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January 29–February 4, 2016
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ALL PHOTOS BY SAMIRA BOUAOU/EPOCH TIMES
The amount that you
can put in and get out of
music is infinite.
David Bernard
Most of the artistry gets worked into the
piece during rehearsals, but the full creation
occurs during the live performance. And each
live performance, of course, is unique. Even if
it is recorded, the experience of it is never the
same as in the present moment. It’s something
that cannot be experienced with streaming or
through a smartphone.
10
Bernard believes that the “Inside Out” concept “could result in an evolution in the concert experience. … It has to be something
beyond just listening in a two dimensional
way. I think that’s key,” he said.
Park Avenue Chamber Symphony orchestra performs “Beethoven’s Fifth: FROM THE
Greatest Poems
Ever Written
PA R T 1 O F 10
By Evan Mantyk
I
n this series we look at the ten greatest
poems originally written in the English
language, one by one. It is presented from
least greatest (No. 10) to greatest greatest
(No. 1), and each poem is followed by a
brief analysis.
The poems in the list were selected by the
Society of Classical Poets to inspire and educate new poets, but they can also inspire and
educate all people with their timeless wisdom
and universal themes.
The works featured in this series are limited
to classical poetry. What is classical poetry? It
means poems that follow perennial forms, like
meter and rhyme, and that are infused with a
classical flavor—that is, with humanity’s quintessential quest for virtue over vice, epic over
ephemeral, and beauty over baseness.
Additionally, note that long poems, such as
epics and plays, and excerpts of such works
were not considered for this list.
PUBLIC DOMAIN
Robert Frost.
10. ‘The Road Not Taken’
By Robert Frost (1874–1963)
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 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.
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.
Analysis of the Poem
This poem deals with that big, noble question,
“How to make a difference in the world?” On
first reading, it tells us that the choice one
makes really does matter, ending: “I took the
one less traveled by, / And that has made all
the difference.”
A closer reading reveals that the lonely choice
made earlier by our traveling narrator maybe
wasn’t all that significant since both roads were
pretty much the same anyway (“Had warn
them really about the same”), and it is only in
the remembering and retelling that it made a
difference. We are left to ponder if the narrator
had instead traveled down “The Road Not Taken,”
might it have also made a difference as well.
In a sense, “The Road Not Taken” tears apart
the traditional view of individualism, which
hinges on the importance of choice, as in the
case of democracy in general (choosing a candidate), as well as various constitutional freedoms: choice of religion, choice of words (freedom of speech), choice of group (freedom of
assembly), and choice of source of information (freedom of press).
For example, we might imagine a young
man choosing between being a carpenter or
a banker later seeing great significance in his
choice to be a banker, but in fact there was not
much in his original decision at all other than
a passing fancy. In this, we see the universality
of human beings: the roads leading to carpenter and banker being basically the same, and
the carpenter and banker at the end of them—
seeming like individuals who made significant
choices—really being just part of the collective
of the human race.
Then is this poem not about the question
“How to make a difference in the world?” after
all? No. It is still about this question. The ending
is the clearest and most striking part. If nothing
else, readers are left with the impression that
our narrator, who commands beautiful verse,
profound imagery, and time itself (“ages and
ages hence”), puts value on striving to make
a difference. The striving is reconstituted and
INSIDE OUT!” at the Mary Flagler Cary Hall,
The DiMenna Center for Classical Music, 450
W. 37th St., on Saturday, Feb. 6, at 5 p.m.
PACS rehearses
Beethoven’s “Fifth” at
The DiMenna Center
on Jan. 14.
”This Is New York” is a feature series that delves
into the lives of inspiring individuals in New
York City. See all our TINYs here:epochtim.es/
TINY or follow @milenefernandez on Twitter.
complicated here in reflection, but our hero
wants to make a difference and so should we.
That is why this is a great poem, from a basic
or close-reading perspective.
to New England after three years because of
the outbreak of World War I, and he served
in many eminent academic positions in the
ensuing years.
Robert Frost was a New England poet of the
late Romantic and Modern periods. He spent
his young adult years straddling both farming and teaching in rural New England. When
he relocated his family to England to pursue
poetry there, his career took off. They returned
To contact the Society of Classical Poets, write
to [email protected]
Evan Mantyk is president of the Society of Classical Poets and a high school English teacher
in upstate New York.
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