Thursday, December 9, 2010

UPDATED AND EDITED!!! Poetry.. Good or Bad? You Be The Judge!

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;

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,

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.

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.

       Just thought I'd share some poetry with you from American poet laureate (national poet) Robert Frost whom I love so very very much.  I'm definitely open to having some ongoing conversations, debates and discussions about this particular poem or any others by this poet ( or any other poet for that matter)..  I'm interested in what you all have to think about it... in my next post I will certainly give you all my opinion, thoughts and feelings on it and you can comment on those as well.. but first I want time to mull it all over in my brain so i can get a good critical reading of it.. just because the semester has ended, doesn't mean I should stop doing what English majors do.. read and critically analyze.. WOOOOOOOOOOO!

      Anyway, hope you have all been enjoying my posts so far, THANKS! To those of you (Ange&Faffles) who have taken the time to leave me a comment (P.s I know profs have just as hard a time as students do with essays, even more so as I only have to write mine once, but they have to read the same or similar topics over and over and over again..My heart goes out to you Dr. NPG hang in there!!!).. I look forward to more comments, so look forward to more posts ASAP! and don't forget you can always e-mail me!

THANKS TO THOSE YOU WHO'VE MADE ME AWARE OF MY MISTAKE!! ROBERT FROST IS INDEED NOT CANADIAN, BUT AMERICAN AND I AM FORCED TO SUBMIT TO HUMILIATION AND SHAME FOR NOT HAVING CHECKED MY SOURCE PROPERLY BEFORE  POSTING!! Thanks to A&F for having hope but regretfully Dr. Smarty Pants is correct.. this time... *sad face*  I will never make such an error again.

Thanks to those who commented beyond my mistake and left questions and analysis..  I will get back to you with my response to it shortly... My Deepest Apologies once more for having led you all astray! I hop you can find it in your hearts to forgive me..  Though i blame the Canadian education system that led me to believe that Robert Frost  (and Robert Munsch for that matter) have links to Canada or are Canadian.. *haha*
 
XOXO
Cristina



4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Of course I know this poem, but as I reread it, it struck me how I don't really know (nor do we need to even read) the first 3 stanzas. The fourth one can kind of stand alone. Or it does, anyway, in our Canadian collective memory, we kind of know what it means. Even just the last 3 lines, infer the whole story to us. Even just "the [road] less traveled" has such a meaning for us. I wonder if it has the same meaning for other English speakers - non-Canadians? Does it mean something for us because we studied this poem? Thanks for sharing this!

Nicholas Greco said...

I'm not sure Frost was ever considered our national poet, considering he is an American. Nevertheless, this poem is part of our cultural consciousness, and I wouldn't be surprised if this is because of some veiled sort of cultural imperialism by the US.

Robert Frost was American poet laureate (official national poet), though I can't find the dates for this. Canada's current poet laureate is Pierre DesRuisseaux.

I remember seeing this poem in English class when I was in high school, and not thinking much of it (perhaps I wasn't a big fan of poetry at that time). My question is, was the road that the narrator took the right one? Is the difference it has made positive? I seem to read a bit of sadness (in my cursory, early morning reading).

Anonymous said...

Thank you to Dr. Smartypants who corrected us on this! Baaaaa! I know for a fact he checked Wikipedia for his info. Although he DID think Frost wasn't Canadian on his own smart brain. But then he checked into it.

Cristina: please have some super smart reason why Frost is linked with Canada!!! Or else we suffer the shame and humiliation of standing corrected!

lots of love from Faffles who is still in her crib at 7:51am, but who (as I can hear it) is moving books around on her shelf. Perhaps she has super smarty pants night vision which allows her to read in a pitch black bedroom!

Anonymous said...

OK. At least Munsch has a Canada connection, being now a citizen etc. Check out his bio at his official website. Quite interesting!

http://robertmunsch.com/about/

So you still didn't really check your facts. You took me at face value when I said "I don't think Munsch is Canadian either." He was born in the states, but moved to Canada and so I guess he WOULD be considered a Canadian author. Anyway, that is not the point of this!

us