Biography
Edwin Arlington Robinson's most memorable poems portray
people trapped in painful lives and unable to return to the
security of the past. Like his poetic characters, Robinson
suffered hardships throughout his life. His father's business
failed in the Great Panic of 1893, one brother became a drug
addict, another brother became an alcoholic, and Robinson
himself struggled for years trying to earn money as a poet.
After his first two volumes of poetry received favorable
notice, he moved from his home in Gardiner, Maine, to New
York City. His financial and critical status improved with
his first Pulitzer Prize in 1922, and he went on to win two
more Pulitzers in the following five years. Robinson's works
include Children of the Night (1897), The Man against
the Sky (1916), Avon's Harvest (1922), Collected
Poems (1922), and Tristram (1927).
Explorations
In reading Edwin Arlington Robinson's Maine poems from
the turn of the century, we face some of the same questions
which we encounter in reading strong "regionalist" and "local
color" fiction, or the Wessex novels of Thomas Hardy, whose
work Robinson much admired. Robinson writes about country
men and women of limited education and experience of the
larger world; nonetheless, they can seem emblematic of a
human condition that extends far beyond that moment in Robinson's
New England. 1. Euros Turannos (1913) is stubbornly abstract
in describing the complex, lifelong psychological relationship
between one man and one woman. Try a paraphrase or explication
of the third and fourth stanzas. What kinds of experiences
seem to be alluded to here? Why give an esoteric Greek
title to a short poem about the marriage of two very unesoteric
people?
2. Miniver Cheevy (1910) and Mr. Flood's Party (1921)
are poems about alcoholics and their reasons (or excuses)
for drinking. Are they reasons or excuses? In other words,
does the nostalgia in each poem suggest some deep tragedy
which these people, in true naturalistic fashion, cannot
escape? Or does the nostalgia turn out to be a pretext
for the drinking? Does each poem serve, in some manner,
as a commentary on the other?
3. The House on the Hill (1896), as a villanelle,
has an odd air to it: if "there is nothing more to say" at
the end of the first stanza, why does the poem continue
for five more stanzas? Does that continuation suggest something
about the predicament of the artist, or the psychological
predicament of Robinson himself, at the end of the century?
Does Credo (1896) provide any guidance to understanding
why Robinson, with "nothing more to say," says something
more?
Other sites to consult:
I
Hear America Singing. A web companion to
the PBS series by the same name, this site looks
at Robinson's poems as they've been adapted to concert
song.
Robinson
overview. A helpful discussion of Robinson
as a transitional poet. From the American Institute
in Taiwan Web service.
Selected
Poetry of Edwin Arlington Robinson. Eleven
poems and a brief biography by the Department of
English at the University of Toronto.
http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/m_r/robinson/robinson.htm:
A well-organized collection of biographical and critical
writing on Robinson.
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