Perhaps you have a photograph of a moment that triggers your memory. The photograph may not change, but you do and your memory of the things that happened in that moment do. Our choices we make are impactful, but the way we remember them is what helps shape us as individuals. Poetic devices are the tools we can use to unpack the meaning of a poem. Here are two that are important to understanding "The Road Not Taken. If you want an in-depth discussion of meter, check out our blog about it.
So what is meter? The English language has about an equal number of stressed and unstressed syllables. Arranging these stressed syllables into consistent is one of the most common ways of giving a poem a structure A foot can either be an iamb one unstressed followed by one stressed syllable , a trochee one stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable , a dactyl one stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables or an anapest two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable.
The iamb is the foot that comes to us most naturally as native English speakers, and the most iambs we can speak easily without having to inhale for another breath is about five. So the most common structure for English language poetry is iambic pentameter , meaning the most common foot is an iamb, and there are five iambs per line.
Historically, the vast majority of poetry written in English has been in iambic pentameter, and it was the default format for English poetry for centuries. You may not even immediately recognize that the poem is in iambic meter, but it becomes clear when you start breaking down the lines.
Take this one, for example:. Each pair of these is an iamb! There are four stressed syllables on this line , as well as every other line in the poem. That means this poem is in iambic tetrameter. The most common foot is an iamb although notice that the third foot is an anapest , and there are four of them.
So why is this important? First, iambic tetrameter is a metrical pattern favored by the 19th century Romantics , who very frequently wrote poems that involved lonely people having great epiphanies while out in nature by themselves.
In that way, the form of the poem helps to reinforce its themes! The second poetic device that Frost employs is voice. The voice of a poem is the product of all the stylistic and vocabulary choices that add up to create a character. In this case, the poem has one character: the speaker. The voice of a poem is an artificial construct, a character created to give the poem a certain effect. So how does Frost create this voice? First, note that the poem is in first person.
But in other ways, it makes the objective details of the moment less clear. The first person narration also gives the poem much of its reflective nature. Here are five great tips for writing poetry and a few scholarships for budding poets , too.
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Sign in. From the creators of SparkNotes, something better. Now contrast this with the ending everyone loves to quote. This also helps explain the title. It reminds me of a couple lines from Prufrock by T. But the real tonal shift in the poem comes in the third line of the third stanza with Oh, I kept the first for another day! Here we switch from the largely descriptive language of the paths to a grandiose wistfulness. I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence:.
The speaker tell us with such a deep sigh that this decision will have effects not only on his future life but for ages and ages , long past even his own lifetime. This level of melodrama would choke a daytime soap opera. A dithering speaker chooses between two equal options with all the significance of flipping a coin.
But now, one path is the better one, the one less traveled. And now it makes a difference. But this would get in the way of the cosmic moment. Now do you get the joke? Anyone who takes only the one small part of this poem and magnifies it into a grand statement on striking out on your own unique path are doing the same thing as the speaker.
There is a serious side to this poem. Not everything is a sign from the universe. Many of our actions are completely inconsequential. And we can laugh at that. But sometimes we need someone else to point out those moments to us. And this poem works wonders toward that end. But if you think he did, I bet Mr. Frost is chuckling in his grave. I am too not in my grave, of course. I swear.
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