English 207: Advanced Semantics

Francis B. Tatel Dr. Rosalina Bumatay-Cruz

MA English: Language May 26, 2017
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The Danger of Conceptual Metaphor:

A Cognitive Poetics Approach to Analysis of The Road Not Taken

Introduction and Rationale of the Study

There exists probably no American poem so frequently quoted yet so widely

misinterpreted as Robert Frosts The Road Not Taken (1916). Almost without fail,

readers miss the meaning of the poem by miles, seeing it as a rosy testament to the

speakers faith in free will and an inspiring call to defy convention and take the road

less traveled by. But close reading reveals that the poem actually is laden with the

ironic resignation for which Frost was renowned.

The point most overlooked in the poem is the utter arbitrariness of the speakers

decision about which road to take. In describing his choice between the two paths, he

emphasizes repeatedly that they are essentially identical. One path looks as just as

fair as the other, and despite the speakers desire to differentiate them, he

acknowledges that the passing there/ Had worn them really about the same. On a

whim, he chooses one over the other.

Frost recognizes the human tendency to self-aggrandize, to sugarcoat the

uncertainty of life, to take comfort in viewing life as a series of conscious, knowable

choices between good and bad alternatives. But his ultimate point is that in reality, we

have no way of knowing which path in life is best, and our decisions are just as often

random, uneducated guesses (Kidder & Oppenheim 184).

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 When I have read these paragraphs from the book The Intellectual Devotional, I was

so surprised. I never thought that a literary phenomenon like this exists. It means I also

have missed the ultimate theme of the poem. But how did it happen? Why is it that most

readers miss the whole point of this very famous and very frequently quoted poem?

Tyson claimed that Robert Frosts The Road Not Taken (1916) has become an

icon of the value of nonconformity because of these lines: I took the one less traveled

by, / And that has made all the difference (279). However, he argued that if this

assumed ideological reading will be put to the test of deconstruction, it will be noticed

that that more textual evidence seems to undermine rather than support the ideology of

nonconformity (Tyson ibid).

Being fully aware that most readers misinterpreted The Road Not Taken, Frost

in one of his famous lectures, warned his audience, You have to careful of that one. Its

a tricky poem, very tricky (Kidder & Oppenheim 184). However, Little considered it

considered both intriguing and tantalizing that the poem is tricky for it implies that

any obvious interpretations of the poem means failing to fully comprehend its meaning.

Other critics, on the contrary, think that perhaps Frost just wanted readers to believe that

The Road Not Taken was tricky or unusually complex, but actually it is not (Little

135-6). Some writers enjoy being misleading when they discuss their work, and even if

they mean to oer an accurate, truthful answer, what they meant a poem to do is not

necessarily what it actually accomplishes in its final form (Little ibid).

Frosts poems appear simple but they suggest a deeper meaning (VanSpanckeren

65). This simplicity of [his] work can lead some readers to adopt simplistic readings of

his poems (Dickstein 24). And it takes a careful perusal to realize that they are often

layered with irony, [which] many casual readers overlook (Rango 44). The Road Not

Taken is among Frosts best, most fascinating, and most complicated of his poems

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(Fagan 295). Moreover, it has become the poets most anthologized poem (Richardson

301). However, it is an epic work in its ambiguity and seeming simplicity (Fagan 295)

that is why it is one of Frosts most misread and misinterpreted poems (Little 132).

Consequently, Jerey Meyers calls the poem mildly satiric (140), while others have

considered it a slightly mocking parody (George 230 qtd. in Little 139).

This study deals with the factors, stylistic and cognitive alike, that cause the

misinterpretation of the poem. Hence, this study will contribute to the long-standing

debate on the true theme of the poem. Moreover, it will help in the propagation of the

fact that there is something more in the poem than meets the eyes and the true message

of the poem as explained by some critics and supported by careful investigation of

supporting details from myriad sources. Finally, this study will help teachers and

students of literary studies in understanding Robert Frost as a poet and a man and his

unique literary style. Of all the major twentieth-century American poets, Robert Frost

remains the most well-known, the most public, and the least understood. While Frosts

intellectual and artistic credentials need no defending, his work, compared to that of his

generational peers, is still the least explored (Wilcox and Barron 1).

Theoretical Framework

This study employed the Cognitive Poetics approach in general and the

Conceptual Metaphor Theory in particular.

Cognitive Poetics

Cognitive poetics links the processes of language in literary text construction and

interpretation to the processes of language in the workings of the human mind.

Cognitive Poetics developed over the past twenty years or so from several different

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strands. Reuven Tsur (1983) was the first to use the term to describe his theoretical and

methodological approach to poetry, drawing from studies in psychology, neuro-

anatomy, and literary criticism. Another strand developed almost a decade later in

Tabakowskas (1993) work in applying Langackers (1987, 1991) studies in cognitive

grammar to poetic translation. Meanwhile, Lakoff and Johnsons (1980) work in

conceptual metaphor theory led to Lakoff and Turners (1989) More than Cool Reason:

A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor, from which another strand more closely linked to

metaphor theory developed. This strand broadened into further studies as a result of

Fauconnier and Turners (1994, 2002) work in conceptual integration theory, or

blending, as it is more commonly known. Yet another strand emerged from a more

general interest in the relation of cognition as reflected in the multidisciplinary

approaches of cognitive science to literary studies. Meanwhile, work in cognitive

narratology (Emmott 1997; Fludernik 1993), text-world theory (Werth 1999; Gavins

2005), and cognitive stylistics (Semino and Culpeper 2002) expanded the role of

cognitive poetics to include other theoretical perspectives and all literary texts.

As a result of these different strands, cognitive poetics embraces a broad array of

theoretical and methodological approaches. Tsur (1992) defines cognitive poetics as an

exploration of how cognitive processes shape and constrain literary response and poetic

structure. Cognitive poetics therefore combines the detailed analysis of linguistic

choices and patterns in texts with a systematic consideration of the mental processes and

representations that are involved in the process of interpretation. Within cognitive

poetics, literary reading is assumed to involve the same mental processes and

representations that are involved in comprehension generally. However, special attention

is paid to linguistic creativity and its interpretation, since creativity is a central part of

the literary experience (even though it is not an exclusively literary phenomenon).

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 More broadly, Ellen Spolsky defines cognitive poetics as an anti-idealist, anti-

platonist enterprise that entails the following assumptions: 1) the embodiment of the

mind-brain constrains what humans can do; 2) human works, including works of art, are

attempts to push the boundaries of what can be controlled, known, understood; 3) any

study of cognitive issues in a specific work of art must be historically grounded. Thus,

cognitive poetics includes not just interpretation from the readers perspective, but

creativity and cultural-historical knowledge of the writer too. At its best, cognitive

poetics is Janus-faced: looking both toward the text and toward the mind. In so doing, it

offers the possibilities of developing both a true theory of literature and contributing to a

theory of mind.

Conceptual Metaphor Theory

The particular approach this study applied is the Conceptual Metaphor Theory.

This is a cognitive linguistic theory of metaphor and metonymy. It was first developed

by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson in their 1980 book Metaphors We Live By.

Conceptual Metaphor Theory holds that instead of being just a feature of literary

language, metaphor is an important cognitive tool, used to provide structure for the

conceptualization of more abstract notions via more concrete ones. Consequently,

metaphorical expressions in language are seen as reflections of underlying conceptual

metaphors.

Conceptual metaphors take the form of mappings between source and target

domains. According to Conceptual Metaphor Theory, source concepts are typically more

concrete or physical, while the targets are more abstract and lack sensory content. The

mappings from the source concepts are therefore argued to provide structure for

conceptualizing and talking about the target concepts. The mappings are assumed to be

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unidirectional and importantly, not arbitrary, but rather motivated by and grounded in

physical and cultural experiences (Nrgaard, Montoro and Busse 60-61).

Review of Related Literature

The researcher found some scholarly articles and studies related to the present

study. One piece of literature related to this study is an essay entitled Linguistic

Approaches to Literary Studies: State of the Art in Cognitive Poetics by Margaret H.

Freeman, which is found in the book The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics,

edited by Dirk Geeraerts and Hubert Cuyckens and was published in 2007. The chapter

surveys recent work in applying cognitive linguistic approaches to literature. Freeman

argues that linguistics contributes scientific explanations for the findings of literary

critics and thus provides a means whereby their knowledge and insights might be

seen in the context of a unified theory of human cognition and language. In the section

Metaphor and Blending in Literary Texts she informs the reader the explosion of

metaphor studies at the end of the last century has led to fresh ways of conceiving the

tropes and to the emergence of coherent views of metaphor and metonymy that are still

very much under development.

A related study conducted by the same author, Margaret H. Freeman entitled

The Fall of the Wall between Literary Studies and Linguistics: Cognitive Poetics,

explores how cognitive poetics may serve as a link between literary studies and

linguistics. According to the study, cognitive poetics studies the cognitive processes that

constrain literary response and poetic structure, which provides a theoretical cognitive

basis for literary intuition. Simultaneously, cognitive poetics augments our

understanding of the embodied mind by studying the iconic functions that create

literature as the semblance of felt life. Using a combination of theories this study

showed how Robert Frost manipulates the fictive and factive planes in his poem,

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Mending Wall, to create a poetic iconicity of feeling that leads literary critics to their

various interpretations of the poem.

Stylistic Analysis of Robert Frosts Poem: The Road Not Taken by Batool et al. is

another study related to the present one. This study analyzed Robert Frosts poem The

Road Not Taken from the viewpoint of stylistic analysis. The analysis covers the

different aspects such as the lexicosyntactic patterns and choices, semantically,

grammatically, graphological and phonological patterns. This research is helpful to

analyze the structure and style of Robert Frosts poetry. This study found out that the

author conveyed his message, themes, views and handling of conflict forcefully by using

different stylistic devices.

Another study that is related to the present study is Ankit Tyagis An Analysis of

Robert Frosts Poem: The Road Not Taken. It was found out in this study that Frost

displays a greater variety of shades and textures in his perception of nature and that his

method is economical and his tone is much less impassioned. Moreover, the study found

out that the poet often feels a close kinship with nature verging on warm friendliness.

Finally, the study claims that Frost is conscious of the tensions not only between man

and nature, but also between natural objects themselves, tensions which constitute the

very process of nature.

History and Context of The Road Not Taken

The Road Not Taken, which was first published in the August 1915 issue of the

Atlantic Monthly, is the opening poem of Frosts third book, Mountain Interval (Fagan

293). While staying in Gloucestershire, England, Frost wrote a segment of The Road

Not Taken (Fagan 293). The urge to ridicule his friend Edward Tomas, he admitted,

was the motivation in writing the poem (Little 135). The friends would go for walks, and

Tomas had a penchant for choosing one path to show Frost some botanical delight and

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then fretting over the fact that he had not chosen another, perhaps better path (Bassett

42 qtd in Little 138). Then one day, after one of these habitual walks, according to

biographer Lawrance Thompson, Frost told his friend, No matter which road you take,

youll always sigh, and wish youd taken another (qtd. in Thompson 88 in Fagan 293-

294). So when Frost finished writing the poem and showed it to his friend, he warned

him to be very careful in interpreting it because it is a tricky poem very tricky

(Finger 478 qtd. in Little 135). This could be construed as prophetic warning to future

readers who would most probably misinterpret the poem.

The Title and the First Stanza of the Poem

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;

As most readers and critics overlook, the title of this particular poem could refer

to the road that, prior to the personas taking it, had not been taken by most travelers

(Faggen 142; Fagan 294). At the same time, the title could also be about the road that

the speaker did not select, rather than the one he did, if the sigh at the end of the poem is

one of regret or weariness (Fagan ibid.).

It has always been recognized that metaphor, metonymy, and other figurative

linguistic devices of classical rhetoric are essential elements of literary works (Freeman,

1182). Metaphors are often used in a way that can be understood as either literal or

metaphorical, or both at once (Ritchie 18). And The Road Not Taken is one such

poem recognized as full of metaphors.

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 The Road Not Taken commences with the line Two roads diverged in a

yellow wood. This tells the reader that the persona is out for an autumn walk and is

confronted with two paths. Unfortunately, he cannot take both, so he tries to look down

one as far as he can to where it ben[ds] in the undergrowth, hoping to determine which

road might be better to take (Fagan 294). The very first phrase, two roads diverged,

suggests the notion of travel while yellow wood relates to the notion of life since

seasons of the year are commonly used in poetry to refer to periods in a persons life,

moving from the spring of youth to the winter of old age (Little 139). In Frosts poetry,

the time of year is always essential. Just as the season indicates the stage of the

speakers life, the road is easily interpreted as a metaphor for ones movement through

life (Little ibid.).

This particular reading of the first stanza automatically evokes the conceptual

metaphor life is a journey. This is because of the cognitive phenomenon that is

technically mapping. Mapping, a technical term borrowed from mathematics that

refers to systematic metaphorical correspondences between closely related ideas

(Grady 190) is the most fundamental notion of conceptual metaphor theory (CMT). In

the Neural Theory of Language by Lakoff, which is a specific neural version of CMT,

mapping is understood as neural circuits connecting representations of source and target

conceptscircuits which are automatically established when a perceptual and a

nonperceptual concept are repeatedly co-activated (Grady 194).

According to Grady, certain conceptual pairings tend to recur and to motivate a

great percentage of the actual metaphorical language we encounter and one of these is

Life is a journey (197). In the Conceptual Metaphor Theory system, the man who is

traveling is said to map or be mapped (or projected) onto a person going through the

course of life, and other elements of the conceptual domain of paths and destination (the

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source domain) are likewise mapped onto elements of the conceptual domain of life

and objectives (Lakoff and Johnson/Turner 1989). The source domain of a metaphor

(here, traveler and journey) supplies the language and imagery which are used to refer

to the domain which is actually at issue in the discourse (in this case life and decision-

making).

Moreover, metaphorical mappings do not occur isolated from one another

(Lakoff 208). Life is a journey is one conventional metaphorical pattern that involves

multiple correspondences between source and target domains, such as difficulties are

obstacles, objectives are destinations, crossroads are choices to be made, and others.

Hence, once the reader has accessed this primary metaphor, all kinds of elaboration

become possible in his mind. And since the concept journey is a fairly structured one,

it provides an enormous number of elements potentially mappable upon the implicative

complex, or domain, of life (Forceville 23).

Therefore the lines And looked down one as far as I could/ To where it bent in

the undergrowth in turn will evince the domain of vision, and thus activate in the

schema of the reader the conceptual metaphor that knowing is seeing. This entails the

fact that the persona cannot decide which way to take. Since the life is a journey

metaphor specifies that crossroads are choices to be made (Sjblad 27), the reader will

interpret this as some kind of confusion on the speaker.

This metaphorical reading is facilitated in the mind of the reader because

movements through space that are associated with many ordinary activities, motion or

stillness, journey, and path or road provide the basis for many conceptual metaphors

(Ritchie 74). According to Zenkin, Hellsten, and Nerlich, at the core of much of human

cognition are highly schematic metaphorical mappings that are motivated by the

experience of correlations between sensorimotor functioning and subjective judgment.

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(364). In fact, Srini Narayanan, one of the analysts working within the Neural Theory of

Language project at the University of California at Berkeley, has developed a model

where source domain knowledge is represented as networks of x-schemas, which

represent cognitive models of bodily activities such as walking. These hypothesized

schemas are understood as guiding bodily action, but also triggering mental simulations

when the relevant concepts are evoked. The model assumes that physical domains

involving such activities as walking are much more richly represented in the mind than

more abstract domains (Grady 202). Since knowledge of moving around or

manipulating objects is essential for survival, it has to be highly compiled and readily

accessible knowledge (Narayanan 121 qtd in Grady 202).

Lakoff and Turner point out that we are able to comprehend many passages in

poetry because of the existence of conceptual metaphors in our cognition (22). All

[processes of interpreting the poem] uses the system of conventional metaphor, ordinary

knowledge structure evoked by the conventional meaning of the sentence, and

metaphorical inferences based on that knowledge structure (Lakoff 224).

Second and Third Stanzas

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps 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

In the second stanza, the persona decides to take the other road, which is

described as just as fair and as grassy and wanting wear. He imagines this other

road might have the better claim on him, as it has not been often traveled (Fagan

294).

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 The first contradiction of this seemingly simple poem occurs in the second half

of this stanza, when the persona reveals that Though as for that the passing there / Had

worn them really about the same. In other words the two roads are not really worn

differently, as the persona first suggests; rather, they have both been traveled (or not),

and the grass of both has either been beaten down or untouched. Moreover it is not

clarified by the persona just how worn the roads are.

However, the persona gives a hint in the third stanza. He reveals that the two

roads both that morning equally lay / In leaves no step had trodden black. At this

point, the first image of a grassy path is juxtaposed with a path of fresh leaves that has

not yet been blackened by steps. That each path earlier that day equally lay suggests

that the paths themselves have always been equal, with neither more worn than the

other. That morning neither path had been traveled, making the chronology of the poem

somehow miss a step. If they were both untouched that morning, then there is a hint that

at least one is no longer untouched. Frost verifies this at the end of the poem.

So the persona decides that he will keep one road for another day, but knowing

how way leads on to way, he is aware that his decision will lead to another and another

and that he will never be given the opportunity to make the same decision again.

Because of this awareness, he doubts that he will ever come back. And he foresess

that one day in the future he will share his experience with other people with a sigh.

(Fagan 294).

Due to this contradiction the Frost receives a condemnatory criticism from the

critic Yvor Winters in an article entitled Robert Frost: or, the Spiritual Drifter as Poet.

Winters criticizes Frost for not having perspective outside his poem. For Winters, the

poem is incomplete for not continuing to a richer epiphany or elucidation. The speaker is

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a spiritual drifter, someone who makes whimsical, accidental, and incomprehensible

moral decisions (Winter 61 qtd in Little 136). Winters acknowledges that such people

exist and that their lack of moral compass or guidance is fair subject for a poem. But the

poet cannot actually or fully assume the guise of a spiritual drifter because the poet

should be able to oer some perspective on the spiritual drifters limitations. Frost

cannot provide this perspective, which means his poem puts on the reader a burden of

critical intelligence which ought to be borne by the poet (Winter 61 qtd in Little 136).

It is in stanzas that the famous idiom to be at crossroads is encountered by thre

reader. In CMT, to be at a crossroads will activate the schema of the need to choose

between several mutually exclusive alternatives, which is its definition in the book

Metaphorically Speaking: A Dictionary of 3,800 Picturesque Idiomatic Expressions by

Renton (93, 219, 409, 424). Yet, if mapping is understood as neural circuits connecting

representations of source and target conceptscircuits which are automatically

established when a perceptual and a nonperceptual concept are repeatedly co-activated

(Grady 194), how did crossroads become associated with making choices in the first

place?

According to Trim, there are a number of variants for the concept of road or

crossroads. To take a diachronic example, the notion of a road, or crossroads, in the

Crusades sermons of the Middle Ages was chosen to designate the right or wrong

way for a choice of direction in life, according to whether potential recruits for the war

effort decided to take the cross or not (106). The right way (via recta) is the way

towards heaven and paradise that can be followed by joining the Crusades. The

right/wrong ways are symbolized by the cross of crucifixion with its arms pointing in

opposite directions. A potential Crusader therefore comes to a crossroads in his

decision-making (Trim 137).

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Final Stanza of the Poem

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

In the last stanza of the poem the persona foresees that he shall be telling his

experience with a sigh after a long time. He also reiterated that fact that two roads

diverged in a wood, and that he took the one less traveled by, and that choice has made

all the difference.

The personas prophetic idea of sighing is a source of ambiguities in this stanza.

The first ambiguity is the cause of the sigh. The sigh could be about the road that had

not been taken before he took it or over the road he did not take. According to Fagan,

this ambiguity is deliberate (294). There is even a third possibility that the sigh is not

about taking both roads or about which road was taken but about the limitation of

choosing just one road. The persona will always sigh that he cannot take both roads.

Another source of ambiguity is the meaning of the sigh. It could be a sigh of either

contentment or of regret (Little 132). Projecting future events, there is no way for the

persona to know. Thus, the authors use of the word sigh establishes the uncertainty of

interpretations.

Other confusing phrases in this stanza are road less traveled by and the

difference. According to Martin H. Manser in his book Allusions: Definitions and

Origins of More than 4,000 Allusions, the phrase the road less traveled means a path

that is different from that chosen by the majority of people (403). Again, which road is

being referred to as the road less traveled by is unclear. Echoing the ambiguity of the

title, the road less traveled by could mean the road that, prior to the personas taking

it, had not been taken by most travelers or the one that the speaker did not select.

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Moreover, Frosts choice of the word road must also be considered. Certainly a road

might be defined as a course or a path, but it is also most often thought of as a public

thoroughfare. That the author selected road over path seems to complicate even

further the reading of the poem. One imagines a road well-traveled, and a path seldom

traveled. Perhaps this is further support for reading the roads as having been equally

worn to all but the speaker (Fagan 295).

Finally, the speakers claim that the taking of the road less traveled has made all

the difference, is vague because either road could make all the difference. There are

no supporting details that imply that the mentioned resulting differences are

advantageous or disadvantageous to the persona (OBrien 84-5).

The last stanza of the poem is a source of perplexity for readers who interpret the

poem as a caution against the risks of conformity. Read in isolation, these verses can be

interpreted as the satisfied reflection of someone who is pleased to have taken a path

that most people did not pursue (Little 132). However, Stern argues that neither

syntactic nor semantic condition (like grammatical or semantic deviance) signals that

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I /I took the one less traveled by/ And that has

made all the dierence is a metaphor. He asserted that it is only the contextual

participants presuppositions and beliefs about the author/speakers intention (270). As

Freeman has observed literary metaphors often subvert conventional and stereotypical

cultural attitudes (1184).

Ideological and Non-ideological Reading of the Poem

Exploring the relations of a writers metaphorical perspective to his or her

culture also provides a means for explaining the extent of a writers popularity (Freeman

1184). In 1997, a year-long poll was conducted by the poet laureate Robert Pinsky to

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determine who Americas favorite poet was. With more than 18,000 votes cast, from

participants aged five to 97, Frost came out on top. The participants said that one of the

poems they liked to read was The Road Not Taken. However, it was proven in the poll

that the poems wide appeal is somehow attributable to its being most often

misinterpreted. When the respondents were asked what the poem might be about, typical

answers were taking a different road from that of the masses or being an individual

or finding ones own road in life. Although none of these answers would be altogether

incorrect, they all reduce the subtle complexities of the poem to platitudes (Fagan

293).

The poem moves from a story about a walk in autumn to a story about the

traveler himself. The human condition is that we can travel only one road at a time.

What makes all the difference in the end, we are left to ponder. And what difference it

makes (to us, to nature, to the universe), we are also left to wonder. Frost purposefully

leaves many of the questions raised by the poem unanswered. So, it looks like Frost

wanted his readers to analyze it a little more deeply, looking past the surface themes for

something more obscure but all the more rewarding (Little 137)

The Road Not Taken contains different key themes, such as the nature of

regret and choice.The idea of choice lies at the center of the poem. This view has been

noted by a number of critics, but what exactly does the poem have to say about choices?

The title of the poem asks us to think about the road that was not chosen. Thinking in

terms of general human indecision, the poem may be telling us simply to be satisfied

with our choices, whatever they are, since we know they are always based on imperfect

knowledge (Little 133).

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 Finally, several critics have grappled with the speakers apparent distortion or

misrepresentation of the nature of his choices: If the paths are the same (the speaker

looks long at one path but then chooses the other, as just as fair), why does the speaker

distinguish what are essentially the same paths at the end and say he took the one less

traveled (Little 133-134)? The speaker of the poem imagines growing old and looking

back over his life, reecting on the choices he has made and analyzing and discussing

them.

A standard reading of the poem finds in its last stanza a rousing embrace for

nonconformity. There is ample evidence in the poem that the two paths are similar.

Neither presents a clear choice in any regard, so many are annoyed with the idea that the

poem champions individualism. Many other readers still interpret the poem as a

nonconformists ode (Little 134). That meaning is provided by humans. It is not in the

road or some natural occurrence to deliver meaning; meaning is found through the

instrument of human consciousness (Fagan 100). However, when the poem is studied

carefully in its entirety such an instinctively anti-conformist reading bears less credence

(Little 132).

Although many readers suppose it, the poem is not just about individuality but

rather about an individuals choices and experiences. While the road is often read as the

focus of the poem, it is the speakers perspective that is at its center (Fagan 294).

Ultimately, the poem is not about outcomes; rather, as biographer Jerey Meyers puts it,

the poem is about the decision about which road to take (Little 141). By shifting the

focus to the process of deciding and not its intended or desired result, the poem is

opened to a wealth of interpretive analysis, once the foregone happy conclusion has been

qualified or questioned (Little 133).

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 Read in many ways, and more often misread than read with understanding, that

seldom-ignored poem in Frosts canon, The Road Not Taken, also documents the

willfulness that leads to misunderstandings of it and, more to our purposes, the origin of

the need to construct a proverblike saying to cover over an inability to understand ones

rationale for a decision. The speakers difficulty in locating a clear reason for choosing

between two indistinguishable alternatives (two roads that on inspection were actually

the same in terms of how many people traveled them) leads to the only predictable truth:

that he will construct a saying to cover up the haphazardness of whatever choice he

makes and eventually to calcify that choice into essential meaning: Two roads diverged

in a wood, and I / I took the one less traveled by, / And that has made all the

difference (103). The poem curiously compresses time: the narrator at once looks back

and, in the present time, projects what he, with all the sound of cultural wisdom because

of the formulaic, drumroll of ages and ages hence, will be saying in the future.

Frosts Unconventional Use of Conventional Metaphors

In the book Metaphors We Live By, Lakoff and Johnson (1980) identified the

structural schemas and extended metaphors that underlie some of the most basic ways

people conceptualize their life experiences. One of the most famous among these is the

journey metaphor, which has quite a lengthy history in cognitive linguistic research. The

two authors originally proposed in their influential book the conceptual metaphor love is

a journey (44). Later, Lakoff, together with Turner, subsequently proposed another yet

similar journey metaphorthe life is a journey metaphor. In these representations a

journey is taken as a prototype purposeful activity involving movement in physical

space from a starting point to an end point or destination. Finally, Lakoff singlehandedly

transformed the journey metaphor into Purposeful activity is travelling along a path

towards a destination. This appears to be preferable since the use of verb of motion

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highlights movement and the use of destination highlights goal-orientation (Charteris

Black 74).

Werth (1994: 80) has noted that the extended metaphors that Lakoff and Johnson

had identified can consist of an entire metaphorical undercurrent running through a

whole text, which may manifest itself in a large number and variety of single

metaphors. This metaphorical undercurrent brings structural unity to a literary text and

contributes to the emergence of a texts theme (Freeman 1183).

In the poem The Road Not Taken the extended metaphor, which brings

structural unity, is life is a journey. The other two supporting single metaphors are as

follows: 1) at a crossroads is making choices and 2) taking the road less traveled by is

making a decision that is different from the majority. Robert Frost presents an extended

metaphorical comparison (or even a mini-allegory) that only uses language from the

source domain of the journey, leaving the target domain of life entirely implicit (Steen

197).

But if The Road Not Taken is underpinned by these familiar and clear

metaphors, why is it that most readers misinterpret its message? George Lakoff, Mark

Turner, and Ray Gibbs have an explanation for this interesting literary phenomenon. The

three have pointed out, but independently, that poets have the habits of using some

strategies to make novel linguistic expressions and images from the conventional

materials of daily language and thought (Kovecses 47). One of these is extending. In

extending, a conventional conceptual metaphor associated with certain conventionalized

linguistic expressions is expressed by new linguistic means that is based on introducing

a new conceptual element in the source domain (Kovecses 47). Evidently, this is the

stylistic strategy employed by Robert Frost in writing The Road Not Taken. He made

use of the conventional metaphor life is a journey, but he expressed it in an untraditional

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way. In other words, the linguistic expressions from the journey domain that Frost used

have not been conventionalized for speakers of English; two roads diverged and I

took the [road] less traveled by are not linguistic expressions typically used in

talking about life in English (Kovecses 31). Probably, the elements of two roads, where

one may be more or less traveled than the other, leading to the same destination could

not be found in a dictionary or heard in daily conversation (Kovecses 31, 47). However,

Kovecses argued that although these creative metaphors appear to readers as

unconventional and novel, they nevertheless activate the conceptual metaphor life is a

journey (Kovecses ibid). It will be appropriate to state here Lakoff and Turners (1989)

two frequently quoted passages: Poetic thought uses the mechanisms of everyday

thought, but it extends them, elaborates them, and combines them in ways that go

beyond the ordinary (67 in Freeman 1185); Poetic language uses the same conceptual

and linguistic apparatus as ordinary language (158 in Freeman ibid.).

According to Goatly as cited by Picken, a reading of Robert Frost's The Road

Not Taken could be verbalized as a poem about someone choosing to go down one

road in the hope of coming back to the other, but never being able to do so (30).

However, although Frosts poem ostensibly appears to be about a person trying to make

the better decision in his life, a close analysis reveals a somewhat different purpose, as

several critics have noticed: the reality of arbitrariness of our choices in life due to the

inability to foresee their consequences (Freeman 407). So at the thematic level, an

interpreter might formulate a reading of the poem in terms of the limitations and

immutability of human choices (Goatly 280 in Picken 30).

CMT scholars have focused particular attention on patterns which become

entrenched in language and conceptualization, often as a result of recurring associations

in experience (Grady 197). This suggests that under the right contextual conditions we

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are primed to identify a metaphorical meaning for a sentence (Grady 197). We may

even be slower to recognize literal meanings in such cases (Grady 197). And this is what

happens when one reads The Road Not Taken. The fact that almost every reader

misinterprets The Road Not Taken is not surprising because it operates on one popular

primary metaphor, i. e. Life is a journey (Grady 204). Readers are primed to recognize

this primary metaphor while reading. Primary metaphors are patterns that have a high

likelihood of being found in any language, regardless of location, cultural affiliation, or

historical period (Grady 204). They are simple patterns, which map fundamental

perceptual concepts onto equally fundamental but not directly perceptual ones

(Grady192). And because primary metaphorical concepts are based on common

experiences linked to the physical conditions of life, they are likely to occur across many

cultures (Ritchie 75). Consequently given that humans everywhere share the basic

patterns of perception and experience that are reflected in primary metaphors, these

patterns ought to show up in languages around the world (Grady 194). Moreover, they

are sometimes organized in hierarchical structures, in which lower mappings in the

hierarchy inherit the structures of the higher mappings. In most culture, life is

assumed to be purposeful, i.e., we are expected to have goals in life. In the event

structure metaphor, purposes are destinations and purposeful action is self-propelled

motion toward a destination. A purposeful life is a long-term, purposeful activity, and

hence a journey. Goals in life are destinations on the journey. The actions one takes in

life are self-propelled movements, and the totality of ones actions form a path one

moves along. Choosing a means to achieve a goal is choosing a path to a destination.

Difficulties in life are impediments to motion. External events are large moving objects

that can impede motion toward ones life goals. Ones expected progress through life is

charted in terms of a life schedule, which is conceptualized as a virtual traveler that one

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is expected to keep up with. In short, the metaphor a purposeful life is a journey makes

use of all the structure of the event structure metaphor, since events in a life

conceptualized as purposeful are subcases of events in general (Lakoff 208). That is

why, within cognitive metaphor theory, it is widely agreed that metaphor is evaluative,

persuasive and therefore potentially ideological (Deignan358).

The Danger of Conceptual Metaphor

This investigation of the style and metaphorical language used by Robert Frost in

his poem The Road Not Taken unraveled the deep and hidden message of the poem.

Through the application of Conceptual Metaphor Theory, which is one of the

approaches under the general approach Cognitive Poetics, it has been found out that the

consensual construal of the poem and its theme is not that accurate. This is due to the

inadequate methodology employed by literary critics in the past. The advent of the

emergent field of Cognitive Linguistic has equipped literary analysts and critics with

more effective techniques in analyzing challenging literary pieces. This study

recommends utmost caution in interpreting metaphorical language in literary pieces.

Moreover, it is hoped that some modification in the discussion of this poem found in

typical literature textbooks be made as early as possible for the advancement and

refinement of the body of knowledge in American literature.

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Appendix A

THE ROAD NOT TAKEN

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And both that morning equally lay

And sorry I could not travel both In leaves no step had trodden black.

And be one traveler, long I stood Oh, I kept the first for another day!

And looked down one as far as I could Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

To where it bent in the undergrowth; I doubted if I should ever come back.

Then took the other, as just as fair, I shall be telling this with a sigh

And having perhaps the better claim, Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Two roads diverged in a wood, and I

Though as for that the passing there took the one less traveled by,

Had worn them really about the same, And that has made all the difference.

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