The Road Not Taken

The poem uses its carefully-patterned, very conventional form ironically, reflecting Frost’s position as part of both the 19th and 20th centuries.

Although the poem’s argument is tricky and relies on a distinctly modern sense of subtle irony, the poem itself reflects Frost’s faith in the integrity of inherited poetic form. The poem consists of four tidy, carefully structured quintains, that is stanzas with five lines. The rhyme scheme is reassuringly there, undergirding the work. The rhyming does not insist on itself—ABAAB—does not take over the poem in some distracting singsong-y way. But it is there.

The poem’s tight form lends itself, ironically, to the conversational tone of the poem. The poem does not read like a tightly structured poem because the rhyming scheme is quieter, underscoring the tightly metered, tightly rhymed poem. It reads more like a prose narrative. The form invites rather than intimidates, relaxing into an immediacy as if asking the reader to share that pivotal moment in the woods. Each formed stanza reflects the tidy steps of the hiker’s decision-making process, moving from the presentation of the choice (Stanza 1) to the consideration of the paths (Stanza 2) to the choice (Stanza 3) and closing with the implications of the choice (Stanza 4).