Edwin Arlington Robinson

Edwin Arlington Robinson is considered to be one of the most influential poets of the 1920s. He won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry three times in the 1920s, a previously unaccomplished record by anyone in his field - it was not beaten until Robert Frost won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry four times later on. A New York Times editorial declared of him in 1935, "He is one who ranks with the great poets of the past." Americans across the country believed him to be the nation's "most distinguished poet." Unlike increasingly modern poets of his day, Robinson remained devoted all his life to traditional forms. His poetry on the page came to look almost old-fashioned in its use of meter and rhyme. Even further moving away from the standard conventions of the time, he was the first of our poets to write about ordinary people and events. When Robinson did so in his earliest book, he opened the door for other poets to follow. In 1926, writer, editor, and critic Ben Ray Redman called him "a biographer of souls ... bound to humanity by the dual bond of sympathy and humor." The uncanny perspectives of his poems seem to repeatedly insist that we cannot really know others, and that we do not even know ourselves.

Robinson wrote a poem called "Richard Cory" in 1897, which is agreed by many to be his most famous work. Richard Cory is a simple yet evoking poem about a person who is rich, educated, and respected by his townsfolk, but takes his own life. People who know some of Robinson's life history said that the rich man in the poem could have represented Robinson's older brother, Herman, who died as an alcoholic and penniless. Robinson's unhappy childhood was often reflected in his poems, such as "Richard Cory", and continued to influence his future writing. Though "Richard Cory" is arguably his most well-known poem, others such as Merlin (1917), The Three Taverns (1920), and Fortunatus (1928), stand among some of his most loved and respected works. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry three times: in 1922 for his first Collected Poems, in 1925 for The Man Who Died Twice, and in 1928 for Tristram.

Robinson was influenced throughout his career by several preeminent British poets such as Albert E. Housman, Rudyard Kipling, and Thomas Hardy. A decade his senior, Albert E. Housman (1859-1935) wrote the famous "A Shropshire Lad" which appeared in the same year--1896--as Robinson's first volume, The Torrent and the Night Before. Though Housman did not think quite highly of Robinson, it was said by an admiring Robinson that he "did not think of any living writer whose work was likely to live longer, if as long [as Housman's]." Robinson also grew to become an admirer of the distinguished Thomas Hardy, and the sameness of their works was quite intriguing, likely developed from the fondness Robinson possessed towards Hardy's style. A number of critics of American literature in general, and of Robinson's poetry in particular, have explored the similarities in the works of both Hardy and Robinson; they have found in the approaches of both poets a sense of realism, an intensity of dramatic action, and a confident control of language and structure, coupled with a decidedly pessimistic stance to their writings. Some of Hardy's most famous works included Wessex Poems and Other Verses (1898) and Moments of Vision (1917). These poems had a very Robinson-esque feel to them, and exemplified many of the characteristics he used in his own works. Another poet whom Robinson admired was his near contemporary Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) who authored such works as Puck of Pook's Hill (1906), and Rewards and Fairies (1910); the latter contained the