1. ROBERT FROST
Masterpieces:
The Road Not Taken
Fire and Ice
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

2. BIOGRAPHY
 Born in San Francisco in 1874, he
returned with his family to New
England.
 After briefly attending Dartmouth
and Harvard colleges and working as a
journalist and a schoolteacher, he
purchased a farm in New Hampshire,
where he started his career as a poet.

3. BIOGRAPHY
 Frost wrote about the natural
world, and also about his struggle
to raise a family in depression
times.
 In 1912, he took his family to
England, where he published A
Boy’s Will (1913), North of
Boston. He got famous in Europe.

4. BIOGRAPHY
 He was familiar with the ideas  We find in Frost’s poems some of
of William James and other Thoreau’s love of isolation,
Hawthorne’s dark vision, Longfellow’s
modern psychologists, but also he
traditional craftsmanship, Dickinson’s
was equally familiar with the works
dry humor, and Robinson’s realistic
of William Cullen Bryant, Ralph
characterization.
Waldo Emerson, and other 19th
 He speaks in a common speech,
century masters, coupled with a unaffected, a modern Plain Style.
modern sense of irony.

5. POEM ANALISYS

6. THE ROAD NOT TAKEN
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
1. What diverged in the yellow
And sorry I could not travel both wood?
And be one traveler, long I stood a) Two rivers.
b) Two roads
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth; 5
2. About what was the speaker
sorry in the first stanza?
a) For not taking both roads.
b) For being in the wood.

7. THE ROAD NOT TAKEN
Then took the other, as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim, 3. According to line 7, why did the
second road had better claim?
Because it was grassy and wanted wear; a) Because it was secure.
Though as for that, the passing there b) Because no one had passed
by it.
Had worn them really about the same, 10

8. THE ROAD NOT TAKEN
And both that morning equally lay
4. For what did the speaker
In leaves no step had trodden black. “keep” the first road?
Oh, I kept the first for another day! a) For another opportunity.
b) For nothing.
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back. 15

9. THE ROAD NOT TAKEN
I shall be telling this with a sigh 5. How does the speaker think he
will be telling the story “ages and
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
ages hence”?
Two roads diverged in a wood and I— a) With a sigh.
b) With tears in his eyes.
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. 20
6. What has “made all the
difference”?
a) Taking the most travelled by.
b) Taking the less travelled by.

10. THE ROAD NOT TAKEN
 Interpreting:
• What might the roads represent?
The choices we have to take in the different stages of our lives.
• Does the speaker think he made the wrong choice? Why or why
not?
At the moment he doesn’t think like that, but he knows that in the
future he will regret not having taken the other choice, or at least,
imaging how things would be if he had taken the other opportunity .

11. FIRE AND ICE
1. What are the two things “some
Some say the world will end in fire,
say” the world will end in,
Some say in ice. according to the speaker?
From what I’ve tasted of desire a. Wind and fire
I hold with those who favor fire. b. Fire and Ice
But if it had to perish twice, 5
I think I know enough of hate 2. What emotion does the poet
To say that for destruction ice suggest that the two emotions
Is also great have in common?
a) Fire/ pain – ice/indifference
And would suffice. 9
b) Fire/desire – Ice/hate

12. FIRE AND ICE
 Interpreting:
• What does the poem suggest that the two emotions have in
common?
The poem suggests that both desire and hate are strong emotions that
could bring destruction, sadness, devastation to the world.
• What other kinds of destruction besides destruction of the world
might the poem be about?
Destruction of human lives, destruction of human relationship within
others, destruction of the nature.

13. STOPPING BY WOODS ON A
SNOWY EVENING
Whose woods these are I think I know.
He gives his harness bells a shake
His house is in the village, though; To ask if there is some mistake. 10
He will not see me stopping here The only other sounds the sweep
To watch his woods fill up with snow. Of easy wind and downy flake.
My little horse must think it queer 5 The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
To stop without a farmhouse near But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep, 15
Between the woods and frozen lake
And miles to go before I sleep.
The darkest evening of the year.

14. STOPPING BY WOODS ON A
SNOWY EVENING
 Interpreting:
• What causes the speaker to stop?
The panorama of the woods fill up with snow
• What do the owner and the horse have in common?
Both the owner and the horse think that taking a time for observing
and admiring the nature is rare.
• How do they differ from the speaker?
The speaker gets fascinated with the panorama, while the others think
it is quite normal.

15. STOPPING BY WOODS ON A
SNOWY EVENING
• Why does the speaker leave the woods?
Because he has to keep his way. He cannot stay all the time there
since life goes on.
• Does he regret leaving?
No, because he knows he has “promises to keep”, important things
to do.
• What might sleep mean?
It might mean the death, while the “miles to go” is the journey of
life.