Edwin Arlington

Robinson
“Richard Cory”
Biography of Edwin Arlington
Robinson
On December 22nd,
1869, Edwin
Arlington Robinson
was born to Edwin
Robinson and Mary
Elizabeth Palmer in
Head Tide, Maine.
Robinson started
seriously writing
poetry at age 11, and
was a talented writer
for someone his age.
Edwin Arlington Robinson’s house.
Robinson attended
Harvard for two
years, but had to
leave because his
family's money was
running short.
His first two books
were "The Torrent
and the Night
Before" and "The
Children of the
Night" (based on the
death of his mother).
In 1902 he published
Captain Craig and
Other Poems. This
work received little
attention; until
President Theodore
Roosevelt wrote a
magazine article
praising it and
Robinson.
Robinson dedicated
his next work, The
Town Down the
River (1910), to
Roosevelt.
During his lifetime, Edwin Arlington
Robinson won three Pulitzer Prizes for
his poetry. The first time was in 1922;
with "Collected Poems.” In 1925, he won
his second for "The Man Who Died
Twice". And he won his final Pulitzer in
1928 for "Tristram".
Robinson died on April 6th, 1935 in New
York City.
 “Richard Cory”
by Edwin ArlingtonRobinson
Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,

And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
"Good-morning”, and he glittered when he
walked.
And he was rich - yes, richer than a king -
And admirably schooled in every grace;
In fine we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,

And went without the meat, and cursed the
bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his
head.
 Figures Speech
Anaphora: There is anaphora in lines 5,6 –
9,10 – 14,15.

Irony: “Went home and put a bullet through

his head”

Metonymy: “from sole to crown”

Methaphor: “…waited for the light”

Alliteration
Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,

And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
"Good-morning," and he glittered when he
walked
And he was rich - yes, richer than a king -
And admirably schooled in every grace;
In fine we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,

And went without the meat, and cursed the
bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.
Personal Interpretation
This is a poem written by E:A: Robinson,
and it’s about a rich and successful man
called Richard Cory who was the envy of
everybody in his town. He is the object of
everyone’s attention.
In the first stanza, the narrator of the poem
refers to him as a polite gentleman. In the
second stanza he describes Cory’s social
status and the effect he cause on people.
He portraits Cory as a polite man and not as
a snob nor as a rude man.

He indeed, was a popular man, and a social

figure; who “fluttered pulses” with a
simple “Good-morning.”

In the third stanza, Cory is described as

“richer than a King”, and “Schooled in
every grace.”
To emphasize more the great life of Richard Cory,
the narrator says: “we thought that he was
everything” “to make us wish that we were in
his place.”
In the first two lines the narrator says: “so on we
worked and waited for the light, and went
without meat and coursed the bread…”
This mean that the narrator was either a poor man
or a poor woman, because for him or her work
was a place of darkness where he or she could
only “wait for the light,” which can be
translated into a miracle or as a change in life.
For the narrator there is no meat to eat at
dinner time, and that is the reason why
they coursed the bread that he or she had
to eat.
The narrator has every excuse to be envious
or jealous of Cory’s luck in life and
perhaps he or she could even hate him for
that.
However, not a single bad word or a sign of
hate, envy or jealousy is said or shown in
the poem by the narrator
Without any explanation the narrator simply tells
us how Cory “…one calm summer night went
home and put a bullet through his head.”
The message I get from E.A. Robinson is that
richness is not synonymous of happiness.
People looked at Cory as a man who apparently
had it all in life, and that everyone wished to be
like him. But it seems to me that people thought
they knew Cory, but at the end we notice that
nobody really knew who he was and what he
felt inside, nor how really was his life.
Thanks