Poetry Explication Assignment: Mr. Flood's Party

Poetry Explication Assignment: “Mr. Flood’s Party”
Edwin Arlington Robinson has been stated to be “one of the most prolific major American poets of the twentieth century.” However, Robinson is remembered for a only a handful of short poems. Declared in the New York Times Book Review, “Edwin Arlington Robinson is poetry. I can think of no other living writer who has so consistently dedicated his life to his work.” Robinson is considered extraordinary amongst other American poets because of his dedication and devotion to his art, despite the fact that Robinson rarely published anything other than poetry over the course of his career. Mr. Flood’s Party is a sad portrait of an isolated, friendless man who has observed a change in his life, but has unfortunately outlived his time. Edwin Arlington Robinson uses allegory, illustration, and dramatic irony to …show more content…
“Robinson’s language, however, is always the result of taste and temper and not of conscious theorizing”.(Barnard). Another criticism is that the poem uses an excessive amount of pathos to appeal to the reader’s emotions, and not enough logos or ethos. The poem makes a tremendous effort to highlight on the more sympathetic aspect rather than highlighting the underlying message. “Of all Robinson’s many failures, perhaps the most sympathetic is old Eben Flood of "Mr. Flood's Party," because in his case the failure is from a weakness not of conscience but of flesh: old age has overwhelmed him and left him friendless, an unwilling exile, doomed to holding an ironic "party" with himself.” (Pratt.) Both criticisms entail that the narrator uses such portrays such a demented, dark mood and uses such vague diction that it makes it even more difficult to focus on the actual meaning of the poem