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Unit 1: The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost

1.5 Keywords Notes

Ambiguity: It is referred to as the quality of being open to more than one interpretation.
Crisis: It is a time of intense difficulty or danger.

Lexical: It means something that relates to the words or vocabulary of a language.
Personification: It means the attribution of a personal nature or human characteristics to
something non-human, or the representation of an abstract quality in human form.
Poetic: Poetic means anything relating to or used in poetry.
Relocate: It means to move to a new place and establish one's home or business there.
Sigh: Emit a long, deep, audible breath expressing sadness, relief, tiredness, or similar.

Violate: It means to break or fail to comply with a rule or formal agreement.

1.6 Review Questions

1. Why is this poem written by Robert Frost called “The Road Not Taken”?

2. Throw light on Robert Frost’s major works.
3. Throw light on Robert Frost’s life.
4. Robert Frost says “I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference”.
What is ‘the difference’ that the poet mentions in this poem?
5. Describe the two roads which the poet comes across in “The Road Not Taken”.
6. What is the dilemma faced by the poet-traveller?

7. Do you think the road the speaker took was really the less travelled one? Why?
8. In the first two lines “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood and sorry I could not travel
both”, what is meant by diverged? What goes the yellow wood indicate?
9. What is the theme of the poem The Road Not Taken?
10. What appeals to you in the poem?

11. Write an essay that interprets the last line of the poem

Answers: Self Assessment

1. (d) 2. (d)
3. (b) 4. (a)
5. ( c)

1.7 Further Readings

Books Edited by Wilcox E. J., Barron J. N., (2000) Roads Not Taken: Rereading Robert Frost,
University of Missouri Press.

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