Edwin Arlington Robinson

Society is a difficult concept to grasp and understand well. Society has a set of rules that isn’t really spoken or written down anywhere but everyone automatically knows what’s acceptable and what’s not. Conformity in society is clearly something that you have to do in order to be seen as normal and socially acceptable. But the real question is, in order for society to prosper must we conform? Is conforming really doing us any good? Conformation in society isn’t something that’s really…

book by its cover.” It is most likely that you have, seeing as these are both popular phrases with which we use to convey the importance of gratitude and understanding. Whether you agree with these phrases or not, Edgar Lee Masters and Edwin Arlington Robinson do; so much so that they have incorporated them into the themes of their poems, “Lucinda Matlock” and “Richard Cory.” From the moment you begin reading the two poems, it is clear to see that they have contrasting tones. The dramatic…

Untitled Unmastered The “American Dream”, for a majority of the American population, is hardly a dream. Popular culture in the United States, for the last several decades, has defined success in a rather shallow sense: monetary wealth, a beautiful home in an upscale neighborhood, luxury vehicles, a beautiful family, and a life that, in simple terms, is “better” than anyone else’s. This materialistic spirit often promotes competition in a way that distorts one’s view of sustained happiness and…

their belief in their son who could become more than simply farmhands and education was tremendous. All of his passion for farming, soon turned into anger was realizing his own dream would be achieved. In another hand, “Miniver Cherry” by Edwin Arlington Robinson, displayed a man who was nothing, but an escapist. He has a profuse amount of ideas which he wishes he could experience, but assuming he is too late, he instantly gives up. Miniver Cheery unlike Warren Pryor, has no one to cheer him on.…

Irony in poetry is an essential tool wielded by the author. “Richard Cory” by Edwin Arlington Robinson, “Not Waving but Drowning” by Stevie Smith, and “Barbie Doll” by Marge Piercy, use situational, dramatic, and verbal irony, respectively, to show hidden layers of the poem beneath the literal surface. In “Richard Cory”, the narrator tells the tale of Richard Cory, a man of great wealth and social status. The narrator explains the façade of the wealthy man, who appears cheerful and content…

yachts and private jets, all accompanied with the hope of endless happiness. Although many correlate wealth with happiness, some would refute this claim specifically, Edwin Arlington Robinson, author of “Richard Cory” and F. Scott Fitzgerald who wrote “Winter Dreams”. Although both authors write entirely different works of literature, Robinson a poem…

“The House on the Hill” as found in The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature was written by Edwin Arlington Robinson and is a poem written in the form of villanelle. A vilanelle is structured as a fixed form with nineteen lines at any length split in to six stanzas. There are five tercets and a conclusion as a quatrain. The first and third lines of the villanelle rhyme and are repeated in every tercet as well as being the final two lines of the quatrain. This specific poem repeats the…

Cory because he is so wealthy. The narrator talks about the characteristics of Cory and how he “was a gentleman from sole to crown, clean favored, and imperially slim.” Throughout the poem Cory seems as if he loves his life. At the end of the poem Robinson wrote “And Richard Cory, one calm summer night, went home, and put a bullet through his head.” This poem shows the irony of a rich man’s life. The poor couldn't find a reason as to why Cory killed himself because they thought he had…

In The Great Gatsby, the novel and the movie, the American dream is one of the main themes. Also, in comparison, the poem, Richard Cory written by Edwin Arlington Robinson, has the same theme. In the novel, Gatsby is a rich man living lavish. In the poem, Richard is a man from the 1890's who is "richer than a king" and "admirably schooled". He also was living the American dream. Although the novel and movie had many similarities, it also had many differences as did the poem and the novel. In…

Happiness; a feeling often times expressed by people, even if it is not felt. A poem written by Edwin Arlington Robinson titled, “Richard Cory,” was a prime example of this. This poem does an excellent job of telling a story, through only a single scene. It explains the life of a wealthy, admired man that showed signs indicating his feelings of happiness. Most people were able to assume that Richard Cory had everything he ever could have imagined because of his financial status, nevertheless,…