On
this Day Factola
March
26, 1894
Birthday
of Robert Frost who recorded his poetry on Caedmon Records
Robert
Frost, circa 1910
March 26
is the birthday of Robert Frost whose poem The Road Not Taken
(and others) is preserved on the Record Album The
Caedmon Poetry Collection (1 minute 3 seconds).
"The Road
Not Taken" is a poem by Robert Frost, published in 1916 in the
collection Mountain Interval. It is the first
poem in the volume and is printed in italics. The title is often
mistakenly given as "The Road Less Traveled", from the penultimate
line: "I took the one less traveled by."
From Wikipedia:
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. "'The 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 "You have
to be careful of that one; it's a tricky poem – very tricky."
Frost intended the poem as a gentle jab at his great friend
and fellow poet Edward Thomas whom he used to take walks through
the forest with (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.
"When
you arrive at a fork in the road, take it." - Yogi Berra
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