ure. Frost regarded nature as a beautiful but dangerous force, worthy of admiration, but full of danger. The underlying philosophy of Frost’s poetry is rooted in traditional New England individualism, and his work shows his strong empathy for the values of early American society (Encarta,1).I have chosen to analyze Frost’s two poems “The Road Not Taken” and “Neither Out Far Nor In Deep.” I chose these particular selections because of their vast differences in form and meaning. Each of these works represents a completely different outlook of Frost about life issues, and were written approximately twenty years apart. So many of Frost’s poems describe relatively ordinary scenes or events that raise issues about the meaning of life and then conclude by suggesting a positive answer, such as “The Road Not Taken” does. However, “Neither Out Far Nor In Deep” represents the opposite end of the spectrum, dealing with the harsh questions of life, but offering no consolation or conclusion. The latter format in Frost’s poetry is the rarer of the two among his extensive collections of poems, and which is the reason I chose one of each type.“The Road Not Taken” is one of Robert Frost’s most familiar and most popular poems. It is author Terri Andrews’ belief that the popularity of the poem is largely a result of the simplicity of its symbolism: The speaker must choose between different directions in life (1838). However, for such a simple poem, it has, in fact, been subject to various interpretations of how the speaker feels about his situation and how he should be viewed. Robert Frost himself referred to this poem as being “a tricky poem, very tricky” (Andrews, 1838), probably referring to the many ways that the poem can be viewed and interpreted. The poem is written in the first person narrative. On several occasions, Frost h...
