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The Road Not Taken
《未选择的路》
罗伯特
?
弗罗斯特(
Robert
Frost
)生于
1874
年,卒于
1963
年,可能要算是
20
世纪美国最受欢迎和爱戴的一位诗
人了。
191
2
年,他弃农从文,从此成为了一名专业诗人。他曾在
1961
年时受邀在约翰
?F?
肯尼迪总统的就
职典礼
上朗诵他的诗歌
——
《
The Gift Outright
》
。而本
次我为大家推荐的《
The Road Not
Taken
》则是他最著名的一首诗歌。
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
黄色的树林里分出两条路
And sorry I
could not travel both
可惜我不能同时去涉足
And be one
traveler, long I stood
我在那路口久久伫立
And looked down
one as far as I could
我向着一条路极目望去
To where it
bent in the undergrown
直到它消失在丛林深处
Then took the
other, as just as fair
但我却选了另外一条路
And having
perhaps the better claim
它荒草萋萋,十分幽寂
Because it was
grassy and wanted wear;
显得更诱人、更美丽
Though as for
that the passing there
虽然在这两条小路上
Had worn them
really about the same
都很少留下旅人的足迹
And both that
morning equally lay
虽然那天清晨落叶满地
In leaves no
step had trodden black
两条路都未经脚印污染
Oh, I kept the
first for another day!
呵,留下一条路等改日再见!
Yet knowing how
way leads on to way,
但我知道路径延绵无尽头
I doubted if I
should even come
back.
恐怕我难以再回返
I shall be
telling this with a sigh
也许多少年后在某个地方
Somewhere ages
and ages hence:
我将轻声叹息把往事回顾
Two
roads diverged in a wood, and I---
一片树林里分出两条路
I took the one
less traveled by,
而我选了人迹更少的一条
And that has
made all the difference
从此决定了我一生的道路
评论
1
:
the volume and is printed in
italics. The title is often mistakenly given as
The poem has two
recognized interpretations; one is a more literal
interpretation, while the other is more
ironic.
Readers often see
the poem literally, as an expression of
individualism. Critics typically view the poem as
ironic.[1]
–
Road
Not Taken,' perhaps the most famous example of
Frost's own claims to conscious irony and 'the
best example in all of
American poetry
of a wolf in sheep's
clothing.'
–
and Frost
himself warned
tricky poem
–
very
tricky.
with whom he used to take walks
through the forest (Thomas always complained at
the end that they should have taken a
different path) and seemed amused at
this certain interpretation of the poem as
inspirational.
Literal
interpretation
According
to
the
literal
(and
more
common)
interpretation,
the
poem
is
inspirational,
a
paean
to
individualism
and
non-conformism.
The poem consists of four stanzas. In
the first stanza, the speaker describes his
position. He has been out walking in the
woods and comes to two roads, and he
stands looking as far down each one as he can see.
He would like to try out both, but
doubts he could do that, so therefore
he continues to look down the roads for a long
time trying to make his decision about
which road to take.
Ironic interpretation
The ironic interpretation, widely held
by critics,[1][5] is that the poem is instead
about regret and personal myth-making,
rationalizing our decisions.
In this interpretation, the final two
lines:
I took the one less
traveled by,
And that has
made all the difference.
are ironic : the choice made little or
no difference at all, the speaker's protestations
to the contrary. The speaker admits in
the
second
and
third
stanzas
that
both
paths
may
be
equally
worn
and
equally
leaf-covered,
and
it
is
only
in
his
future
recollection that he will call one road
The
sigh,
widely
interpreted
as
a
sigh
of
regret,
might
also
be
interpreted
ironically:
in
a
1925
letter
to
Cristine
Yates
of
Dickson, Tennessee, asking about the
sigh, Frost replied:
think I would yet
live to be sorry for the way I had taken in
life.
Everyone
is a traveler, choosing the roads to follow on the
map of their continuous journey, life. There is
never a straight
path that leaves one
with but a sole direction in which to head.
Regardless of the original message that Robert
Frost had
intended to convey, his poem,
present and the attitude with which he
looks upon his future that determines the shade of
the light that he will see the
poem in.
In any case however, this poem clearly
demonstrates Frost's belief that it is the road
that one chooses that makes
him the man
who he is.
not to wonder about the
opportunity cost, what will be missed out on.
There is a strong sense of regret before the
choice is
even made and it lies in the
knowledge that in one lifetime, it is impossible
to travel down every path. In an attempt to make
a decision, the traveler
choice in life. As much he may strain
his eyes to see as far the road stretches,
eventually it surpasses his vision and he can
never see where it is going to lead. It
is the way that he chooses here that sets him off
on his journey and decides where he
is
going.
of people took the
other path therefore he calls it
the
more
popular,
secure
one
indicates
the
type
of
personality
he
has,
one
that
does
not want
to
necessarily
follow
the
crowd but do more of
what has never been done, what is new and
different.
step had trodden
black.
this road. Perhaps Frost does
this because each time a person comes to the point
where they have to make a choice, it is
new to them, somewhere they have never
been and they tend to feel as though no one else
had ever been there either.
kept the
first for another day!
leads on to
way
ever come back.
choice he
makes afterward. Once you have performed an act or
spoken a word that crystallizes who you are, there
is no
turning back and it cannot be
undone. Once again at the end of the poem the
regret hangs over the traveler like a heavy
cloud about to burst. He realizes that
at the end of his life,
having never
gone back and traveling down the roads he did not
take. Yet he remains proud of his decision and he
recognizes
that it was this path that
he chose that made him turn out the way and he did
and live his life the way in which he lived.
took the road less traveled by and that
had made all the difference.
made the
difference, is that he did what he wanted, even if
it meant taking the road less traveled. If he
hadn't, he wouldn't
be the same man he
is now. There are many equally valid meanings to
this poem and Robert Frost may have intended this.
He may have been trying to achieve a
universal understanding. In other words, there is
no judgment, no specificity, no moral.
There is simply a narrator who makes a
decision in his life that had changed the
direction of his life from what it may have
otherwise been. It allows all readers
from all different experiences to relate to the
poem.
评论
2
:
Robert Frost is one of the finest of
rural New England’s 20th century pastoral
poets
. His poems are great combination
of
wisdom, harmony and serenity. They
are simple at first sight, but demand readers for
deep reading to grasp further meaning
beyond surface.
The famous poem of Frost The Road Not
Taken is my favorite. This poem consists of four
stanzas of five lines. The rhyme
scheme
is
ABAAB.
the
rhymes
are
strict
and
masculine,
with
notable
exception
of
the
last
line.
There
are
four
stressed
syllables each line, varying on iambic
tetrameter base.
The Road
Not Taken tells about life choic
e.
Man’s life is 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.
A less than rigorous look at the poem
may lead one to believe that Frost’s moral is
embodied in those lines. The poem is
taken as a call to independence,
preaching originality and Emersonian self-
reliance. The poem deconstructs its conclusion
stanza by stanza.
At the beginning of this poem, 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.
Ho
wever, his sight is
limited; his eyes can only see the path until it
bends into “the undergrowth”. Man is free to
choose, but
doesn’t know
beforehand the results of his choice.
Both roads
diverge
into
a
“yellow
wood”
and
appear
to
be
“about
the
same”
in
th
eir
purposes.
The
first
path
is
a
more
common
route.
The
other
is
less
traveled,
which
“was
grass
and
wanted
wear”.
The
poet
presents
a
conflict
here—
the
decision
between
the
common
easy
path
and
exceptional
challenging
path.
The two
different
paths
signify
two
different
kinds of lives.
Choosing the common easy path, people will feel at
ease and live in safety, because the outcome is
predictable.
However, that kind of life
may be less exciting and lack of novelty. While
choosing the “less traveled” road
rep
resents the
gamble of
facing a more difficult path in lives. This forms
contrast with familiar lives of most people.
People hope to achiever
a satisfactory
and interesting life on this road. The wish is
good, but reality is full of challenges and
uncertainties. Nobody can
be sure of
the outcome. After vacillating between the two
roads, the poet finally decides to take the road
“less traveled by”
and leads
a different life from common people. This may
indicate his choice to be a poet, other than other
jobs. The poet
makes up his mind to
dedicate himself to poem writing, which is
regarded as a less common career.
Once the decision is made, there will
be no way to return to the original choice to
experience the other route. So the poet
utters “Yet knowing how way leads on to
way,I doubted if I should ever come back.” The
made choice is irrevocable, so man
must
be careful and rational before making decisions.
At the same time, he must be courageous enough to
shoulder the
result of his choice,
whether it is good or not.
Frost presents man’s limitation to
explore life’s different possibilities. The poet
“sighs” at the end of the poem. For at
th
e
time
of
one’s
choice,
he
must
give
up
other
choices
and
miss
some
other
things.
At
the
same
time,
he
“sighs”
with
lamentat
ion, pondering what
he may have missed on the other path and that he
doesn’t have opportunities to experience
another kind of life.
The Road Not Taken is interpreted
universally as a representation of two similar
choices. At the beginning, man may face two
identical forks, which symbolize the
nexus of free choice and fate. They contrast
increasingly with each other as they diverge
in their separate directions. Man is
free to choose, but it’s beyond his ability to
foretell the consequences. Man can
choose
a
common route which
guarantees a safe and reliable life. He can also
choose a less common one which is unknown, unique
and stands out above other else’s. All
in all, man must be responsible for his choice and
has courage to shoulder the result.
He can never go back to the past and
experience other possibilities. It is impossible
to predict the outcome of decisions, so it
is essential for him to make wise
decisions after considering, selecting and
questioning which selection will provide him with
fulfillment.
The
Road Not Taken is full of philosophical overtones.
This poem should be read as a warning. Man should
consider a lot
before making choices
and reflect over the choices he has made to
discover “all the differences”.
评论
3
:
Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” has
been one of the most analyzed, quoted,
anthologized poems in American poetry. A
wide-spread interpretation claims that
the speaker in the poem is promoting individualism
and non-conformity.
A Tricky
Poem
Frost claims that he
wrote this poem about his friend Edward Thomas,
with whom he had walked many times in the woods
near London. Frost has said that while
walking they would come to different paths and
after choosing one, Thomas would
always
fret wondering what they might have missed by not
taking the other path.
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