Interpretation
of Poems:
Locating a Poem’s
meaning-
A poem’s meaning can
be easy to find if you
look at the poet’s:
Word choice
Use of imagery
symbolism
Word Choice:
• How and where the words are
written in the poem.
• What do the words suggest (positive,
negative, both).
• Helps to determine the author’s
tone/mood of the topic.
• Provide clues for the theme or lesson
to be learned from the poem.
Imagery:
• Sight
• Sound
• Taste
• Touch
• Smell
• Helps you to visualize mentally what
the poem is about
• Focuses on everyday experiences and
background knowledge to help you in
determining the meaning.
Symbolism:
• Represents something else
• Poem’s have hidden meanings
• Look at the information written in the
poem to see if any of the objects can or
do suggest another meaning.
Word choice, imagery,
and symbolism all aid
in evaluating the
purpose of the author
in writing the poem.
The Road Not Taken
by Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow
wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I
could
To where it bent in the
undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as
fair,
And perhaps having the better
claim,
Because it was grassy and
wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing
there
Had worn them really about the
same,
And both that morning equally
lay
In leaves no step had trodden
black.
Oh, I kept the first for another
day!
Yet, knowing how way leads on
to way,
I doubted if I should ever come
back.
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.
Imagery:
• Yellow wood
• Grassy
• Morning
• Leaves
• Step
• Black
• Sigh
• Two roads
Word Choice
• Sorry
• Long I stood
• Took the other-just as fair
• Better claim
• Wanted wear
• Passing-about same
• Kept the first
• Doubted
• Telling-sigh
• Less traveled by
• Made all the difference
Symbolism
• Two roads
• Choices-easy road or more
challenging road
• Took harder
• Made that person a better person
• Was his own individual
Other
• Metaphor-roads-life-choices
• Easy-hard
• Right-wrong
• Good-bad
• Individual-follower of others
Interpretation:
“The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost
shows how a person always has a
choice. He used the two roads in a
wooden area to aid him in his hidden
meaning of the poem. When looking at
where the two roads lead, the speaker
decided to make his own path and not
follow what others before him had
done. Although it was a more difficult
path, the speaker ended up making the
right decision for him. He chose what
he wanted in life and not what was
maybe expected of him or anyone else.