Assignments
Edwin Arlington Robinson
1869–1935
“One of the most prolific major American poets of the twentieth century, Edwin Arlington Robinson is, ironically, best remembered for only a handful of short poems,” stated Robert Gilbert in the Concise Dictionary of American Literary Biography. Fellow writer Amy Lowell 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 unique among American poets of his time for his devotion to his art; he published virtually nothing during his long career except poetry. “The expense of Robinson’s single-mindedness,” Gilbert explained, “was virtually everything else in life for which people strive, but it eventually won for him both fortune and fame, as well as a firm position in literary history as America’s first important poet of the twentieth century.”
Robinson seemed destined for a career in business or the sciences. He was the third son of a wealthy New England merchant, a man who had little use for the fine arts. He was, however, encouraged in his poetic pursuits by a neighbor and wrote copiously, experimenting with verse translations from Greek and Latin poets. In 1891 Edward Robinson provided the funds to send his son to Harvard partly because the aspiring writer required medical treatment that could best be performed in Boston. There Robinson published some poems in local newspapers and magazines and, as he later explained in a biographical piece published in Colophon, collected a pile of rejection slips “that must have been one of the largest and most comprehensive in literary history.” Finally he decided to publish his poems himself, and contracted with Riverside, a vanity press, to produce The Torrent and The Night Before, named after the first and last poems in the collection.
In the poems of The Torrent and The Night Before, Robinson experimented with elaborate poetic forms
1869–1935
“One of the most prolific major American poets of the twentieth century, Edwin Arlington Robinson is, ironically, best remembered for only a handful of short poems,” stated Robert Gilbert in the Concise Dictionary of American Literary Biography. Fellow writer Amy Lowell 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 unique among American poets of his time for his devotion to his art; he published virtually nothing during his long career except poetry. “The expense of Robinson’s single-mindedness,” Gilbert explained, “was virtually everything else in life for which people strive, but it eventually won for him both fortune and fame, as well as a firm position in literary history as America’s first important poet of the twentieth century.”
Robinson seemed destined for a career in business or the sciences. He was the third son of a wealthy New England merchant, a man who had little use for the fine arts. He was, however, encouraged in his poetic pursuits by a neighbor and wrote copiously, experimenting with verse translations from Greek and Latin poets. In 1891 Edward Robinson provided the funds to send his son to Harvard partly because the aspiring writer required medical treatment that could best be performed in Boston. There Robinson published some poems in local newspapers and magazines and, as he later explained in a biographical piece published in Colophon, collected a pile of rejection slips “that must have been one of the largest and most comprehensive in literary history.” Finally he decided to publish his poems himself, and contracted with Riverside, a vanity press, to produce The Torrent and The Night Before, named after the first and last poems in the collection.
In the poems of The Torrent and The Night Before, Robinson experimented with elaborate poetic forms
Bibliography: POETRY * The Torrent and The Night Before, Riverside Press, 1896, reprinted, Tilbury House, 1996. * The Children of the Night, Richard C. Badger, 1897. * Captain Craig, Houghton, 1902, revised and enlarged edition, Macmillan, 1915. * The Town down the River, Scribner, 1910. * The Man against the Sky, Scribner, 1916. * Merlin, Macmillan, 1917. * Lancelot, Thomas Seltzer, 1920. * The Three Taverns, Macmillan, 1920. * Avon 's Harvest, Macmillan, 1921. * Collected Poems, Macmillan, 1921. * Roman Bartholow, Macmillan, 1923. * The Man Who Died Twice, Macmillan, 1924. * Dionysus in Doubt, Macmillan, 1925. * Tristram, Macmillan, 1927. * Collected Poems, 5 volumes, Dunster House, 1927, new edition in one volume published as Collected Poems of Edwin Arlington Robinson, Macmillan, 1929, enlarged edition, 1937. * Sonnets, 1889-1927, Crosby Gaige, 1928. * Fortunatus, Slide Mountain Press, 1928. * Modred: A Fragment, Brick Row Bookshop, 1929. * Cavender 's House, Macmillan, 1929. * The Prodigal Son, Random House, 1929. * The Valley of the Shadow, Yerba * * , Buena Press, 1930. * Collected Poems, Macmillan, 1930. * The Glory of the Nightingales, Macmillan, 1930. * Matthias at the Door, Macmillan, 1931. * (Contributor) Charles Cestre, An Introduction to Edwin Arlington Robinson and Selected Poems, preface by Bliss Perry, Macmillan, 1931. * Poems, selected and with a preface by Bliss Perry, Macmillan, 1931. * Nicodemus: A Book of Poems, Macmillan, 1932. * Talifer, Macmillan, 1933. * Amaranth, Macmillan, 1934. * King Jasper, introduction by Robert Frost, Macmillan, 1935. * Collected Poems, Macmillan, 1937. * Tilbury Town: Selected Poems of Edwin Arlington Robinson, introduction and notes by Lawrence Thompson, Macmillan, 1953. * Selected Poems, edited by Morton Dauwen Zabel, introduction by James Dickey, Macmillan, 1965. * A Tilbury Score, Masterwork Press, 1969. * (Contributor) Bernard Grebanier, Edwin Arlington Robinson: A Centenary Memoir-Anthology, A. S. Barnes for the Poetry Society of America, 1971. * "Miniver Cheevy" and Other Poems, Dover (New York, NY), 1995. * Selected Poems, edited by Rober Faggen, Penguin Books, 1997. * The Poetry of E. A. Robinson, selected and with an introduction and notes by Robert Mezey Modern Library (New York, NY), 1999