
The Most Misread Poem in America (2015) - dsr12
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2015/09/11/the-most-misread-poem-in-america/
======
hownottowrite
A far better article about this poem and the backstory:
[https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/jul/29/robert-
frost-e...](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/jul/29/robert-frost-edward-
thomas-poetry)

~~~
jeffdavis
I liked both, but I found the Paris Review article more satisfying.

This line in particular:

"A role too artfully assumed ceases to become a role and instead becomes a
species of identity..."

~~~
jacobush
Yeah, that line hit me like a punch in the guts.

Edit; and

 _" It isn’t a wolf in sheep’s clothing so much as a wolf that is somehow also
a sheep, or a sheep that is also a wolf."_

This is to me the spirit of America and can be seen in so many ways it
projects its power.

------
malloryerik
When I objected that, no, the two paths _equally_ lay and that the
_difference_ was unimportant or unknowable, my high school English teacher
forcefully badgered me back into the common misreading -- and then promptly
took the minor glory of explaining the more accurate interpretation to the
class for himself! He was smart, had a PhD in lit from UMass Amherst, must
have known what I was getting at and in all likelihood consciously blocked me.
I felt so cheated and for the first time saw a teacher as a competing ego
rather than a helper, and I realized that I'd better learn when to trust
myself, even in the face of authority.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
About the poem...and yet the choice DOES make all the difference. The paths go
to different destinations. The unknowable part is the true message; the 'just
the same' part is only in the appearance, which is what makes life uncertain.

~~~
malloryerik
Yes, thanks, I agree! In fact I realized a few hours ago that I'd miswritten
by including the "difference," but didn't change it and even wondered if
someone would comment on it and, yes!, you have. So thanks. As for the poem,
I'm no authority here and I wonder how you see it; to me "that has made all
the difference" feels intentionally ambiguous, partly ironic or not, able to
reflect the reader's view from different angles and distances. But in any case
yes I'm completely with you in that the poem's only stable claim is about the
apparent sameness of the paths where the traveller makes their choice, a
choice without any distinguishing information. I suppose it does raise the
question, what _is_ this "difference," to be mentioned after a sigh, and how
valuable can it be when arriving at it versus some other destination came down
to a coin flip?

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flying_whale
This little comic strip made me see the poem in a whole new light. Something I
keep coming back to whenever I'm faced with a big choice :)

[https://zenpencils.com/comic/60-robert-frost-the-road-not-
ta...](https://zenpencils.com/comic/60-robert-frost-the-road-not-taken/)

~~~
nerdponx
This really hit me in a way I haven't been hit by something in a long time.
Thanks for sharing.

~~~
signa11
if like this sort of thing, then, o. henry's 'roads of destiny', is the sort
of thing that you might like as well :)

------
Theodores
The most misread poem in England is William Blake's Jerusalem. It was written
two centuries ago and put to music a century later. It is the unofficial
national anthem and you can hear it everywhere that English football, rugby
and cricket teams go. All three of the main political parties sing it at their
conferences. It gets an airing every time there is a royal wedding. It was the
first thing one billion people got to hear at the opening of the 2012 Olympic
Games - a solo performance by a child who happened to be born with only one
hand.

This poem has an extraordinary story, Blake was not famous in his time and
only thirty years after his death did someone come along to write a biography
of him. There were many other happenings that had to happen before Jerusalem
became what it is today.

The words appear to be patriotic but on further examination and with the right
education the poem can be understood. It is an anti-capitalist, anti-church,
anti-establishment masterpiece. Yet vast crowds of people can sing along with
it, knowing all the words. It is in a different league of being misread to
anything else. Study it.

~~~
gerdesj
"The words appear to be patriotic but on further examination and with the
right education the poem can be understood"

I think it is both patriotic and also your thesis. That is the British Way.

------
jancsika
The popular misreading comes from people who only remember (or perhaps only
ever cared about) the last stanza.

The other interpretation comes from carefully reading the whole poem.

Regardless, most humans who come across a non-trivial number of paths will
eventually converge on an important truth that is revealed by either of these
contrasting interpretations.

Someone who regularly rationalizes a choice between two indistinguishable
paths as highly individualistic will eventually come upon a path not taken. At
that point they will either fess up to their prior self-deception or carry on
deluded.

Alternatively, someone who regularly avoids the beaten path will eventually be
faced with indistinguishable options. At that point they will either admit to
themselves that not all choices are individualistic, or they will _start_
deceiving themselves.

Consequently, one ought to accept _either_ reading of the poem as a reasonable
starting point for a responsible adult to learn a valuable lesson about
branching processes.

Finally, all responsible adults who have learned the converged truth should be
wary of anyone who in casual conversation dares utter a sentence starting,
"Actually, you are misreading that poem..."

I humbly offer the following canned response: "Wow, sounds like somebody is
_revved up like a douche_."[1]

[1] Most misheard lyric from "Blinded by the Light" by Bruce Springsteen

~~~
hudibras
>[1] Most misheard lyric from "Blinded by the Light" by Bruce Springsteen

Actually...it's the Manfred Mann [0] cover of the song that contains the
lyrics in question; Springsteen's original version [1] uses slightly different
words for that line and so it's perfectly intelligible.

[0][https://youtu.be/Rpq35wyDi7I?t=10](https://youtu.be/Rpq35wyDi7I?t=10)

[1][https://youtu.be/7Iaca30QbOo?t=80](https://youtu.be/7Iaca30QbOo?t=80)

~~~
jancsika
So "cut loose like a douche" vs "revved up like a douche."

------
Semiapies
I think it's less that it's a _misread_ poem than it's an _unread_ poem for
most people, who only know a few key lines taken out of context.

~~~
ghaff
I do think misread is fair. As far as I remember, the traditional teaching and
interpretation of the poem was the heroic individuality one. When a college
English professor taught a number of decades ago that, in his view, that was
the wrong interpretation that was novel to me and for many people.

The meaning is perhaps still ambiguous in that a number of people I've
discussed this with stick to the traditional interpretation. But I'm at least
convinced that "The poem isn’t a salute to can-do individualism; it’s a
commentary on the self-deception we practice when constructing the story of
our own lives."

~~~
epicide
I think it's still fair to say it's mostly unread if all they remember (and
think about) are a few selective parts that twist the original meaning.

It's kind of like Every Breath You Take by The Police. People hear the full
song plenty of times but they only think about the ones that match the happy
love song pattern. Everything else is in one ear, out the other.

In some ways, the "misinterpretation" bringing about an oppositional meaning
is poetic in and of itself.

EDIT: also, I'm not really trying to argue whether it's "unread" or "misread"
(I could attribute selective memory to either one). It's that I think there's
more to it than "misread" often warrants. Maybe everything I've said is what
you meant by misread.

------
cabaalis
The meaning of poetry is what the reader wants it to be just as much as what
the author intended it to be.

A single scene in the Netflix show "Daredevil" taught me more about the arts
than anything else in my 34 years. An art dealer tells a man "I tell them it's
not about the artist's name or the skill required, not even about the art
itself. All that matters is: 'How does it make you feel?'"

~~~
chc
But in this case, this isn't just about "what the reader wants" versus "what
the author intended." It's about "what the words actually say." The poem tells
us that in the moment, the narrator sees that neither road is more or less
traveled than the other, and only in the future will the narrator say he took
the road less traveled by. We don't need to know anything about Frost or his
intentions to see that this is what the poem says.

So you might say that the meaning is not as important as how it makes you
feel. But unless you're going to just come out and say that words have no
meaning (and what would you say such a thing _with_?), the meaning of the
poetry is somewhat independent of what the reader wants it to be.

~~~
apocalypstyx
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_game_(philosophy)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_game_\(philosophy\))

------
DubiousPusher
I wrote about this specific topic in a poetry class I took in college.

It's surprising how this sentiment was frequently demonstrated by Frost
himself. He'd frequently claim how important some life changing moment was in
his life and then later walk that back and It's been a long time back now so I
can't completely remember all the examples I found but I think an uncle or
such paid for part of his education. Frost would go back and forth about how
this relative left him high and dry and making it on his own was very
important. Then on other occasions he'd opine about how important this
relative was and how it made a difference in his life.

~~~
sooheon
Write what you know.

------
dang
Discussed at the time:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10204255](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10204255)

------
kset
Like all great poems, there are multiple, opposite meanings built into it,
held in tension by deliberately ambiguous meanings of words. Here is one set
of opposites: “it made all the difference” (in the last line); This could be a
_good_ difference or a _bad_ difference or — since, importantly, we don’t even
know if the speaker will survive in the future to utter that last wistful line
— a _catastrophic_ difference.

Here’s another set of opposites: making a difference vs. not even making a
difference — I’d argue that these are both possible (it’s not that one is a
“popular misreading” as claimed by the article). The speaker is acknowledging
that he has no really good reason, after all, for choosing one road over the
other at the moment of decision; he is recognizing the bit of self-delusion he
had to exercise in order to rouse himself to a decision...but that certainly
doesn’t mean that it won’t indeed turn out to have “made all the difference”
in the end. He and we just don’t know.

But, taking a step back, I’d argue that it isn’t even clear that the chosen
road really did turn out to be “equally well traveled” (as the commentary of
the article hinges on). This itself could be another bit of mild self-
delusion. The speaker suffers from grass-is-greener-itis, always pining for
the road not taken (it’s even in the name of the poem!). He did _not_ choose
the road he was last looking down (until it “bent into the underbrush”)
because it looked too well traveled to him and he wants to be independent...
but once he chooses the other road and sets out, this “other road” also begins
looking too well-traveled for his taste. Chronic dissatisfaction coloring his
perception? After all, his perception would have been more objective when
pondering both roads equally, before investing himself in the decision.
Perhaps the road taken really _is_ less well-traveled. Again, we just don’t
know the underlying reality; the poem deliberately prevents us from knowing.

------
js2
Relatedly, possibly the most misread quote in America:

[https://www.lawfareblog.com/what-ben-franklin-really-
said](https://www.lawfareblog.com/what-ben-franklin-really-said)

------
elihu
I wonder if this is a specific instance of a general principle, namely that
sarcasm is hard to identify in written form.

------
thaumasiotes
> For any mass audience to recognize any poem is (to put it mildly) unusual.

This isn't anywhere close to being true. Mass audiences routinely recognize
poems; we call the phenomenon "popular music".

~~~
strictfp
Except that if you investigate it turns out that most people don't actually
listen to the song texts to any meaningful degree.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Yet they can sing the whole thing verbatim? How does that work?

~~~
strictfp
Lexing vs parsing. ;)

------
stillsut
The problem boils down to the poem being taught in high school when the
average American teenager has yet to have made any independent choices, nor
have they ever really had to live with the consequences of some decision made
when they were a younger, different person.

Most middle class kids live a very scripted lives, but are constantly hammered
with the idea that soon they will be called upon to make their own decisions -
usually characterized by a binary to continue the scripted path - college,
corporate job, marriage in late twenties or thrities - or a second, riskier
outlet into 'there be dragons' land. In this context, it's not surprising that
the poem has become a concise stand-in and beautiful articulation of
contemporary middle class social consensus.

If I'm remembering this correctly, I came across this poem in the wake of a
solo startup disaster. And I instantly _got_ the second meaning without any
need for literary deconstruction or critical nudging. I vividly remembered the
excitement of the choice at the start. I now knew about how we tend to ponder
what might have been. And could list many "founder success stories" told ages
and ages hence of how I - I chose Angular2, and that has made all the
difference.

And that is genius of this poem, that it can (only?) be read differently by
those with a certain amount of lived experience. It hides its meaning in plain
sight and straight forward vocabulary (unlike Wasteland) and let's the reader
insert himself and his entire life into this tiny vignette.

------
8bitsrule
I find the lines:

\----

 _Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;_

\----

to be perfectly clear ... and suited to the 'common misreading'...

A poem is more or less ink spots on a piece of paper; it means what the reader
finds in its deliberate ambiguity ... not what some 'expert interpreter'
insists it means.

~~~
chmod775
To be fair, while ambiguity can be intended by the author, a poem usually has
a finite number of meanings intentionally written into it.

If those experts find meaning in a poem the author did not write into it, they
failed at their job.

If however a poem is found to mean something the author did not intend to say,
the author failed.

~~~
jacobush
Language is not static in time and space.

~~~
chmod775
It is your job as the reader/expert to interpret a poem based on the language
as it was spoken and understood in the time period the poem was written.

------
svat
I wrote a little answer about this poem on the Literature Stack Exchange a
year and a bit ago: [https://literature.stackexchange.com/questions/493/why-
does-...](https://literature.stackexchange.com/questions/493/why-does-robert-
frost-contradict-himself-in-the-road-not-taken/2036#2036) (See also the answer
there by ”Rand al'Thor” for useful historical background—referencing the
Guardian article mentioned in another comment here—and the succinct answer by
Mark Baker.)

There is an apparent contradiction in the poem (which is what the question
there was about), which disappears on a closer reading.

------
alexandercrohde
I came in to this pretty skeptical. I think being skeptical of things "experts
know" about art is absolutely reasonable (e.g. I still see no justification
for idolizing the Mona Lisa).

However, after reading the wikipedia article [1] it makes a pretty compelling
case that this poem is poking fun at the type of person who projects too much
meaning into "mistakes" from the past.

1 -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_Not_Taken](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_Not_Taken)

------
OliverJones
Brings to mind the Sex Pistols' cover of Sinatra's My Way.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKpsqgt2-9k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKpsqgt2-9k)

------
eruci
"Fire and Ice" is also quite misread and well recognized. Some say the world
will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I’ve tasted of desire I hold with
those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of
hate To say that for destruction ice Is also great And would suffice.

~~~
the_af
In what sense is "Fire and Ice" misread?

Does it not say "desire (fire) is the most powerful and potentially
destructive passion, but hate (ice) is not far behind?". Disclaimer: never
read any analysis about the poem, that's just my take.

~~~
bryanrasmussen
it is also somewhat ironically meant I think:

From what I’ve tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire

by saying he holds with those who favor fire, he says in fact that he favors
desire, which he has experienced in the past. He would like the world to end
in desire.

So he subtly changes the question from how do you think the world will end to
how do you want it to end. But then being Frost, and somewhat ambiguous, he
changes it back, deciding that hate will also suffice (to destroy the world).

I mean obviously it is just very playful.

------
matt4077
See also: "Good fences make good neighbours", which was (possibly/probably)
intended to be sarcastic.

------
lucas_membrane
It says that everyone understands what "White Christmas" is really about. They
don't.

------
ehecatl
Here's a thought... Americans can't live with ambiguity.

------
xellisx
And who misread the title as "The Most Misread Porn in America"?

------
HugoDaniel
I don't know this poem, the author and any of the other supposedly "best-known
modern poems and their authors".

Yet I can sing a few of the Vinicius de Moraes poems by heart.

~~~
Insanity
Yeah, though I recognize the sayings through 'pop culture' obviously. As it
goes "all generalizations are bad!". But I'm under the impressions that they
meant this is a poem known to all _American_ readers which could be possible
if it is required high school material.

Personally I'd have expected 'The Raven' by Poe to be more well known, but
that might just be my bubble. :)

------
russellbeattie
Pedantic, narrow-minded pinheads will always find a way to prove their
superiority with ridiculous crap like this. "You're doing it wrong" is classic
click-bait for a reason [1]. "You're using 'ironic' incorrectly! Oxford commas
is the only correct punctuation! Everyone should use Tau instead of Pi!" Yada,
yada, yada.

The sentiment of this poem is expressed extremely clearly, _which is why it 's
so popular_. We're not all idiots, illiterate or suckers. The last stanza
clarifies and reinforces the rest of the poem. Any alternative interpretations
of this poem are from 'smarter-than-thou' morons who want to show off how they
are more educated and intelligent than you.

1\.
[https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/09/every...](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/09/everything-
youre-doing-it-wrong/380160/)

~~~
isoskeles
I appreciate your cynical anti-cynicism, but most people probably do
misinterpret the poem. And they don't have to be idiots either.

Also, the last stanza, and specifically the last line states the opposite of
the meaning. It does not "clarify" it. " _And that has made all the
difference._ " In actuality, there was no difference. So it's not clear,
especially not if someone isn't paying attention to what they read. A lot of
people don't pay attention to this sort of stuff, and again, it doesn't mean
they're idiots or they did something wrong. I didn't get it the first couple
of times I came across this poem.

But go on, anyone who tries to explain something commonly misunderstood is
some kind of a jerk or whatever.

~~~
colomon
It's not exactly the opposite of the meaning... it's more that the last three
lines are framed as how he will one day describe the choice he just made, even
though he has already described that choice in a way that makes clear his
future description is going to be largely BS.

