Analysis of Frosts The Road Not Taken - Essay Example

Poetry is a channel for allowing oneself to express sentiments and thoughts in a rhythmic pattern. Analysis: The close study of a text for better comprehension and interpretation.Apostrophe: Apostrophe interrupts the discussion or discourse and addresses directly a person or personified thing, either present or absent (Harris, 6)Ballad: Narrative poem in the form of a song, usually sentimental and romantic.

Drama: Play or prose performed by actors and characters, essentially of a serious nature.Dramatic Monologue: Poem or narrative by a single character-revealing an important aspect of the character.Imagery: “All the sensory perceptions referred to in a poem or text, whether by literal description, allusion, simile or metaphor” (Web.cn.edu).Irony: “The effect of language in which the intended meaning is the opposite of what is stated” (Gale Cengage Learning). Lyric poetry: “Poem expressing the subjective feelings and personal emotions of the poet” (Gale Cengage Learning).

Metaphor: “Transfer of a quality or attribute from one thing or idea to another in such a way as to imply some resemblance between the two things or ideas” (University of Cambridge).Persona: “A mask through which the author tells a story in a voice other than his or her own” (Gale Cengage Learning).Personification: “Figure of speech that gives human qualities to abstract ideas, animals, and inanimate objects” (Gale Cengage Learning).Poem: “Composition utilizing rhyme, meter, concrete detail, and expressive language to create a literary experience with the emotional and aesthetic appeal” (Gale Cengage Learning).

Setting: “Time, place, and culture in which the action of a narrative takes place” (Gale Cengage Learning).Simile: “Comparison of two essentially dissimilar things” (Gale Cengage Learning).Sonnet: “Fourteen-line poem, usually composed in iambic pentameter” (Gale Cengage Learning).Stanza: “Subdivision of a poem consisting of lines grouped together, often in recurring patterns of rhyme, line length, and Meter” (Gale Cengage Learning).Symbol: “Something that suggests or stands for something else without losing its original identity” (Gale Cengage Learning).

Theme: “Main point of a work of literature” (Gale Cengage Learning).Thesis Statement: “Point argued in an essay” (Gale Cengage Learning).Tone: “Author’s attitude towards his or her audience” (Gale Cengage Learning). The Road Not Taken, by Robert Frost, is perhaps one of the most momentous poems of all time. The speaker here, although appears to be a traveler at first, is in actuality a person faced with the dilemma of choosing between two paths in life, and who chooses “the one less traveled by” (Madden, 84, line 19).

He is a contemplative person and appears to be confused as to the decision that lies ahead of him. The metaphorical setting of the poem is a woody area where “two roads diverged” (line 1). This represents the “woody” mind of an individual and the roads are two distinct courses of action that need to be chosen from. This very predicament of having to choose between two options is being addressed in the poem, wherein the author ultimately decides to take the path that few would care to venture.

The central purpose of the poem is to explicate the frame of mind of the author and to establish his bravado through the choice that he makes. The tone of the speaker in the poem is quite somber and serious as revealed through lines such as “I shall be telling this with a sigh” (line 16). Frost has employed extensive use of imagery in the poem, lucidly describing the “yellow wood” (line 1) where two roads diverged, and one which “bent in the undergrowth” (line 5) was “grassy and wanted wear”, indicating that it had not been trodden on as much as the other.

In the literal sense, the poem essentially describes a traveler going through wood and coming across two roads, one seemingly less traveled. Faced with a choice, the traveler decides to take the one less used but eventually regrets his decision. The figurative meaning of the poem is that a person may choose to adopt the less espoused course of action, and may either be proud of his accomplishments or regret not having conformed to the mediocrity.