what figure of speech is the road not taken by Robert Frost?
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Answer:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. There are multiple poetic devices used in Robert Frost's poem The Road Not Taken. In the first line, the poet used assonance.
The Road Not Taken
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.
Robert Frost
There are multiple poetic devices used in Robert Frost's poem The Road Not Taken.
In the first line, the poet used assonance. Assonance is the repetition of a vowel sound within a line of poetry. In the first line,
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
the "o" sound is repeated in "roads" and "yellow."
In the eighth line,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
the author uses personification. Personification is the giving of human characteristics to non-human/non-living things. In this line, the pathwanted wear. A path cannot want. Only humans can want. This qualifies as personification.
The poem as a whole is a metaphor. A metaphor is
a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to a person, idea, or object to which it is not literally applicable.
The poet is, therefore, comparing the paths in life to the choices one must make when reaching a crossroads. The poem speaks of the actual choices in life as roads one must choose to take. Metaphorically, the roads simply represent choices in life.
- Metaphor - The whole poem is an extended metaphor and the road acts as a metaphor for life.
- Alliteration - “wanted wear”
- Personification - The fork in the woods refers to the life decisions one has to make.
- Repetition - “Somewhere ages and ages hence”
- Consonance and assonance - “And that has made all the difference.”