Frost’s Early Poems

Robert Frost

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Study Questions

1. In what ways do the characters in “Home Burial” misunderstand each other?


2. Discuss the anticipation or remorse in “The Road Not Taken.”


3. What is ironic about the speaker’s statements concerning his neighbor’s opinion of wall-building in “Mending Wall”?


4. Discuss Robert Frost’s applications of “the sound of sense.”

5. In both “Stopping by Woods” and “The Road Not Taken,” the speaker hesitates en route. Compare these hesitations. Do they derive from the same impulse and misgiving or are they distinct?

6. What is the effect of simple language in “Mending Wall”?

7. Compare themes in “The Wood-Pile” to themes in “The Tuft of Flowers.”

8. Discuss the importance of form in “Fire and Ice.”

my interpretation

by mistyplayitplease, September 11, 2012

He is dying--right here right now falling down dead and is wondering if it will be a bad thing like the ice falling and breaking or the apples falling and going to the cider heap. He spent a lifetime picking apples and now is his natural moment of death. This is my interpretation of the poem and what frost is conveying in this poem.

10 out of 42 people found this helpful

3

Re: you statement: "Neither of the roads is less traveled by."

by emma_on, October 25, 2012

Re: you statement: Neither of the roads is less traveled by.

Take a look at the second stanza:

Then took the other, as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Meaning the other was not grassy, and more worn. I.e. more travelled by.

6 out of 28 people found this helpful

3

My Interpretation

by Rose_1989_, February 15, 2013

I believe Frost is speaking to the unique path we all travel in life. Every day we are faced with decisions. We weigh our options and try to predict what the outcome of a decision might be. Unfortunately we cannot predict the future...We look down one path as far as we can "to where it bends in the undergrowth" or as far as we can predict however there will always be variables preventing us from seeing too far into the future. Frost says he chooses the path least traveled by, but realistically the path we are all on is this very road he spe... Read more

352 out of 362 people found this helpful

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