Skip to main content

What is the season in "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost?

Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken" is set in autumn in the woods. The speaker comes to a fork in the road:



Two roads diverged in a yellow wood...



Literally speaking, we know that the poem is set in the autumn season as the speaker says "yellow wood." The speaker struggles to make a decision in relation to which road he should take.


Metaphorically speaking, autumn represents maturity and the beginning of old age. So, we could claim that our speaker is soon to be old and that he has come to a point in his life when he has to make an important decision. Such decision will undoubtedly change his life for good. He is aware that once the choice is made, he can no longer go back to the point when he was able to choose between two options. The poem implies that the speaker can never be completely happy because he will always wonder what the other path offered.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Is 'efficate' a word in English?

I routinely hear the word "efficate" being used. For example, "The most powerful way to efficate a change in the system is to participate." I do not find entries for this word in common English dictionaries, but I do not have an unabridged dictionary. I have checked the OED (I'm not sure if it is considered unabridged), and it has no entry for "efficate". It does have an entry for "efficiate", which is used in the same way. Wordnik has an entry for "efficate" with over 1800 hits, thus providing some evidence for the frequency of use. I personally like the word and find the meaning very clear and obvious when others use it. If it's not currently an "officially documented" word, perhaps its continued use will result in it being better documented.
Post a Comment
Read more