SOAPSTone for Frost’s “Road Not Taken”

Subject Decisions? Regrets? (we’ll come back to this)

So the thematic statement about that subject is…? “When you come to a fork in the road, study the footprints and take the road less traveled by” NOOOOOO!

Occasion Became close friend of Edward Thomas when settling in England Daily countryside walks to show Frost (American friend) rare plants or special vistas Thomas fussed over irrevocable choices and by the end of the walks would regret the paths they took, thinking they could have taken “better” directions Poem written about/for Thomas

Audience Initially for friend Edward Thomas

Purpose In jest, to tease/mock friend Thomas “You get more credit for thinking if you restate formulae or cite cases that fall in easily under formulae, but all the fun is outside saying things that suggest formulae that won’t formulate—that almost but don’t quite formulate. I should like to be so subtle at this game as to seem to the casual person altogether obvious. The casual person would assume I meant nothing or else I came near enough meaning something he was familiar with to mean it for all practical purposes. Well, well, well. “Intellectual activity”

Speaker Frost? Thomas?!

Frost warned audiences: “You have to be careful of that one; it’s a tricky poem—very tricky.” Frost insisted that the line “and that has made all the difference”—taken straight— was all wrong. “Of course, it hasn’t,” he persisted. “It’s just a poem, you know.”