Robert Frost makes no damn sense

It was received wisdom, back in high school, that chicks loved the poetry of Robert Frost. His most memorable poem, "The Road Not Taken" (sometimes mistakenly referred to as "The Road Less Traveled," a phrase that almost appears in the poem itself, and that is also the title of a book by Dr. M. Scott Peck), is often cited by both men and women who see it as a call to live a more interesting life by being unconventional. Most people understand the poem to be saying that, when confronted with two paths, the poet took the one used by fewer people. When I recently reread the poem, however, I found myself shocked by how nonsensical it is. First: taking a path that is "less traveled" isn't the same as taking a heretofore untraveled path. What's so unconventional about the less-traveled route? Far from being completely unconventional, it's only slightly less conventional. There's no rejection of boring conformism here—it's merely watered-down conformism. Second, and more damningly, Frost provides almost no evidence, in his poem, that the supposedly less-traveled path actually is less traveled. Let's go through the poem so you can see what I mean. My comments will be in red.

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The Road Not Taken
by Robert Frost

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;

Technically, one road diverged and became two. We're already off to a bad start. Note, meanwhile, where the stanza ends: it's autumn ("a yellow wood"); the poet stands at the fork and is examining one of the two possible paths.

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 worn them really about the same,

Frost skips the moment in which the poet explicitly examines the other possible path, instead moving straight to the next phase: a comparison of the two paths that lie ahead. Are these two paths equally appealing? This stanza is frustratingly ambiguous on that point. The "grassy and wanted wear" remark is blatantly contradicted by the "just as fair" and "worn them really about the same" remarks. If the paths had really been "worn... about the same," then one of the two paths would not appear distinctly more grassy and wanting wear. So: which is it, Bob? Are the paths equally worn, or aren't they?

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

Here again, the paths seem equally trodden—or rather, untrodden: "equally lay / In leaves no step had trodden black." By this point in the poem, the poet has made his decision as to which path to take (see the second stanza), although I fail to see how he made the decision, given his sloppy, illogical thinking. So now we've gone from a "more trodden/less trodden" comparison to an "equally untrodden" state of affairs!

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.

Again with the "two roads"! This is scandalous. "I took the one less traveled by"—forsooth! But which fork, Robert, was "less traveled by"? Hellfire and bloody damnation!

There are further questions, to be sure. Is road the appropriate term for a forested path? The word road normally implies the existence of vehicles. If vehicles—carriages, say—could use either of these roads, how could either road afford to be overgrown with plant life? And why would the poet be looking for evidence of foot traffic instead of looking for wheel ruts? Also: what if Frost wasn't mistaken when he wrote of two roads that diverged, and was literally referring to two roads that ran parallel to each other for a time before finally diverging? If that's the case, then where was the poet standing? In the tree-filled median between the two roads? What sort of weirdo walks in a forested median when two clear, walkable paths lie on either side of it? Was the poet on one of the two roads? If so, had he already been following one of the two roads for a while? And why would two parallel roads be running through a forest, anyway? Environmentalists would have kittens.

If this is how Robert Frost actually thought and spoke in his lifetime, I cringe to imagine how he would have been as a witness at a murder trial.

ATTORNEY: So, Mr. Frost, you did see the two defendants and you can say which one killed the child?

FROST: I can, sir.

ATTORNEY: Please elaborate.

FROST: Two men appeared in front of me, and one of them killed the little boy.

ATTORNEY: And which man was that?

FROST: Why, the more murderous one, of course.

ATTORNEY: Which man was the more murderous?

FROST: They were equally murderous, truth be told.

ATTORNEY: I'm sorry? Equally murderous? Could you please clarify?

FROST: What I mean to say is that the two men were equally peaceful.

ATTORNEY: I... see...

FROST: It's all quite simple, really. Two men approached a child and I, I saw the one raise his axe high, and that has made all the difference.

ATTORNEY: So you're saying, Mr. Frost, that—

FROST: It may have been only one man, at that.

ATTORNEY (exasperated): Which man, sir?

FROST: The one with the axe, of course.

ATTORNEY: Sigh...

The moral of the story: Robert Frost can't count, can't compare, and can't think. Enjoy, ladies.

(Either that, or Frost was a Buddhist prophet of nondualism for whom concepts like number and distinctness didn't matter.)


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