The version of this poem used to create this study guide appears in: Ramazani, Jahan, et al., editors. The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry. W&W Norton & Company, Inc., 2003.

Note that parenthetical citations within the guide refer to the lines of the poem from which the quotations are taken.

"The Road Not Taken" is a 20-line iambic pentameter poem written by American poet Robert Frost. It was originally published in The Atlantic Monthly in August 1915, and was included the following year as the first poem in a collection of poetry by Frost entitled Mountain Interval. Disputes about the inspiration behind the poem add to the ambiguity around its interpretation, as some believe it was written to mock Frost's friend Edward Thomas, who was plagued with indecision on their frequent walks, while others cite Frost's personal writings and the reverence he had for nature and the concept of a personal journey. As such, "The Road Not Taken" has remained a popular poem for study due to its ability to generate wildly different, and often contradictory, interpretations.

The poem begins with the speaker, an unnamed "I," reflecting on a walk in which he had to choose between two paths. After staring at one for a long time, he chooses the other, noting that it seemed less worn than the first. However, the speaker continues to express doubt over whether this assumption was correct, acknowledging that both looked quite similar. He admits that, though he planned to save the untrodden path for another time, he doubts whether he'll ever return to that exact spot. This musing prompts him to project into the future and imagine that he is reflecting on this decision many years later. In this vision, he imagines he had taken the path that fewer people had chosen, and that the choice to do so had made a difference in his life that followed.