Frost’s voice in the first two lines of his 1956 reading is stern and ghost-like, as if it has become disembodied and has lost its capacity for emotion. The listener gleans quite a bit from Frost’s tone as he recites the poem’s first stanza, in which the choice of which road to take first presents itself. For instance, Frost’s 1956 reading frames those choices as arbitrary and restrictive to one’s future self, whereas Frost’s 1962 reading frames those choices as empowering and developmental of the self. That is, while the text of “The Road Not Taken” presents the poem as a reflection on how one’s seemingly minute, in-the-moment choices can powerfully shape one’s future, it is Frost’s oral reading of the poem that imbues it with the specific content of that reflection. Surprisingly, Frost’s differing tone, annunciation, and points of emphasis between the two readings reveal different ultimate meanings. Moreover, the readings were close enough in Frost’s life that he likely did not change his interpretation from one to the other. As a result, Frost had ample time to reflect and to refine his reading of the poem. The author chooses these two readings because they were both uttered toward the end of Frost’s life, decades after he wrote the poem. A striking example of this, which this essay will explore, comes from the different meanings one gleans from two of Robert Frost’s readings of his well-known poem, “The Road Not Taken.” Though Frost has performed over a dozen readings of this poem, this essay will discuss readings from 19, when Frost was 81 and 87 years old, respectively. This is particularly evident when one listens to the same statement or text read in different ways. Indeed, how one says something is just as, and in some cases more, important than what one says. ![]() ![]() Though these communicative elements are certainly important for written texts-as we can understand after considering that some novels and poems have inspired countless different strands of interpretation, depending on the backgrounds, experiences, and priorities of the different interpreters-they are much more so for spoken communication. ![]() As Jakobson’s model of communication acknowledges, messages also contain context and code, both of which go beyond the denotation of a message itself. In that same vein, though some linguists emphasize that any text or statement contains a “denotation,” or literal meaning, which comes from the definitions of its words, and many parents tout the importance of “saying what you mean and meaning what you say,” this literal meaning of one’s words is but a small part of how we communicate. Similarly, it is rather easy to mistakenly perceive as ironic those messages that are meant literally, such as by understanding an exclamation of “Oh, joy!” to indicate that its declarant is bored. It is a common occurrence in modern life to receive a sarcastic message from a friend and to misinterpret it, perhaps by taking the message seriously and feeling bristled as a result.
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