![]() The new scansion, immediately below, retains the tetrameter meter throughout (more on how later). Given some time and a conversation with a reader and poet Steven Withrow (see the comments) I’ve changed the scansion of the last stanza to reflect the way Frost probably would have scanned the poem (rather than how he read it).I suppose that might be considered cheating, but Frost’s own conception of the poem interests me. I have based my scansion, by the way, on Frost’s own reading of the poem. Nominally because Frost elegantly varies the meter to such a degree that readers may only glancingly hear the imposition of a metrical pattern – the effect is one of both metrical freedom and form. The poem is written, nominally, in Iambic Tetrameter. I like a coincidence almost as well as an incongruity. Some purpose I doubt not, if we could but have made out. I stood still in wonderment and let him pass by and that, too, with the fatal omission of not trying to find out by a comparison of lives and immediate and remote interests what could have brought us by crossing paths to the same point in a wilderness at the same moment of nightfall. I verily expected to take up or absorb this other self and feel the stronger by the addition for the three-mile journey home. Or say I felt as we slowly converged on the same point with the same noiseless yet laborious stride as if we were two images about to float together with the uncrossing of someone’s eyes. I felt as if I was going to meet my own image in a slanting mirror. Judge then how surprised I was the other evening as I came down one to see a man, who to my own unfamiliar eyes and in the dusk looked for all the world like myself, coming down the other, his approach to the point where our paths must intersect being so timed that unless one of us pulled up we must inevitably collide. The practically unbroken condition of both for several days after a snow or a blow proves that neither is much travelled. Two lonely cross-roads that themselves cross each other I have walked several times this winter without meeting or overtaking so much as a single person on foot or on runners. Newman references a letter that Frost wrote to Susan Hayes Ward in Plymouth, New Hampshire, February 10, 1912: More to the point, the provenance of the poem seems to be in New England – prior to Frost’s friendship with Thomas. If you don’t see a play button below, just copy and paste the URL and you will be able to hear the recording.I personally have a hard time taking Frost’s claims at face value. Thomas, however, didn’t read the poem as satire and neither have other readers coming to the poem for the first time. Frost completed and sent the poem to Thomas only after he had returned to New Hampshire. (Edward Thomas was an English poet who Frost befriended while living in England). Lea also writes that Frost’s intent, in writing the poem, was to satirize his friend, Edward Thomas, who would frequently dither over which road he and Frost should walk. In one of the most enjoyable books I own (among books on Frost) Lea Newman relates that according to a survey of 18,000 written, recorded and videotaped responses, this poem (along with Robert Frost) is America’s most popular poem – a probably more accurate poll than the self-selected poll done by. Part of the magic is in how Frost loosens meter to obtain a more colloquial tone. One of the loveliest poems in the English language is Frost’s The Road Not Taken. – Interpreting Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods”.May 5 2009: Robert Frost’s “The Pasture”.A pril 26 2009: Robert Frost’s “For Once, Then, Something.”.April 25 2009: Audio of Robert Frost added. ![]() ![]() ![]() It’s interesting to me to see where readers are coming from and why they are reading these posts. If you’re a student, just leave a comment with the name of your high school or college. April 23 2009: One Last Request! I love comments.Pass it around if you have friends or relatives interested in this kind of poetry. Check out Spider, Spider or, if you want modern Iambic Pentameter, try My Bridge is like a Rainbow or Come Out! Take a copy to class if you need an example of Modern Iambic Pentameter. One of the reasons I write these posts is so that a few readers, interested in meter and rhyme, might want to try out my poetry. After you’ve read up on Robert Frost, take a look at some of my poetry.To find all the posts I’ve written on Robert Frost, click here. Febru– If you enjoy Frost, you might like reading Birches along with a c o l o r c o d e d scansion of Birches included in my post on Frost’s Mending Wall.If scansion is new to you, check out my post on the basics. ![]()
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