and natural sciences, as well as in the field of art in Europe, which played an indispensable role in bringing about modernism and the modernistic writings in the United States.

2.American Modernism

American Modernism, like modernism in general, is an artistic and cultural movement in the Northern America. It was a reaction against the popularity of Europe as the center of the artistic world.

From 1914 to 1945, with the social, economic and political transformations, America, influenced by European modernism, witnessed its own modernism. American Modernists also rejected traditional institutions and forms. They believed the destruction of the previously sustaining structures of human life and human’s power to create, improve and reshape their environment. As well, they were fearful of the possible negative effects of the transformations. A large number of great American writers in this period produced a large amount of distinguished works on race relations, gender roles and sexuality, etc. Many of them kept seeking the interrelationship between literature and life and exploring the meaning of literature.

III. Reading Guide

The Road Not Taken is the first poem in the collection Mountain Interval, published in 1916. Apart from the last line, the rhymes of the poem are ABAAB scheme.

As one of Frost’s most popular works, The Road Not Taken is particularly attractive in its imaginative way of describing the dilemma in making decisions. Diverged roads in the woods are metaphors for the alternative choices in one’s life. It seems impossible to make a distinction between the two paths, because “both that morning equally lay/In leaves no step had trodden black.” The identical paths symbolize freedom to choose in one’s life but either path leads to a correspondingly resultant fate: the traveler is free to choose, but he has no exact idea what lies before him whichever path he takes. Ironically, the traveler seems to foresee that in the future he might regret and betray his today’s choice, as is implied in the poem “I shall be telling this with a sigh/Somewhere ages and ages hence.” Therefore, “I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.” In this way, the poem symbolically reveals America’s individualist spirit of adventure. The traveler took the more challenging way, the one less traveled by, and only after his choice the two paths are different.

At the end of the poem is a imagination about future：the writer waled along the other road of the two, as proper and reasonable as the choice of the first, perhaps more attractive and charming, which deserves more attention, because it is covered with grass and not quite worn, for few travelers had trodden it, so he can’t come back to his origin to restart a new journey. The endless journey was waiting for him.

IV. The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that, the passing there

Had won them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

On, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I --

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

V. Notes

1.diverge: go in different directions from a common point; branch out.

2.bent: deviated from a straight line.

3.as just as fair: which is as proper and fair as the first road.

4.claim: reasons.

5.wanted wear: lacked wear; was not worn because few people had trodden on it.

6.Though as for that: though concerning the condition of the roads.

7.the passing there: the frequency of the roads being trodden on.

8.both: both roads.

9.In leaves no step had trodden black: in the fallen leaves that had not been trodden black by passers-by.

10.ages and ages hence: many years later. Hence: from now.

VI. Translation

未选择的路

黄色的树林里分出两条路，

可惜我不能同时去涉足，

我在那路口久久伫立，

我向着一条路极目望去，

直到它消失在丛林深处。

但我却选了另外一条路，

它荒草萋萋，十分幽寂，

显得更诱人、更美丽，

虽然在这两条小路上，

都很少留下旅人的足迹，

虽然那天清晨落叶满地，

两条路都未经脚印污染。

呵，留下一条路等改日再见！

但我知道路径延绵无尽头，

恐怕我难以再回返。

也许多少年后在某个地方，

我将轻声叹息把往事回顾，

一片树林里分出两条路，

而我选了人迹更少的一条，

从此决定了我一生的道路。