Ashim D'Silva wrote on 10/12/18 8:45 AM October 12, 2018:
It’s well summarised in the oft misrepresented Frost poem:
I often hear the claim that the poem is misrepresented, but I don't know
how people who actually read the poem can misinterpret it. Or even that
poetry can be misinterpreted. There's a lot there, under the hood. The
reader brings their own knowledge and experience to bear, and so
interpretations multiply.
The poem twists and turns back on itself, now saying one thing and then,
in the next breath, saying the opposite. Catch it from one angle, it
seems to say one thing. Shift your perspective, and it says something else.
"I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference"
is the punch line, surely, and therefore the bit to quote to invoke the
rest of the poem, and to prompt people to go and read it again.
The roads are pretty much of a muchness, covering much the same
territory, and with pretty much equal traffic. It's a nothing choice,
but it's the only choice the traveler can make, and so it makes all the
difference.
A lot of choices are like that, and we are constrained to make just one.
The process that Frost describes is universal and familiar, and I am
often left wondering whether the man was a genius or a just a hack
clever enough to repackage our truisms for us. (Which might be the mark
of his genius.)
I think the big reveal in the last stanza is the repeated "I." Like he
started to end the poem one way, changed his mind, and then decided to
finish with a flourish.
Frost was a populist poet. He knew what the public wanted, and he tended
to give it to them. Wherever his poems venture, he knew he had to tuck
his readers in for the night in the last stanza.
The couplet is a hard habit to break.
I've been re-reading Shakespeare's sonnets. Between bouts of savoring
the man's way with words, I am struck how every single one of
Shakespeare's sonnets is about his implacable enemy, Time.
I studied haiku for some years, and have some appreciation for how
deeply wabi and sabi are ingrained in the art form. It gave me a start
to recognize these deeply Zen principles in Shakespeare.
I have been wondering whether you can actually write poetry without
invoking them. You capture the moment, and the images, but they are
gone. Any good poem makes the reader feel that loss.
*I shall be telling this with a sigh*
*Somewhere ages and ages hence:*
*Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—*
*I took the one less traveled by,*
*And that has made all the difference.*
The first line is generally omitted, practically reversing the meaning of
the poem and proving his point.
What does that sigh mean to you? Is he wistful that he no longer has
that moment of choice and freedom, that he had to close down all the
possibilities of the road not taken by choosing the other? Do you think
he thinks he made the wrong choice? Is it a sigh of acceptance or smug
satisfaction?
And what do you see as his point? It seems to me that he has many, and
that he is a skillful-enough juggler of words to keep them all in the
air at the same time.
I do additionally object to devaluing an artistic work because it is done
for money. The story of the artist depressed and in poverty has so consumed
our collective psyche we expect artist to not be paid for their time. We
see this in the piracy of movies and music or in the promise of working for
“exposure”.
There's also a sense in which this can be seen as elitist, in that only
those who are independently wealthy can have true artistic freedom.
Beyonce' and Taylor Swift can be true artists, but the graphic designers
who create the small artistic details of our daily lives are just wage
slaves.
The current art world is its own awful mix of capitalism gone mad and
exclusionary barriers of entry and so I can’t defend its excesses either. I
guess I have to remain stuck in the middle and confused. It doesn’t help
that Banksy recently both sold a piece at a record price, and then
destroyed it before the sale leading to the question of whether the
destroyed piece is worth more or less now!
It shredded itself right after the sale was final, as it was unhooked
from the wall. It was a piece of performance art built into the art
piece itself. An element of surprise to jolt all the jaded art palates
who attend that sort of rarefied auction.
Now they have the fun of arguing about it at parties.
--hmm
