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Collected Poems of Edwin A. Robinson
Anthology of the twentieth-century American poet's work, including the narrative poems "The Glory of the Nightingales", "Nicodemus", "Talifer", "Amaranth", and "King Jasper"
1046 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 1707
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About the author
Edwin Arlington Robinson
126 books48 followersWorks of American poet Edwin Arlington Arlington include long narratives and character studies of New Englanders, including "Miniver Cheevy" (1907).
Edwin Arlington Robinson won three Pulitzer Prizes for his work. His family moved to Gardiner, Maine, in 1870. He described his childhood as "stark and unhappy."
Early difficulties of Robinson led to a dark pessimism, and his stories dealt with "an American dream gone awry."
In 1896, he self-published his first book, "The Torrent and the Night Before", paying 100 dollars for 500 copies. His second volume, "The Children of the Night", had a somewhat wider circulation.
Edwin Arlington Robinson won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1922 for his first "Collected Poems," in 1925 for "The Man Who Died Twice," and in 1928 for "Tristram."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Ar...
Edwin Arlington Robinson won three Pulitzer Prizes for his work. His family moved to Gardiner, Maine, in 1870. He described his childhood as "stark and unhappy."
Early difficulties of Robinson led to a dark pessimism, and his stories dealt with "an American dream gone awry."
In 1896, he self-published his first book, "The Torrent and the Night Before", paying 100 dollars for 500 copies. His second volume, "The Children of the Night", had a somewhat wider circulation.
Edwin Arlington Robinson won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1922 for his first "Collected Poems," in 1925 for "The Man Who Died Twice," and in 1928 for "Tristram."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Ar...
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
July 22, 2019
The collected poetry of Edward Arlington Robinson
Isaac and Archibald have gone their way
To the silence of the loved and well-forgotten.
I knew them, and I may have laughed at them;
But there’s a laughing that has honor in it,
And I have no regret for light words now.
Rather I think sometimes they may have made
Their sport of me; — but they would not do that,
They were too old for that. They were old men,
And I may laugh at them because I knew them.
I treasure E.A. Robinson’s poetry more than most folks as he is considered a naturalist poet. Here are some of my favorites.
1. Eros Turranos. One of the most famous American poems. It’s about a woman who’s made many sacrifices amidst a failing marriage.
2. Another Dark Lady. About a bitter lover, a beautiful “takedown” poem.
3. Ballade Fire. Across the gloomy Stygian glade.
4. Richard Cory. Robinson’s most cited poem.
5. Isaac and Archibald, is a sweet and poignant story. It is probably my favorite poem by E.A. Robinson. Written in blank verse it is a story about two old men who are best of friends. The little boy, is the narrator of the story. Archibald is very frail and Isaac wants to cherish the friendship. He teaches the little boy to value friendships in life and asks him to remember them. The little boy grows up and writes the poem.
6. Merlin is perhaps Robinson’s longest poem. Robinson’s take on the Merlin story is best known for his injection of realism and the verse contains modern, for the times, dialogue. There are no silly characters or unwitting conspirators. Arthur must be deposed. The magical scenes are muted. This poem has a sequel called Lancelot.
7. The Master (Lincoln). Famous paean written by Robinson about Lincoln and given to Teddy Roosevelt. Some beautiful stanzas like this one.
He knew devoutly what he thought
Of us and of our ridicule;
He knew that we must all be taught
Like little children in a school.
8. Miniver Cheevy. A story about an anachronistic man. Widely read.
9. The Mill. Poem about a suicide.
5 stars.
Isaac and Archibald have gone their way
To the silence of the loved and well-forgotten.
I knew them, and I may have laughed at them;
But there’s a laughing that has honor in it,
And I have no regret for light words now.
Rather I think sometimes they may have made
Their sport of me; — but they would not do that,
They were too old for that. They were old men,
And I may laugh at them because I knew them.
I treasure E.A. Robinson’s poetry more than most folks as he is considered a naturalist poet. Here are some of my favorites.
1. Eros Turranos. One of the most famous American poems. It’s about a woman who’s made many sacrifices amidst a failing marriage.
2. Another Dark Lady. About a bitter lover, a beautiful “takedown” poem.
3. Ballade Fire. Across the gloomy Stygian glade.
4. Richard Cory. Robinson’s most cited poem.
5. Isaac and Archibald, is a sweet and poignant story. It is probably my favorite poem by E.A. Robinson. Written in blank verse it is a story about two old men who are best of friends. The little boy, is the narrator of the story. Archibald is very frail and Isaac wants to cherish the friendship. He teaches the little boy to value friendships in life and asks him to remember them. The little boy grows up and writes the poem.
6. Merlin is perhaps Robinson’s longest poem. Robinson’s take on the Merlin story is best known for his injection of realism and the verse contains modern, for the times, dialogue. There are no silly characters or unwitting conspirators. Arthur must be deposed. The magical scenes are muted. This poem has a sequel called Lancelot.
7. The Master (Lincoln). Famous paean written by Robinson about Lincoln and given to Teddy Roosevelt. Some beautiful stanzas like this one.
He knew devoutly what he thought
Of us and of our ridicule;
He knew that we must all be taught
Like little children in a school.
8. Miniver Cheevy. A story about an anachronistic man. Widely read.
9. The Mill. Poem about a suicide.
5 stars.
April 12, 2012
Robinson's style and mood shine brightly through these masterpieces, bringing the reader to a place of soul-searching sympathy for characters and situations that he may have never known or been in, but has experienced as though he were intimately acquainted. I once labeled Robinson's poetry as 'the poetry of God'. I now consider that statement blasphemous, but I still keep his writings on a high pedestal.
July 20, 2019
Robinson’s irony pricks ideas of meaning & success. His humanism sympathizes with people who confront the resulting emptiness & isolation of modernity.
October 25, 2015
Holy flippin' gods, I finished this book. I've been reading it for ever (OK, months) and there have been some good stretches and some bad stretches, some weaknesses and some great moments, some intriguing lines and some frequently recurring themes... and I mean really frequently recurring. It's like, Edwin, we get it, your beautiful wife loved your best friend and life is one giant betrayal, how many different ways can one possibly write about this? A whole lot, apparently. But hey -- he got three Pulitzer Prizes for poetry. Three! !!!
AND that, of course, was my motivation here for reading. I must say, I have had my fill of Edwin for a while, but I did enjoy the ride at times. The 1500- page ride. Let me reiterate that this book contains well over one thousand pages of poetry. Pages that I read.
Favorites? I do have favorites. Let me first say that all the Merlin, Lancelot, Arthur, Guinevere stuff is not my favorite. Obviously it fits his themes (theme) really well, but those poems didn't do it for me. The long ones that I did like were Amaranth and The Man Who Died Twice (the latter won him his second Pulitzer). Tristram, meh. As for the shorter or "normal" length poems, I enjoyed probably about twenty percent of them, could take or leave fifty or sixty percent, and felt my brain glazing over with the rest, but not as much as it glazed over with some of the 90-page non-rhymers. Hey, E.A.R., you are allowed to write prose, you know.
AND that, of course, was my motivation here for reading. I must say, I have had my fill of Edwin for a while, but I did enjoy the ride at times. The 1500- page ride. Let me reiterate that this book contains well over one thousand pages of poetry. Pages that I read.
Favorites? I do have favorites. Let me first say that all the Merlin, Lancelot, Arthur, Guinevere stuff is not my favorite. Obviously it fits his themes (theme) really well, but those poems didn't do it for me. The long ones that I did like were Amaranth and The Man Who Died Twice (the latter won him his second Pulitzer). Tristram, meh. As for the shorter or "normal" length poems, I enjoyed probably about twenty percent of them, could take or leave fifty or sixty percent, and felt my brain glazing over with the rest, but not as much as it glazed over with some of the 90-page non-rhymers. Hey, E.A.R., you are allowed to write prose, you know.
November 23, 2018
Robinson was at core a cynic, but his cynicism wins over readers by his great compassion for humankind, which he presents as participating in a grand comedy. His characters struggling with their own development, often failing. But failure is on the surface, for in the frequent failures they generally gain some kind of wisdom.
I knew some of Robinson’s shorter lyrics. I was surprised by the complexity of his poetry and his thought. I imagined him some kind of urban Robert Frost. He’s much more.
The Man Who Died Twice *** – Robinson’s long narrative poems are often the subject of scorn, though this work is held in higher esteem than most. It won the Pulitzer Prize.
It’s not hard to see the poem’s strengths – and its weaknesses. It is a rather complex portrait with interesting insights and imaginative twists. There is a dignity and beauty to this complex work. Robinson uses metaphors sparsely, but when he does they are incisive.
“… sunk
In darker water than where ships go down
Hull-crushed at midnight.” (P. 953)
But the style is a bit stiff and the syntax sometimes horribly complicated. At times the lines devolve into what I can only call word salad. I’m not even sure I know what Robinson was trying to say.
“Seldom it is
The mightier moments of necessity
That we can see are coming come to us
As we have seen them.” (p. 946)
In complexity, he reminds me of Browning. (And to me that is not a compliment.)
Sentences go on for more than 15 lines, with highly complicated syntax and philosophy.
If you have some time to sort through a poem, this is a good choice. While not great, this is very good. (11/18)
I knew some of Robinson’s shorter lyrics. I was surprised by the complexity of his poetry and his thought. I imagined him some kind of urban Robert Frost. He’s much more.
The Man Who Died Twice *** – Robinson’s long narrative poems are often the subject of scorn, though this work is held in higher esteem than most. It won the Pulitzer Prize.
It’s not hard to see the poem’s strengths – and its weaknesses. It is a rather complex portrait with interesting insights and imaginative twists. There is a dignity and beauty to this complex work. Robinson uses metaphors sparsely, but when he does they are incisive.
“… sunk
In darker water than where ships go down
Hull-crushed at midnight.” (P. 953)
But the style is a bit stiff and the syntax sometimes horribly complicated. At times the lines devolve into what I can only call word salad. I’m not even sure I know what Robinson was trying to say.
“Seldom it is
The mightier moments of necessity
That we can see are coming come to us
As we have seen them.” (p. 946)
In complexity, he reminds me of Browning. (And to me that is not a compliment.)
Sentences go on for more than 15 lines, with highly complicated syntax and philosophy.
If you have some time to sort through a poem, this is a good choice. While not great, this is very good. (11/18)
January 29, 2023
Just as T.S. Eliot, for all of his personal flaws, is my favorite modern poet, Edwin Arlington Robinson is my favorite premodern one. I think of him as "the bard of the tragic," writing so evocatively about the pain and despair of ordinary tragedies without ever descending into maudlin or overwrought language. He never exaggerates or belabors the obvious; there is no breast-beating, no wailing, no gnashing of teeth by his characters. Instead, his poetry is understated, sometimes deceptively simple, so that one is all the more surprised by the sudden cut. In "Richard Cory," for example (probably his best-known poem, but IMO not even in his top ten best achievements), the litany of lines beginning with the word "and" ("And he was always quietly arrayed / and he was always human when he talked"), lull the reader into thinking this is a quiet, neatly wrapped, and pleasant story. It almost has a "once upon a time" feel to it. This makes the final line all the more shocking.
His vision is unflinching, and his poems promise no happy endings, but they are all the more beautiful for their honesty.
His vision is unflinching, and his poems promise no happy endings, but they are all the more beautiful for their honesty.
December 11, 2018
Lamentably, I don’t have a much experience in reading poetry but I was drawn to this book after a reference to it in Theodore Rex. How could I resist someone’s work which was admired by Kermit Roosevelt, who then recommended it to his father, TR, who then gave Robinson the equivalent of an endowed chair, by offering him a position in NY Customs?
I was dimly aware of his dark gem, Richard Cory, but that was about it. I enjoyed some of the work and there are some lovely lines, e.g., “Time finds a withered leaf in every laurel.” But I guess I am more of a prose guy, or perhaps the way to read something like this is not under the time constraints inherent with a library book, but to have a personal copy one can browse when the mood is right.
I was dimly aware of his dark gem, Richard Cory, but that was about it. I enjoyed some of the work and there are some lovely lines, e.g., “Time finds a withered leaf in every laurel.” But I guess I am more of a prose guy, or perhaps the way to read something like this is not under the time constraints inherent with a library book, but to have a personal copy one can browse when the mood is right.
February 8, 2020
"Meanwhile, we do no harm, for they
that with a god have striven,
not hearing much of what we say,
take what the god has given,
though like waves breaking it may be,
or like a changed familiar tree,
or like a stairway to the sea
where down the blind are driven."
that with a god have striven,
not hearing much of what we say,
take what the god has given,
though like waves breaking it may be,
or like a changed familiar tree,
or like a stairway to the sea
where down the blind are driven."
August 29, 2019
Great poems to great writer.
February 13, 2011
Brilliant! Brilliant! Brilliant! Robinson is the undisputed master of modern blank verse. I will cherish my copy always. The modern world is so much the poorer for ignoring poetry and poets of this caliber.
May 4, 2018
3 1/2 stars
March 27, 2016
I never heard of him before, but I'm glad I read this one
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews