Anapest starts with two unstressed syllables followed by one stressed syllable. Trochee is the opposite, beginning with a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable. Iambic consists of an unstressed syllable followed by a stress syllable. Meter in English poems is usually one of five types - Iambic, Trochee, Spondee, Anapest, or Dactyl. To where/ it bent /in the un/dergrowth (B)įrost is quoted as saying, “There are only two meters “strict and loose iambic.” In the lines of this poem, we see what he means by loose iambic meter.” Two roads/ diverged/ in a yel/ low wood, (A)Īnd sor/ ry I /could not tra/ vel both (B)Īnd looked/ down one/ as far /as I could (A) If the first stanza of Frost’s poem were broken up into units or feet, it would look like this. (Feet or units in poetry contain stressed and unstressed syllables, as in the iambic da-Dum.) In “The Road Not Taken,” the four stanzas are five lines long with a rhyming scheme of ABAAB.Īnd looked down one as far as I could (A)Įach line, if Frost kept to the common iambic pentameter, would be five “feet” long however, Frost writes this poem with four “feet” or tetrameter. The rhythm and meter in “The Road Not Taken” is a demonstration of Frost’s ability to break with tradition, leaving behind a lasting legacy.
Robert Frost was a New Englander, a farmer, a lecturer and a poet with a use for metaphor and a mastery of form that propelled him into fame in spite of his eccentric ways. Even his final resting place, with the statement, “I had a lover’s quarrel with the world,” is a testament to Frost’s irascible manner. Often at odds with family, friends and neighbors, Frost was known to be cranky and egocentric, something that readers see in his poems. The life of Robert Frost is a study of a man who didn’t follow the pack he lived life in his own way.
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