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The "Tricky" Poem: A Guide to Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken"

Notes on Form

By , About.com Guide



First, look at the Form of the poem: four stanzas of five lines each; all lines are capitalized, flush left, and of approximately the same length. The rhyme scheme is ABAAB. There are four beats per line, mostly iambic with interesting use of anapests.

The strict form makes it clear that the author is very concerned with form, with regularity. This formal style is totally Frost, who once said that writing free verse was “like playing tennis without a net.”

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