“naïve” reading of, 79–80

paradox in, 17, 79, 90–91

parodic reading of, 70, 79, 80–82

and the poet, 154

popularity of, 4–8, 95

potential interpretations of, 76–86, 97

redundancy/repetition in, 74–76, 143, 145

road as unreliable and misunderstood, 96

“roads” analyzed as word, 72–74, 78, 97

roads as similar choices in, 76–78, 82

roads with consequences in, 92

sense of movement in, 72

“sigh” analyzed as word, 82–85, 92, 95, 117

speaker’s perception in, 82, 86

successful ending of, 98

as thaumatrope, 71–72, 76

title of, 68–70, 115–16

as “Two Roads,” 65, 70, 81, 165

two visions in, 70–72, 79, 84–85, 86, 95, 98

us (ourselves) celebrated in, 133–34

“roads,” analysis of word usage, 72–74, 78, 97

romantic sensibility, 90–91, 92

Roosevelt, Eleanor, 137, 138

Rumsfeld, Donald, 131

Sandburg, Carl, 9

Schrödinger’s cat, 167

Schulz, Kathryn, 69, 70

self:

American model of, 155

authenticity of, 43, 64, 134

autonomous agency of, 151

and the chooser, 133–39, 145–52

consistency of, 145, 146, 151

continuance in existence, 147, 151

core, 148

creation of, 136–37, 138, 141, 145, 155

self (cont.)

cross-cultural concepts of, 155–57

as decider, 133–34

definitional problems of, 149

discovery of, 136–39, 145, 155

fragmentary nature of, 147–48

future, imagining, 145

independent, 155–58, 161

interdependent, 155–58

malleability of, 142

metaphors about, 136–38

modern perspectives on, 145

as set of reflexive guises, 150–52

subjectivity about, 146

as succession of mental states, 148–50

three aspects of, 150–52

transcending, 90–91

uncertainty about, 143–44

self-deception, 16, 93

self-determining power, 16

self-help movement, 134, 136–39, 160

self-image, 150–51

self-reference, 155

self-reliance, 16, 160

Sergeant, Elizabeth Shepley, 68

“Servant to Servants, A,” 36–38

Shakespeare, William, 10

Sheehy, Donald, 51

The Cambridge Companion to Robert Frost, 116–17

Shelley, Percy, 25

“sigh” analyzed as word, 82–85, 92, 95, 117

Sinatra, Frank, 107

Slate, 36, 94

Society for Judgment and Decision Making, 109–10

Sophocles, Oedipus the King, 165–66

speech, patterns of, 34, 38–39, 40

Statue of Liberty, 171–72

status stratification, 107

Stevens, Wallace, 9, 10, 21

Collected Poems, 27

The Rock, 27

“The Snow Man,” 27

“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” 10, 140

storytelling, 118–24, 145

Strait, George, 3

substitution, fallacy of, 71

Swinburne, Algernon, 30

Tennyson, Alfred, Lord, 30

thaumatrope, 71–72, 76

Thomas, Dylan, 86

Thomas, Edward, 65–68, 83, 90, 91, 95

death of, 15, 164

Frost’s friendship with, 14–15, 16, 29, 65, 85, 152–53

indecisiveness of, 13–16, 86, 152

as poet, 29, 153

as reviewer, 30, 38, 43, 66–67, 70

and “Road Not Taken,” 14–16, 29, 65–67, 85–86, 152–53

Thompson, Laurance, 14–15, 50–54, 56, 65, 67–68

Selected Letters, 50–51

Time magazine, 44, 45–46

“Time to Talk, A,” 32

Tocqueville, Alexis de, 104, 163

“To Earthward,” 90

“Trial by Existence, The,” 117–18

Trilling, Lionel, 54, 61

Turner, Victor, The Forest of Symbols, 167

Twain, Mark, 10

United States, as liminal territory, 170–72

Untermeyer, Louis, 40, 41, 97, 169

Velleman, J. David, Self to Self, 150

Vendler, Helen, 52, 56, 61

VI culture (Vertical, Individualistic), 107

voice, intonation of, 31, 39, 61–62

Ward, Susan Hayes, 142

Whately, Richard, The Elements of Logic, 71–72

“White Christmas” (Berlin), 8

Whitman, Walt, 46, 47

Williams, William Carlos, “This Is Just to Say,” 6

Wolf, Susan, 146

“Wood-Pile, The,” 27

Wordsworth, William, 29, 30, 39

Yeats, William Butler, 49

“A Prayer for My Daughter,” 25

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