richard cory poem by edwin arlington robinson analysis

RICHARD CORY POEM BY EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON ANALYSIS SERIES
RICHARD CORY POEM BY EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON ANALYSIS TORRENT

The townspeople continue to work and struggle financially. The speaker admits that everyone envies him, wishing they could be in his position. Cory is highly educated and displays his knowledge of social decorum. The speaker emphasizes Cory's wealth, saying that he is richer than a king. Despite his humility and normal manner of speaking, he appears to the townspeople as a special, god-like figure who makes their pulses race. The speaker provides a brief physical description of Cory as clean-cut and slim of build.Ĭory's interactions with the townspeople are pleasant and courteous. Robinson’s legacy remains highly esteemed, and his work is often held in the same regard as American greats like Robert Frost and Thomas Hardy.An unnamed first-person speaker describes a fellow townsperson named Richard Cory, who never fails to look like a proper gentleman when he goes downtown.

In 1935, Robinson fell ill with cancer, and up until his death continued to edit and revise his poetry. Set in a small fictional New England town of the same name, these works further explore his interest in people’s true character and motivations, what lies beneath the mask of civility and manners.

Robinson went on to publish some of his best-known work, now referred to as the Tilbury Town cycle. The President took an immense liking to the poet’s work he obtained a sinecure for the author at the New York Customs House that brought Robinson out of poverty, giving him financial security. Soon after, Robinson produced and self-published his second collection, The Children of the Night, which was discovered a couple of years later by President Theodore Roosevelt’s son Kermit, who passed along the collection to his father. These critiques claimed that Robinson saw no beauty in life and instead viewed it as a prison, a criticism Robinson took in stride with his characteristic wit. Although largely well-received, even this early collection garnered some negative feedback regarding Robinson’s bleak outlook and sense of humor.

RICHARD CORY POEM BY EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON ANALYSIS TORRENT

After many rejections, Robinson self-published his first collection of poems, entitled The Torrent and The Night Before. Although his father did not support his literary goals, Robinson attended Harvard University for a few years and published some poems in local newspapers and magazines. He was awarded the very first Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1922 for his Collected Poems, a second Pulitzer Prize in 1924 for The Man Who Died Twice, and he remains a recognizable name for a few of his shorter works today. Robinson’s poetry embodies a few consistent themes, including personal failure, materialism, artistry, and change. Narrated from a small town’s collective point of view, the poem examines wealth, privilege, poverty, and an unexpected suicide.īorn in Maine in December of 1869, Edwin Arlington Robinson was a prolific poet of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Robinson was a key figure in American Literature during the turn of the 20th century, and many of his poems are set in or take inspiration from the quaint settings of smaller New England towns. Robinson’s allegiance to traditional forms reflects his resistance to the growing influence of Modernism that was beginning to gain traction within the literary world. This situates the poem comfortably within the canon of Naturalism. The consequences of these economic downturns appear throughout this poem in Robinson’s notorious cynicism, which creates a bleak tone of irony.

RICHARD CORY POEM BY EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON ANALYSIS SERIES

About 10 years before the poem was published in a collection, entitled Children of the Night, the United States had experienced a series of economic depressions. “Richard Cory” (1897), arguably Edwin Arlington Robinson’s most famous poem, is about perspective and realizing that everything is not always what it seems.

Richard cory poem by edwin arlington robinson analysis