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THE CRITICAL RECEPTION OF
THE POETRY >0F
EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINS-ON

Thesi: far the Daren of M. A.
MICNIGAN SLATE COLLEGE
Mice Luci-fie Cody
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This is to certify that the
I thesis entitled
TH] CRITICAL RECEPTION OF THE
POETRY OF EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON

presented by

A1 ice L. Cody

has been accepted towards fulfillment
of the requirements for

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[‘[(i[[f.{[.[fll.l [.[.[I lull\r «(It‘ll-[Iii .;II I I..| I

THE CRITICAL RECEPTION OF THE POETRY
OF EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON

BY
Alice Lucille 0031

A THESIS
Submitted to the School of Graduate Studiee of Michigan
State College of Agriculture and Applied Science
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
MASTER OF ARTS
Department of English

1948

PREFACE

my thesis is chronologically arranged to consider
the criticism of each new book of Edwin Arlington Robinson's
as it appeared.and includes as well comments by his friends
and important literary persons of the time.

I have no illusions that the material which I present
is exhaustive, but I do believe that I have covered (though'
due to the mass, selectively) the important material that is
available in the Michigan State College Library, the lichigan
State Library, and The Detroit Public Library.

17am grateful to Doctor Lawrence for suggesting the
topic, Doctor orbeck for encouraging me, and I am particularly
- grateful to Doctor Russell D. Nye who has guided me and en-

abled me to make the mass of my material readable.

Alice Lucille Cody

INDEX

Chapter
I The Formative Years

II The Initial Reception
The Torrent and the Night Before (1897)
The Children of the Night (1697)
Captain Craig (1902)
The Roosevelt Episode
The Children of the Night(1905)
The Town Down the River (1911)
Van Zorn (1914) and The Porcupine (1915)

III The First Critical Acclaim
The Man Against the Sky (1916)
Merlin (1917)
Fiftieth Birthday Celebration (1919)
Lancelot (1919)
The Three Taverns (1920)
Avon's Harvest (1921)
The First Collected Edition (1921)
The First Pulitzer Prize
Roman Bartholow (1923)
The Man Who Died Twice (1924)
Dionysus in Doubt (1925)

IV’ The Public Acclaim of Tristram
Tristram (1927)
The Sonnets (1928)
Collected Poems (1929)
Cavender's House (1929)
The Glory of the Nightingales (1930)

V The Reception of the "Annual Poems”
Mattias at the Door (1932)
Nicodemus (1932)

Talifer (1933)
Amaranth (1934)
King Jasper (1935)

VI The Criticism Since Robinson's Death

(If! rIIs...I|l.[4llll {it [[[[.l.ll[lnr’

c.(o.l\rl Ill) ,r \IIII’ I.|{ I‘II

THE FORMATIVE YEARS

Edwin Arlington Robinson was born into an old
New England family. His father, Edward Robinson, came
of a family who had long been expert carpenters and
Shipwrights. In his youth he and two of his brothers
worked as Shipwrights in Boston and New York. After
his father died he moved back to Maine and ran a general
store at Head-of—the-Tide. It was there that he met
and married Mary Elizabeth Palmer, a school teacher
fifteen years younger than he. She was a descendant of
Thomas Dudley,the second colonial governor of Massachu-
setts, and of Dudley's daughter, Mercy Woodbridge, who
was a sister to Anne Bradstreet, the first American
woman poet. Edward and Mary Robinson had three children,
Dean, Herman and Edwin Arlington. Shortly after ”Win’s"
birth in 1869 the offer of a directorship in the Gardiner
bank caused Edward Robinson to move his family to the
larger town, which became the Tilbury Town of his son's
poems.

Though Maine was developed by a handful of able
men from Massachusetts, the Puritan culture never flower-
ed luxuriantly there, but neither did it deteriorate.
Maine always kept its contact with the intellectual
life of its mother state. The towns of consequence,
mostly seaports, also kept contacts with Europe and the

Orient. Country lawyers, here and there, sent their

-1-

sons to Oxford or Heidelberg. Ship builders brought back
Ming porcelain and some knowledge of Chinese art and
civilization. Through the shipping trade the Continent
seemed nearer to the people of Maine than New York, Wash-
ington, or St. Louis.

There was no sharp division in Maine between
educated men and farmers. The educated were frequently
farmers on the side and the farmers themselves often
read avidly and with discrimination. There were practi-
cally no theatres in Maine and few "lyceums". Reading
was the main diversion and almost the only permissible
escape from the tedium of the interminable winters.
Everybody seemed to read, and not a few wrote. Aside
from the reminiscences of missionaries and the speeches
of Daniel Webster there was the romantic influence of
Scott's ZEB.L§1X.9£.EQ§.L§ESJ the social-religious-
romantic influence of Harriet Beecher Stowe, who wrote

Uncle Tom's Cabin in Brunswick, Maine; and the mediaeval

 

romanticism of the one-time Bowdoin college instructor,
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

The Gardiner of Robinson's youth was not the
thriving shipping center it had once been. The Robinson
timber fortune vanished along with many others and Gar-
diner abounded in men who had once been important but
who had no life any longer to shape to their code. The
town itself was named after a clan which built for itself

-2-

A Tudor mansion of grey stone with rounded bow windows,
strangely like a Manor House. But it was in need of re-
pair and stood empty much of the time. In order to keep
it the owner had sold the outlying acres and had gone into
business in Boston. It was from this background that Rob-
inson drew the characters of his Tilbury Town - the lonely
fallen men who slept in doorways, the skirt-crazed old
reprobates, the misers, the spendthrifts, the old men left
behind, and the reapected citizens who blew their brains
out.

While Robinson was growing up he showed no practical
talents and not much aptitude for conventional study, but
he read widely and began writing verse while in high school.
He was accepted as an equal "among the boys" and was cheer-
ful, cooperative and even affectionate at home. He had
access to his brother Dean's medical books and became a
temporary hypoohondriac, thoroughly convinced that he was
suffering from all of the ugly diseases pictures. Later he
became aware that he was different from others and did not
fit into family life. His father was aware of his acute
intelligence and was proud of him, but he gave him no
fellowship.

Because Robinson was the youngest the unwanted
chores fell to him and he of course resented it. _He
then found a sort of foster-home with some neighbors,

Alice and Gus Jordan. Gus was an ex-sailor turned insur-

-3-

ance salesman; he and his wife were sympathetic and
understood the boy. They encouraged his love of strange
words and helped him build his vocabulary. His passion
for words perhaps accounts for the exotic vocabulary
which appeared in his early poetry. His reading was
widely varied - Horatio Alger, Jules Verne, Shakespeare,
and Dickens Jostled each other in his mind. He particu-
larly liked Dickens for his humor, his sympathy, and his
characters. In high school he took the "scientific"
course not because he had any particular interest in
science but because it omitted Greek. At the time he
had no intention of going to college.

It was while he was in high school that he met
Dr. Alanson Tucker Schumann, a homeopathic physician
and literary amateur. He was impressed by Robinson's
ability and introduced him to the local literary group,
where he became acquainted with the poetry of Ronsard,
Villon and Verlaine. At seventeen he was also absorbed
in Thackeray, Tennyson and his beloved Dickens. Robinson
and Schumann were closely associated for several years
and read and criticized each other's poetry. Schumann
appears to have been a man of some intelligence and may
have had some influence on Robinson's style. He was
devoted to early French forms - the rondeau, the ballade,
and the villanelle - and some of Robinson's early work

is in these forms.
-4...

During these years Robinson's brother Dean took to
narcotics and alcohol to sustain himself in the hardships
of country medical practice. His brother Herman took
over the family business and Robinson remained at home to
look after his ailing father and brother. His father
felt that Dean's case proved the worthlessness of a college
education and refused to send young "Win" to college.

So Robinson Spent an extra year in high school and

added Horace and Paradise Lost to his reading list.

 

Finally, when an infection in his ear (brought about by a
blow given him years before by a teacher) required that

he spend a year within reach of a Boston physician,

Herman convinced his father that "Win" should be permitted
to attend Harvard while he was there. At Harvard he read
Swinburne, Rossetti, Austin Dobson, Whitman, found

Spinoza enticing and discovered Thomas Hardy. Members of
the Harvard faculty who were within the range of Robinson's
interest were Charles Eliot gorton, Lewis Gates, Josiah
Royce, Le Baran Briggs and Barrett Wendell. Estelle
Klplan and Lloyd Morriss attribute the transcendental in-
clination of Robinson‘s thought to Royce's influence at
this time. Yvor Winters does not agree but believes that
it is more likely to be the result of his readings in
Emerson and Thoreau, and adds that "what one might call

folk atmOSphere of the upper levels of New England Society

-5—

1 Besides Emerson, his favorite writers

would suffice".
at this period seemt to have been Carlyle, Crabbe, Arnold
and Kipling.

Robinson‘s father had been slowly dying for five
years; before the college year was up, Robinson had to
return home to be with him during his last few weeks.
Edward Robinson had become interested in spiritualism in
his last days and Hagedorn's biography mentions that
"there were table tappings and once the table came off
the floor, 'cutting my universe' as Robinson later told
a friend 'clean in half‘. As the end approached, other
articles of furniture began to levitate. Rows of books
on a shelf were swept to the floor". These last months
with his father, Robinson told a friend, "were a living
hell".2

He went back to Harvard for another year and then
left. He had never intended to take a degree; further-
more the family business was declining. Robinson suffer-
ed acutely with his ear and lived in fear of the doctor's
intimations that the damage might reach his brain and
cause insanity.

At the time he was writing such poems as "Luke

 

leor Winters, Edwin Arlington Robinson, 4.

 

2Herman Hagedorn Edwin Arlington Robinson, 77.

-6-

 

Havergal" and "The Clerks" which were later to appear in

The Children 9: the Night, but he was unable to make any

 

impression upon the editors of The Atlantic, Century,

 

Harper's, or Scribner's, though Lippincott's published

 

a sonnet on Poe and The Critic published "Oh, for a Poet".

 

One editor offered to take "The Torrent" for fifteen
dollars on condition that the poet would change the last
two lines. The change seemed pointless to Robinson and
he rejected the offer. His collection of rejection slips
grew and even included a few from England. He began to
have doubts of his poetic ability and some misgivings
about the future if he persisted in his decision to give
his life to poetry. He then turned to writing short
stories which he hoped might do for American life what
Francois Coppee's had done for the French. The titles
of some were "John Town", "Lily CondillacQ, "Those Merry
Gentlemen and their Wives" and "The Barcarolle". This
last was the story of a man who had been haunted through
all the crises of his life by a boat song until at last
he heard the tune whistled by a stone cutter carving a
tombstone -- on which he sees his own name emerge under
the chisel. But imaginative as they were, it seemed that
the magazines would have none of Robinson's prose fiction,
and after toying for a year with the thought of publish-

ing them himself in a separate volume, he destroyed the

-7-

manuscripts and surrendered himself once and for all to
poetry.

He received some small encouragement from William
Henry Thorne, a converted Catholic and frothy adventurer
who published a quarterly of limited circulation and un-

limited impudence, called The Globe. Thorne could not

 

afford to pay for contributions and therefore accepted
poems and articles that the commercial magazines rejected.

The Globe published "The House on the Hill" and "The

 

Miracle". It was a year before Thorne found room for
another poem, "Kosmos", but during the twelve months fol-
lowing he printed a poem of Robinson's in every issue.

This was of great help to Robinson, but The Globe's

 

circulation was under two thousand and it published only
four issues a year. Robinson then tried to get his poems
published in the newspapers and succeeded in getting

"The Children of the Night" in the Boston Transcript,

 

but when he sent "The Clerks" to the New Ybrk Sun (which

 

had a reputation for brilliance and perspecacity) the poem

came back with the verdict, "Unavailable, Paul Dana".

-3-

THE INITIAL RECEPTION OF ROBINSON'S POETRY

Robinson was discouraged, but still convinced
of the worth of his poetry. He gathered some forty
poems in a volume which he called The Torrent and the

Night Before and sent it the rounds of the publishers,

 

who failed to respond. He then decided to publish it
himself and persuaded an uncle connected with the River-
side Press to arrange for the printing of some three
hundred copies at a cost of fifty-two dollars.

He intended the book to be a surprise for his
mother, but she did not see it for she died suddenly of
diphtheria. The family physician, fearing the disease,
was afraid to attend her, but her son, Dean, pulled
himself together to serve unsuccessfully. The undertaker
refused to touch the body so her three sons laid her in
the coffin and the minister read the services through the
front window from the safety of the porch. The brothers
drove the coffin to the cemetery in an express wagon.

Robinson sent copies of his first book to his
friends in Gardiner and Cambridge, to numerous literary
critics, and to members of literary circles in America
and England who might Speak a good word for him at the
opportune time. He sent one to Edward Eggleston, the
author of The Hoosier Schoolmaster, and received in reply

an understanding and complimentary letter, which ended,

-9-

"In this world where we are like men speaking

to one another for cheer's sake in the dark,

let a total stranger hail you with admiration,

putting aside all flattering words of which

you have no need, for which you have no desire"
The letter was like champagne to Robinson. Another from
his former landlady in Cambridge was not so encouraging.
She regretted that his book was so "gloomy" and "pessi-
mistic", a criticism which filled him with a kind of
helpless despair for he regarded himself as among the
most optimistic of men.

The first reviews were scanty. The dedication,
"This book is dedicated to any man, woman, or critic
who will cut the edges of it - I have done the top",
struck one critic as flippant. Robinson in his later
years agreed with him and said he thought it merely a
youthful idiosyncrasy. W. P. Trent in the Sewanee
Review referred indefinitely to the influence of other
poets, commented at some length on the individual poems,
and noted Robinson's techinical ability, but suggested
room for improvement in the French forms. He also noted
that the "impressionistic effect" produced in"The House
on the Hill" was "not worth striving after". Robinson
realized the inadequacy of these tightly restricted forms

2
and finally abandoned them altogether in his later books.

 

lHagedorn, Edwin Arlington Robinson, 110

2William P. Trent, "A New Poetic Venture",

The Sewanee Review, V (April, 1897), 243-246.
-10-

Helen Clark, reviewer for Poet-Lore, chose to

 

praise the same villanelle, "The House on the Hill" for
the "startling vivid effect...produced by small means".
She spoke of Robinson's wide range in subject matter

and variations in treatment, nothing that Robinson describ-
ed both a scene from nature as a human being with an
equally facile touch. His poems to Whitman and Zola she
felt were among the strongest of his poems and thought
that no one had summed up Whitman's relation to his time
with more penetration than Robinson. She wondered why

he chose to appear as his own sponsor, feeling that

"his hand is not yet quite assured in this difficult form
of poetry, but there is plenty of promise of a future

mastery of it."1

William Morton Payne in 222.233; felt
the volume to be above average in thought and expression
and commended "the austere restraint that is so rarely
heard in contemporary song".2 Harry Thurston Peck, lit-
erary editor of The Bookman and one of the most influ-
ential of critics, found in the book”a true fire...the

swing and the singing of wind and wave and the passion

of human emotion...and the cry of a yearning spirit."

 

1Helen a. Clark, "Notes on American Verse", Poet-Lore,
IX, No. 3 (1897). 448-449.

2William M. Payne, "Recent Poetry", The Dial,
XXII (February 1, 1897), 92-93.

-11-

 

But the poet's'dimitations" were "vital", his humor of
a "grim sort", and the world was not beautiful to him
but a prison house.l Robinson thanked Peck for the
"unexpected notice" and said,

"I am sorry to learn that I have painted

myself in such lugubreous colors. The

world is not a 'prison-house', but a kind

of spiritual kindergarten, where millions

of bewildered infants are trying to Spell

God with the wrong blocks".2
Later during an interview with Nancy Evans, when the
phrase was recalled to him, "He said, with a sort of
fond disapproval, 'I was young then and it was a smart
thing to say".3 Such generalities as "power", "swing",
"passion", and "musical sense" were freely used by
critics. They bestowed considerable though tempered
praise on him, and as Hagedorn says, were "unperceptive
rather than hostile".

Robinson's principal aim was to cut away the
ornaments and artificialities of the poetic language
that he had inherited. In his determination to cleanse

his verse of cant and clap-trap he was barely conscious

of how sharply he was breaking with tradition and had

 

1Harry T. Peck, "A Literary Journal",
The Bookman, IV (February 1897), 509-10.

2Hagedorn, gp. cit., 112.

3Nancy Evans, "Record of an Interview", The Bookman,
LXXV (November, 1932), 680.

 

-12-

no suspicion that the nearer he came to success, the
surer he was to fail in the popular, worldly sense.1

A Boston publisher, Richard J. Badger, who dealt
with unrecognized poets, contacted Robinson and arranged

to publish Robinson's second book, The Children 9; the

 

Nighp, at Robinson's eXpense. It consisted of Robinson's
first book with one or two deletions plus sixteen new
poems. It was brought out in two editions, one bound in
vellum. A childhood friend of Robinson's "Willy" Butler,
paid the bill. Publication by Badger was not much, but
it was something to have any publisher‘s imprint. The
volume contained ballades, villanelles, sonnets, and
quatrains as well as the less usual blank verse forms.

The Boston Transcript gave the book two favorable

 

reviews spaced a week apart. The first, which was anony-
mous, spoke of a wide and earnest charity, a deep sympathy
for all who suffer and struggle.. a lofty, serious, yet
hopeful aspiration; of "grave restraint", and humor, and
music, "lingering along the lines".2 The second was by
John Hays Gardiner of the "manor house" of Gardiner'

whom Robinson later met through Laura E. Richards and

with whom he formed a fast friendship. Gardiner called

 

10f. Hagedorn, op. g_i__., 97.

2Anon., "The Children of the Night", The Boston Evenigg

Transcript (December 18, 1897), 13.
-13-

ma

attention to "a kind of natural realism of method which
reminds one of Wordsworth, and withal a shrewd and Yankee
directness which is like nothing that we remember". The
book to him was a new declaration "of the old and eternal
verities". Its message was a triumphant and deep-seated
confidence in the ultimate heritage of man in the divine".
An unidentified reviewer in the Nation noted that
"there is power there, but crude". He judged Robinson's
variety of measure to be small but added that he did his
work "deftly within that plot of ground", and packed "even"
his sonnets with such vigor and such creative imagination
that the whole story is told". He noted that Robinson
wrote of men and women and used external nature only as a
setting in the Greeks manner. There was a note of sur-
prise on the part of the reviewer that Robinson had heard
of Crabbe - "we expect young poets to have heard of Whit-
man and Verlaine but we hardly expect them to have heard
of Crabbe "and yet" what prose critic ever summed up
Crabbe and placed him in his niche so completely as this
young American"? The sonnet "The Clerks", a favorite with
the reviewers, was used by him to illustrate Robinson's
power of putting a whole life or a whole generation of

lives into the narrow compass of a sonnet.

 

lJohn Hays Gardiner, "The Children of the Night".
The Boston Evening Transcript, (December 24, 1897), 5.

 

-14-

"Luke Havergal", also a favorite, was used to illus-
trate Robinson's "haunting lyric flow".l Vance Thomp-

son in The Musical Courier was enthusiastic -

 

"Years have brought us nothing quite so good". He relish-
ed the absence of "shopworn superfluities" and commended
the "strenuousness of thought", the "frugality of words",
and the style like the thought, "sober, quiet, evening-
colored".2 Robinson's old friend and converted Catholic

William Henry Thorne went a trifle mad in his review in

The Globe. He called Robinson's art "unimitable" but

 

said that he had "nothing to say to this age of imbecile
newspaper and shoddy-fed boobies". The title poem re-
flected Robinson's "poor and pitiable unfaith and nega-
tion" but as a poem it was one of the very best in the
English language" since "In Memorian". He condemned its
"infernal philosophy" of "atheism" blaming it on "boyish
conceit". He exhorted him to drop Tom Paine and Walt
Whitman and take up with Tennyson and the Deity.3

Another critic called The Children 93 the Night a

 

 

lAnon., "Recent American Poetry", The Nation,
LXIV (June 2, 1898), 426.

 

2Vance Thompson "A New Poet", The Musical Courier,

XXXVII (July 13, 1898), V.

3William Henry Thorne, "Shakespeare, Foss and Compnay",
The Globe, VIII (March, 1898), 29-33.

 

-15-

"pleasant little book", an unusual comment in view of
the bleakness of such poems as "The House on the Hill",
the serious defense of such authors as Verlaine and Zola,
and the cries for more profundity and higher flights in

poetry. The leading literary periodicals - The Bookman,

 

The Critic and The Independent ignored the book.

 

 

What Robinson's critics did not analyze (beyond
calling it "restraint") was the poet's persistent sim-
plicity of proselike cadences - natural, conversational
qualities. Only one or two critics called attention to
the psychological portraits. Browning was interested
in penetrating portraiture, but he was more expansive
in language and imagery than Robinson. Crabbe, who had
served as Robinson's tutor, was more abrupt, less kindly,
and sympathetic in tone.

Robinson was also interested in the problem of
failure and resignation rather than in such customary
sentimental themes of the nineties. His emotions were
sincere and personal, his attitudes genuine rather than
assumed or bookish. Honesty, cleanness, intellect, the

chief characteristics of The Children 9: the Night, were

 

 

uncommon in that decade.1

 

le. Richard Crowder, "The Emergence of E. A. Robinson",
The South Atlantic Quarterly, XLV (January, 1946),
89-98.

 

 

-16-

Hagedorn found the plainness of Robinson's style
revolutionary. Yvor Winters found it no more revolution-
ary than that of any first rate writer in any period,
but rather "accurate with the conscientiousness of
genius", and observed that such accuracy is invariable a
major obstacle to success, for "nothing baffles the
average critic so completely as honesty - he is prepared
for anything but that".1

The leading literary critics had ignored The

Torrent and The Night Before and the 1897 edition of

 

The Children of the Night and save for Trent's four

 

 

pages in The Sewanee Review the reviews were relatively

 

 

modest, were tucked away in the poetry sections of
periodicals.

In 1897 Robinson moved to New Terk, which became
the setting for his The Town Down the River and where
he met Alfred Louis who was the original of his Captain
ggglg. His life was much the same and he soon acquired
a new circle of literary acquaintances. Among them was
Titus Munson Coan, who as a young man had interviewed
the elderly Melville with disappointment and bewilder-
ment. It was at his apartment among signed photographs
and pornographic collections that the little group which
called itself the Clan met. The other members were

Robinson, William Henry Thorne, Craven Langstroth Betts,

 

lYvor Winters, op, cit., 6.
-17-

an itenerant book-dealer, and Alfred Louis. Hagedorn
described him as a little Jew in his late sixties with

a goatlike smell as though he slept in a stable. But his
eyes had in them the suffering of five thousand years

and when he rose out of a chair to greet a stranger it
seemed "as though some great figure of history, rose to
address, not me but the nations of the world".1 LOU1S
had been educated in England and claimed to have had
something of a political career in London. He was at
home in the literatures of the world, was a trained
pianist, an acute lawyer, an experienced student in gov-
ernment and diplomacy, a philosopher in whom "knowledge
had been burned to understanding", and a poet. With such
a background he wholly dominated the meetings of the clan.

At about the same time Robinson met Joseph French
a literary hack who haunted him for the rest of his life -
borrowing small sums, borrowing or stealing clothes,
admiring him, abusing him, endeavoring to get him the
Nobel prize, threatening his life, and borrowing five
dollars when Robinson was on his death bed.

Robinson also had a number of friends of a differ-
ent type, normal and intelligent people who liked, ad-
mired and helped him -- and there were a few like Jose-
phine Preston Peabody, Edmund Clarence Stedman, Ridgely

Torrance, and William Vaughn Moody (a former classmate

 

lHagedorn, 132.
-18—

of Robinson's at Harvard), who had achieved some liter—
ary distinction.

In 1898, as a result of the intervention of Hays
Gardiner,-Robinson obtained a position at Harvard as a
kind of office boy. Gardiner recommended him as a con-
fidential clerk or secretary, for Robinson would not
consider teaching. Nothing much came of it and it is the
only professional connection on record between Robinson

and Harvard. While there he worked on Captain Craig

 

which in embryo he called The Pauper.

 

In the fall of 1899, Dean Robinson died. A little
later Robinson returned to New Ybrk to live in rooming

houses and work on his poetry. He finished Captain Craig

 

and with some trepidation let Louis read the book, fear-
ing lest his peripatetic friend might resent the portrait.
The old man brought the poem back with trembling hands

and asked why Robinson should have hesitated to let him
read it. Louis said, "This is the best justification I
have of my existence. Now I seem to know why I am still
in the world".1 Scribners' rejected the book and Robin-
son sent it to Small, Haynard and Company in Boston, as
well as to other publishing firms, all of whom rejected
it. In the meantime he was writing another book which

he called The Book of Annandale. Hays Gardiner sent it

 

 

lHagedorn, 162.

-19-

to Scribner's, supported by letters from Barrett Wendell
and himself. The publishers answered that they liked
the "quaint contemplative philosophy" of the poems, but
that they were clearly for"the poet's own Brahmin class...
interesting, yet at once too simple and too sophisticated"
for the Scribners' constituency.

Thus rebuffed by New York, Gardiner turned to
the center and temple of Brahminism and sent the manu-
script to Houghton, Mifflin under a barrage of letters
from Lewis Gates, George Lyman Kittredge, William Vaughn
Moody and others. Bliss Perry, the firm's chief literary
advisor, thought the poems obscure and often eccentric
and prosaic, but caught "flashes of genius". The result
was that the publishers offered to accept them if Mr.
Robinson's distinguished friends would invest in his’
future, so Gardiner and Laura E. Richards became his
guarantors.

Captain Craig and The geek of Annandale were com-

 

 

bined and published as one under the former title. It
contained no French forms and only a few sonnets. The
title poem, "Isaac and Archibald","Aunt Imogen" and

"The Book of Annandale" used the flexible blank verse
form which the poet had introduced in his "Octaves" in
the preceding volume and which he did not use after this

until the publication of The Man Against the Sky in 1916.

 

-20-

The book received some praise, but the majority
of the reviews were cautious, tepid and patronizing.

The Critic which had completely ignored his previous

 

books, printed the first photograph of Robinson ever to
be published. Its reviewer, Clinton Scollard, the perfect
exemplar of those "little sonnet-men" whom Robinson had
declaimed against in his first book, reviewed this one in
his column along with ten others. He found a"certain
provoking fascination" in the "disturbing volume" but
felt that the book might have been vastly better from

an artistic standpoint "if the author had so willed it".
He called "Captain Craig's" blank verse little more than
"inverted prose chopped up into lines" that continually
elbowed passages that were "shot through with real poetic
fire". The natural, run-on quality of Robinson's lines
and the avoidance of definite end-stops probably account
for Scollard‘s phrase "prose chopped up". He noted that
"while there is strength, and to spare, there is also a
seemingly perverse carelessness, a frequent disregard of
the niceties of form". As long as a poet had anything to
say (and he acknowledged that Robinson did) Scollard in-
sisted that he ought to "dress his thought in attractive
attire and not let it go slovenly clad". He was apparent-
ly referring to such lapses as occur in "The Torrent" in
which the poet ignores the customary 8—6 sonnet formula.
Scollard did not care for the title poem on the "two or

-21-

three tales similar in manner" but preferred the sonnet
"The Sage" and the "swinging lyric" with which the book
closed, called "Twilight Song", a predilection explained
by the presence in these poems of phrases familar in the
period, "Love's inner shrine" and "Long ago, far away..."1
Another disciple of prettiness was Frank Uempster

Sherman, a poet like Scollard of charming fancy and impecc-

able sentiment. In The Book Buyer he reviewed thirty-

 

nine books of verse at one critical swoop. He thought
Robinson to be a good story-teller, but the "round, crude,
and altogether prosaic character of his blank verse" seem-
ed unforgivable. He thought some of the rhymed verse
excellent, but too much of it was marred by obscurity.

2

He recommended the use of a file.

An annonymous critic in The Independent compared

 

Robinson's poetry to French verse which evidenced a
"first hand impression of life", showing that its author
has "looked at life and thought about art for himself".
He found most American and English verse to be "mainly
derivative and vaguely reminiscent like all second-hand
inspiration"; in short, in most cases it would stand for

nothing but what "already has a place in letters and a

 

lClinton Scollard, "Recent Books of Poetry", The Critic,
XLII (March, 1903), 232. ,

2Frank Dempster Sherman, "Recent Poetry", The Book Buyer
XXV (December, 1902), 429.

-22-

following among the public". He believes that it is the

contrast of Captain Craig with the majority that makes

 

it seem more remarkable than it really is and that the
characters of Robinson's work are symptomatic of certain
tendencies of modern verse - "the sum of which is making
for what may be called the secularization of poetry".

In contrast to Sherman, he says that the poem is too
shapeless to be a story but is rather a characterization
of a bit of "bombastical old social wreckage or debris...
with a glimpse of cosmic humor" and a kind of "transcend-
ental optimism". He found its language to be diametric-
ally opposed to subject in any ordinary poetic sense

and that there was nothing to distinguish it from prose

in diction, imagery, or rhythm. It illustrated the modern
formlessness of monologing which treated the reader as an
eavesdropper "welcome to anything that he can contrive to
pick up"...a suitable medium in its own confusion for
"hasty, turbid thinking, unhampered by an ideal of beauty
or literary distinction but compatible" like Captain Craig
with a great deal of vigor, humor, caricature, even satire
and pathos. He saw Captain Craig's mind as an "emblem of
his time, half-formed, undisciplined, vaguely emotional...
kaleidoscopic", professing in addition a "dim conception
of human...perfectibility". Such comment on individual

character showed greater understanding than was customary

-23-

of what Robinson was about.1

Other critics caught the shine of genius as well.
William Morton Payne, writing in Thg_gi§l, spoke of the
philosophy of its free spirit which has given no hostages
to the conventional life, the spirit that "seeks to
divest from their adventitious wrappings the fundamental
verities of existence". He felt that "Captain Craig"
was the best poem in the book and saw in it the shrewd-
ness of Socrates, the irony of Aristophanes, and the zeal
of Carlyle. He was not quite sure of Robinson's philoso-
phy but he felt that he could discern quite plainly the
"free spirit" of Whitman and the "sardonic humor" of
Browning.2

An anonymous reviewer who published the same re-

view in both The Nation and The New York Evening Post

 

 

called Robinson one of the most promising of the younger
poets, one who was gifted but had not yet mastered his
powers and must "follow his muse for a time and not direct
it". He found Robinson sometimes obscure but defended his
right to be so "for his thoughts are always worth consider-
ation, but it must be frankly owned that he sometimes

draws near the unintelligible". This frank statement let

 

1"A New Poetry", The Independent,
LV (February 19,1903), 4464447.

 

2William Horton Payne, "Recent Poetry", The Dial,
XXXIV (January 1, 1903), 18-19.

-24-

the bars down for later critics who evidently needed some
precedent before they could admit that they often found
Robinson's thoughts "obscure". The critic thought Robin-
son's lines at their best to be musical and colorful, but
cautioned against careless reading. Indolent and im-
patient readers would find nothing in it, but careful
ones would "revert to it again and again". In his last
paragraph the critic more or less contradicted one of his
former statements on Robinson's unintelligibility when

he said "there is not a trivial or a meaningless thing

in it", and when there was obscurity, "it is often like
that of Emily Dickinson when she piques your curiosity
through half a dozen readings and suddenly makes all
clear".1 This is either an example of fuzzy critical
thinking, or Just plain hack writing.

A western critic called Robinson, not without
acumen, a "forlornly Joyous cuss",2 while in a personal
statement, William James spoke of him as "a genuine
poet? with "an important future", "an original sense of
life", and wrote the publishers that he thought

"Isaac and Archibald" "fully as good as anything of the

 

lAnon... "Recent Poetry", The Nation, Lxxv
(December 11, 1902), 465.

2Anon., "Some Recent Books of Verse", The Argonaut,
LII (January 5, 1903), 6.

-25-

kind in wordsworth". 1
The reviews indicated that Robinson had clearly

made some progress. The Critic and The Indgpendent,

 

 

two of the nation's leading literary periodicals, had

recognized his existence. The Critic's review was not

 

flattering but the anonymous reviewer of The Independent

 

thought him a precursor of a new trend in poetry who had
the ability to handle caricature, satire, pathos and
humor. He also saw Robinson's philosophy of human per-
fectability, something no other critic noticed. Thg

Bookman continued to ignore the poet, but The Book Buyer,

 

The Nation an The Dial made mention of him. The Harvard

 

 

2
Monthly gave him three pages and the critic of The
Argonaut in San Francisco seemed to understand what Rob-

inson was after. The Boston Transcript, which generally

 

favored Robinson, gave him two complimentary reviews.
These laudatory notices called forth a second
edition of 250 copies after six months, but the reviews
had no effect on the editors of magazines, who continued
to reject the manuscripts Robinson sent them. Apart from

two poems in The Harvard Monthly, no magazine had printed

 

a line of his. Robinson seems to have lived mainly on

 

lHagedorn, 191.

2Trumbull Stickney "Captain Craig" The Harvard Honthl ,
(December, 1903), 99-102.

-25-

gifts and loans in this period. He brooded much-and
drank heavily. Finally he received a Job as a time-
checker in a subway and although it gave him a living,
the work left him exhausted. He became vaguely known
as "the poet in the subway" and in his wanderings about
New YOrk he became familiar with the derelicts and fail-
ures Just as he had in Gardiner. His friends found that
when he was drunk he was capable of spinning many Rabales-
ian storks that he had picked up here and there. This.
life formed the background for the poems in his next
volume, The Town Down the RiVer.

French returned to New Ybrk about his time, and
noting Robinson‘s state of mind, saw a chance to turn
an honest penny and at the same time show the citizens
of the metropolis what they were doing to a gifted spirit.
He sought out the editor of The New Kerk Sunday world and
suggested a story on "the poet in the subway". The editor
sent a reporter to get a statement from Stedman. Robin-
son became indignant when he heard what was being planned
and insisted that it be stopped. Stedman only laughed
and said that an article like that couldn't possibly
harm Robinson, but would rather help him. In the middle
of May, 1904, the article was published, "A Poet in the
Subway 2 Hailed as a genius by men of letters, Edwin
Arlington Robinson has to earn his living as a timekeeper."

In the center was a reproduction of a photograph of

-27-

Robinson flanked on either side by a reproduction of the

title page of Captain Craig and a drawing of the charac-

 

ter represented as an old man in an ulster and black
hat carrying a lantern. The story and picture covered a
third of a page, all in the best style of that litera-
ture which Mr. Pulitzer and Mr. Hearst were so actively
promoting. All Robinson's New England forbears rose
within him in humiliation and rage at this public exhi-
bition of his personal affairs and he informed French
that he had committed the unforgivable sin. The be-
wildered hack, feeling guilty and miserable, consoled
himself that at least Robinson's friends now knew how
the land lay. l

Shortly afterwards Richand Watson Gilder of

The Century_accepted "Uncle Ananias" for publication

 

in his department of frivolities called "In Lighter
Vein". It was the first acceptance by any magazine

other than The Globe or the Harvard Monthly in eight

 

years; the first paid acceptance since Lippincott's
had taken his sonnet on Poe eleven years before.

In 1905 Theodore Roosevelt became interested in
Robinson's work, which had been called to his attention
by his son, Kermit, then a pupil at Groton. Roosevelt,'
after trying to persuade Robinson to accept several

positions, succeeded in getting him a place in the New

lHagedorn, 206-208.

-28-

Ybrk Customs, as a special agent of the treasury, at
$2,000 a year. Robinson was somewhat bewildered at

his new job.1 Roosevelt invited Robinson to the White
House and talked with him at length. Later he wrote an

article in praise of Robinson's poems for The Outlook

 

and persuaded Scribner's to reissue The Children of the

 

Night. His article stated that there was an undoubted

 

 

touch of genius in the poemSJn The Children 9; the Night>
a curious simplicity and good faith, all of which quali-
ties differentiated them sharply from ordinary collections
of the kind. He affirmed that it was not always neces-
sary in order to enjoy a poem that one should be able to
"translate it into terms of mathematical accuracy" and
said that though he was not sure that he understood
"Luke Havergal", he was entirely sure that he liked it.
He liked'The House on the Hill", "Richard Cory", "Ballade
of Broken Flutes","The Pity of the Leaves", and quoted
all of "The Wilderness". "Mr. Robinson has written in
this little volume not verse but poetry. Whether he has
the power of sustained flight remains to be seen".2

For his temerity in writing a critical article
the president was generally abused by the literary ex-

perts of the period and Robinson's poetry belittled

 

lHagedorn, 221.

2Theodore Roosevelt, "The Children of the Night",
The Outlook, LXXX (August 12, 1905), 913-914.

-29-

 

by them. The Critic responded with the kind of review
that hurt the poet most keenly and for a little while
paralized his efforts.

"We do not dispute the President's dictum: but

we suspect that he has not kept 'au courant' with
the flood of American minor verse. Had he done so,
he would think twice before applying the word
'genius' to Mr. Robinson, notwithstanding thel
author's "curious simplicity and good faith".

The Bookman told of a four-foot shelf, annually filled

 

three times with books of minor poetry and reviewed,
summarized or otherwise disposed of. "Three fourths of
this is tinged with the 'certain sad mysticism‘ detected
by the President in Mr. Robinson's verse, and half of it
is almost if not quite Robinsonian in merit". T§§_§gfl

York Evening Post, which loved the President as the land-

 

owner loves the tax-collector, waxed literary - histor-
ical - critical in a sardonic discussion of the conse-

"our Presidents should usurp the authority of

quences if
critics". This "union of political and literary authority
in a single man" was "a dangerous business".2 During
these years when Robinson seemed to stand so completely
alone against perverse editors and a cynical public,

Roosevelt's kindly help must have accomplished more toward

assisting him with regard both to his reputation and his

 

1Anon., The Critic, XL (December, 1905), 584.

 

2Hagedorn, 219.

-30-

personal life than anyone else had done. Perhaps Roose-
velt was not a great literary scholar, but he knew what

he liked and time has disproved neither his Judgment nor
the worth of his aid to Robinson.

The new edition of The Children of the Night did

 

 

not receive any overwhelming reviews. The New York Times

 

thought "the numerous poems of religious feeling" were
1
"the products of a wholesome faith". "Though not escap-

ing the calamities of injudicious praise", said The Nation,

 

the collection was "a very pleasant little book". Ferris
Greenslet claimed that no minor poet of the day was less
indebted to conventionalism or more ”securely himself”

than Robinson. He admired the poet's "gift" of "coining
musical and suggestive” names for his characters - Luke
Havergal, John Evereldown, Aaron Stork, Cliff Klingenhagen,
Fleming Helphenstine, Reuben Bright - each a perfect symbol
and almost a poem in itself that clung potently to one's
memory. His poetry had a "haunting individuality” and a

2 , _
"curious vividness". The soston Transcript was consist-

 

 

ently faithful and admiring.3

 

1Anon., "Recent Poetry", The New York Times Saturday
Review of Books (November 25, 1905), 798.

 

 

2Ferris Greenslet, "Recent Poetry", The Nation,

LXXXI (December 21, 1905), 507.

3Anon., "The Children of the Night" The Boston Evening
Transcript, (November 25, 1905), 4.

 

 

-31-

Among the major literary Journals, The pig; was the only
one that made so bold as to insist that "Mr. Robinson's
work has never got half the attention it deserved".

The unaccountable Joseph Lewis French wrote the most

comprehensive review for the How England Magazine. He

 

said that Robinson was more nearly a Greek than any other
contemporary American poet. His frank, naked democratic
view of life was a legacy from the Puritan ideal. No man
had struck it with quite the same "union of simplicity

and force"...it is the "fulfillment of the Christian

ideal" as nournished by generations of New England thinkers,
"the stern law of personal accountability, united to the
large charity of the Golden Rule".

In 1906 Robinson made the acquaintance of May
Sinclair, a young novelist flushed with her first success -
a novel about a poet, but comically she had never known
one before. She wrote an article for The Fortnightly_
Review entitled "Three American Poets of Today", concern-
ing Robinson and his two friends, Moody and Torrence.

She felt that Robinson had pressed allusiveness and sim-
plicity to the verge of vagueness in his shorter poems.
His longer poems were a little too analytically diffuse.

'Captain Craig" was "severely undecorated" and unrelieved

 

lAnon., The Dial, XXXIX (November 16, 1905), 314.

2Hagedorn, 220.
-32-

by any "sensuous coloring", but charm grew in the read-
ing of it revealing the "divine soul" hidden in a starved
body"; a soul that had the courage to be itself". She
spoke of Robinson's'great gift of Spiritual imagination,
and an unerring skill in disentangling the slender-threads
of thought, motive and emotion". His message was,

"Be true to the truth that lies nearest to you;

true to God, if you have found Him; true to

man; true to yourself; true, if you know

better truth, to your primal instincts; but

at any cost, to be true".
Naively she added that "Captain Craig" is one "prolonged
and glorious wantoning and wallpwing in the truth". She
was unsure of Robinson's future for he had no sense of
action and was still waiting for a generative impulse to
break up his "sequences and cadences into other combina-
tions and more living forms". He had it in him to write
a great human drama of the soul "from which all action
proceeds and to which its results return?l Her review
was kind and perceptive in its philosophical criticism,
but she did not comprehend Robinson's intentions in his
use of forms.

Robinson lost his job at the Custom House when

Taft became president in 1909. Roosevelt endeavored to

protect him but to no avail. When Robinson was asked to

keep regular office hours and do regular work, he resigned.

 

lMay Sinclair, "Three American Poets", The Fortnightly
Review, LXXXVI (September, 1906), 429-434.

-33-

In the meantime he had completed The Town Down the River,
which he dedicated to Roosevelt. It made its appearance
in 1911, but received little notice. The Outlook said
that the poet was quietly himself, neither a reaction-

ary nor a rebel but a producer of work of "a very reassur-
ing quality". His quiet speech, his fresh perception and
his penetration are shown in his lines on Lincoln. The
poet did not appear to strain after originality. His
style was full of the strength of plain words and "com-
pressed experience". Some of the poems lacked enchantment
but had the vibration of life.1 The Literary Digest, in

a groping, romantic review, said that the poet's tone was
one of regret and that from the regrets of his lost heri-
tage he has distilled verses of the "rarest imaginable
beauty". Each poem was a "lyric secret". Occasionally
his style was too "cryptic" and "obscure". The essence
of his poetry lay in a self-deprecating irony - half a
confession of weakness and half a deliberate veiling of
strength in gentleness. It had no grief more "clamorous
than a sigh" and no mirth "more boisterous than a smile".2
William Morton Payne noted the honesty, the careful

weighing of words, the stripped quality of his verse.

 

1"Three Books of Verse", The Outlook,
XLVIII (June 3, 1911), 245.

 

2Anon., "Current Poetry", The Literary Digest,

XLII (March 4, 1911), 424-425.
-34-

These characteristics were lacking for the most part in
American poetry during the first two decades in which
Robinson wrote. Typical of these years were the artifi-
ciallity of Bunner, Sherman, and Scollard; the senti-
mentality of Riley and Field; and the "luxuriant quali-
ties" of Miss Reese and Miss Guiney.l Richard Le Gallienne
compared the book to Browning and Houseman. Their influ-
ence resulted in too many "dark sayings and abbreviations
of his meaning". So far he was a poet of vividly etched
lines rather than of complete poems and depended on
"flashes of insight and lightening glimpses of character".
His book was not one of love songs, but one written by a
man who had "gone through the mill", a book almost ex-
clusively about men who had gone through the mill also:
Lincoln, Napoleon, Roosevelt, and "certain sad, cynical,
good-hearted men, comrades in misfortunes of existence".2
The critic in The New York Times reviewed the book four
months after its publication. He found that it had an
individual point of view and manner of feeling, but was
esoteric. He spoke of "fantasy, an odd, shy self-confi-

dence, a bitter tenderness... at times a rare beauty."

 

1William Morton Payne, "Recent Poetry", The Dial,
L (March 1, 1911), 164-165.

 

2Richard LeGallienne, "Three American Poets",
The Forum, XLV (January, 1911), 88-90.

 

-35-

Robinson had a "wisdom content to question, ponder,
doubt", yet was "conscious of a sublime answer some-
where". All this it seems was neither "deep" nor
”wonderful".1
The first review that appeared was also the most
penetrating. It was by W. S. Braithwaite, packing into
a column of close thinking the wisest analysis which
had yet been made of the qualities by which Robinson
was distinguished from all contemporary American poets.2
Robinson's critics, at this early date, seem to
have stressed his intellectuality, his searching insight
and the plainness of his style. These qualities stood
out against the contemporary verse of the time which was
sentimental,"pretty", and superficially subjective.

In the meantime Robinson had been writing two

plays, Van Zorn and The Porcppine. They were not accept-

 

 

able to publishers and so he tried unsuccessfully to re-
write them as novels. In 1911 he was persuaded against
his better Judgment to Spend the summer at the Mac Dowell
colony at Peterborough, New Hampshire; he was so pleased

with it that he went there regularly each summer for the

 

lAnon., "Three Poets of the Present" The New York Times
Review gf_Books,(February 12, 1912), 79.

 

23m. Stanley Sraithwaite, "Down the River", Boston
Eveninngranscript, (October 29, 1910),6.

Cf. Hagedorn, 260.

 

-35-

rest of his life. The Mac Dowell farmhouse, Hillcrest,
provided the title and something of the subJect matter
for one of his most important short poems. He gave up
alcohol at this time, a difficult thing for him to do
since he had been rather dangerously addicted to it
for the past seven years.

Popular interest in poetry was awakening from
a thirty year slumber. In England Ezra Pound launched
the movement he called Imagism, a revolt against
standardization in poetry and life and a demand for
precision, for poetic utterance in terms of the image
rather than the phrase, for poetic forms more fluid and
ductile than the accepted formal measures. Little maga-
zines sprang up championing the new poetry of free
verse. Amy Lowell took command of the movement in
America; Harriet Ionroe founded the magazine Poetry;
.conservative critics defended tradition and the ensuing
altercation aroused public interest in poetry. In 1913
Alfred Noyes, at the peak of his popularity, visited
America. Welcoming a chance to strike a blow in be-
half of accepted standards, Noyes remarked_that in his
Judgment, Robinson was the leading American poet.

British approbation counted heavily in Boston and boost-

ed Robinson's reputation.l

 

le. Hagedorn, 285-284.
-37-

Scribner's still refused his two plays but the
Macmillan Company, influenced by Louis Ledoux, finally
agreed to publish them and accept whatever losses there
might be in View of a possible larger gain as the poet's
fame grew. They were reviewed in the poetry sections of .
the neWSpapers, but the magazines did not bother much
with them. Harper's critic called 233 gggg a masquerade,
"the sort we are all playing everyday". The speeches
were "cryptic" and the play failed to have action.1
Most newspapers became entangled in the plot and failed to

understand it. The Porcupine fared little better in the

 

 

few reviews it had. One unusual critic predicted that
Robinson might"go far as a dramatist;" his dialogue was
admirable and his characters had strong and consistent
individualities. But there was a minor controversy about
a part of the plot that confused dates and left in doubt
the paternity of a child. The story was depressing and
could not hope for success in the theatre. "The weakness
lies in the scheme, not in the execution".2

Although most of the reviews of the two plays were

harsh and in some cases ruthless, the faithful Boston

 

lNeith Boyce, "Books and Men", Harper's Weekly,
LX (February 6, 1915), 131.

2John Rankin Towse, "The Porcupine", The Nation,
CII (June 29, 1916), 717.

 

-38-

l It‘ll-ll [I‘ll I l

Transcript carried favorable reviews of each. Braithwaite

 

felt that they were real stories with strong characteriz-
ation, whose action was "so deep that the mind has got to
dive underneath the surface to feel it".1 The plays were
not successful and brought little added fame to Robinson
except that they introduced his name to people who read
newspapers and not magazines. Few people pretended either
to understand or like them.

But nevertheless, Robinson's luck was beginning to

change, for The Atlantic Monthly, Scribner‘s and Harper's

 

Weekly began to publish his poems. "Ben JChnson Entertains

a Man from Stratford" was published in The Drama. The

 

Outlook took "Pavrette" and "Flammonde". Harriet Monroe of
Poetry, fighting for the younger group of American and
British poets, was glad to give room to the man who had ex-
pressed the richest meaning of the new poetic movement half
a generation before it was born; she published "Eros Turan-
nos" and "Bokardo". When his next book was published Robin-

son was definitely assured of a place in American literature.

 

1 Wm. Stanley Braithwaite, "The Poet as a Dramatist",
The Bgston Evening Transcript
(December 24, 1915), 6.

-39...

THE FIRST CRITICAL ACCLAIM

With Thg_Man Against the Sky, published in 1916,
Robinson arrived with the critics if not with the public.
Reviews of his book were still lumped together in review-

ers columns with several others, but there was a differ-

ence. The New York Times gave him a column of discrim-

 

 

inating praise.l Braithwaite reviewed it favorably in

2
The Bookman and in The Boston Transcript.3 Oscar W.

 

Firkins, while reviewing several volumes of verse in Th3
Nation, singled Robinson out as a delightful versifier

whose homespun verse ends up by "snatching you up into its
hazelnut coach and making off with you to Fairyland". He
was original enough to dispense with novelty thought Firkins,
but his poetry did not have enough of the "sedative of
music". Firkins censured the "narrative" as a "languid"

and "famished intellectualism", but acknowledged that
Robinson eould "narrate finely" and had done so in his other
books. He especially liked the characterization of Ben
Jonson whose "misgivings and truculence" were given'almost

in a touch". "01d King Cole" and "Flammonde" were mono-

1L

lAnon., "Edwin A. Robinson's New Book of Poems",
The New York Times Review 9; Books (April 2, 1916), 121.

 

2Wm. Stanley Braithwaite, "The Year in Poetry",
The Bookman, XLV (June, 1919), 429-430.

 

3Wm. Stanley Braithwaite, "The Man Against the Sky",
The Boston Evening Transcript (February 26, 1916) 9.

 

-40-

chords of undeniable beauty.1 The North American character-

 

ized Robinson‘s attitude toward life as Russian, "comparable
to that of Dostoevsky". His poetry was distinguished from
most contemporary verse by a "more genuine simplicity" and a
"real elevation". He was one of the few moderns who had a
sense for language, for power and beauty of idiom as well

as for melody and imagery. Any obscurity in his verse was
due to its compactness of expression and its swift transi-

tion of thought. Unlike Firkins, The North American review-

 

er believed that the poetry did not merely "lull and nar-
cotize" but "made thought musical". Robinson's verse was not
great, he concluded, because it lacked a "sense of complete-
ness and finality", but it unquestionably attained distinct-
ion.

E. 3. Reed, in a contemplative page in the zglg
Review, gave Robinson generous praise. He found his book
austere in-its restraint, surcharged with thought, but
lacking in appeal through melody or color -- yet it seemed
to him to be one of the most significant books of the year
because of its art and force. He too liked "Ben anson

Entertains a Man from Stratford", but (unlike Firkins) for

 

lOscar W. Firkins, "American Verse", The Nation,
CIII (August 17, 1916), 150-151.

 

2nThe Man Against the,Sky", The North American Review,
CCIII (April, 1916), 633.

-41-

its picture of Shakespeare, rather than of Jonson, claim-
ing that he knew of no portrait of Shakespeare that sur-
passed it. Mr. Robinson stood, he said, in the foremost
rank of American poets. There was more packed away in this
book of his than the "most receptive reader will discover

in volumes of our modern rhapsodists".1 The Outlook's

 

reviewer mentioned Robinson's "curious attitude of impartial-
ity" toward his characters. They seemed "always strangely
independent", working out their own "destiny unhampered by
their creator", who found them matters "chiefly for dissec-
tion and exposition". Mr. Robinson‘s younger contempor-

aries, in The Outlook's opinion, might learn from him that

 

a writer is never so direct as when he is hinting a half
expressed thought, nor so indirect as when he is apparently
laying out a character in black and white. "Flammonde",
"The Poor Relation", "Ben Jonson Entertains a Man from
Stratford" and "Another Dark Lady" received praise on this
score.2 Amy Lowell's review in The New Republic was more
daring. She spoke of Robinson's great power, "dynamic with
eXperience and knowledge of life". His poems did not in-
vigorate, to her way of thinking, but mellowed and subdued

the reader. His Spirituality was "tonic and uplifting",

 

1Edward Bliss Reed "Recent American Verse"
The Yale Review, 01 (January, 1917), 421-422.

 

2"Mr Rbbinson's New Poems", The Outlook,
CXII (April 5, 1916), 786-787.

-42-

 

and she liked the "reticence" and "astringency" of his poems,
finding his prevailing mood one of "high seriousness".

It is interesting to note that the title poem of
this volume received little favorable comment from the
critics, while "Flammonde" (which Robinson had earlier in-
tended to make the title poem) was almost always singled out
for praise. "Ben Jonson Entertains a Man from Stratford"
was a favorite with the reviewers but for different reasons.
The gravity with which Robinson was discussed, however,
bore witness to the respect that he was beginning to inspire.
Perhaps he was not great, but he had become a poet of "dis-
tinction".

The conservatives used him as a shining example of
traditionalism in verse, while the adherents of the "new
poetry" deplored his use of "outmoded" forms, but admitted

his eminence. What was valid in the "

new poetry" seemed to
Robinson, who was always distrustful of all movements, as
ancient as Athens; in effect, the chief principles of the
"new poetry" were nothing different from that for which he
had fought for twenty years. When a stranger asked him
whether he wrote "free verse" he answered, "no, I write badly
enough as it is", a wry commentary on the so-called "new
verse".

While this little warfare of the "old" verse the "new"

 

lAmy Lowell, "E. A. Robinson's Verse",
The New Republic, VII (May 27, 1916), 96-97.

.-43-

 

poetry was in progress, Robinson was contemplating the far
greater tragedy of World War I. He saw his age crumbling
before his eyes; the men who might have had the "vision to
guide it were irresponsible or trapped by their own pass—
ions, betraying what they most cherished". There was a
Light, of course, that would survive, but meanwhile the
darkness would be terrifying.l

Robinson lived and worked at the Peterborough col-
ony every summer, during the rest of the year living on a
$2000 legacy left him by John Hays Gardiner. When that
was gone, a friend, Lewis Isaacs, in better financial
straits got eleven others to Join him in providing Robin-
son $1200 a year. Meanwhile Robinson, searching for a
theme to eXpress in verse the great upheaval and dissolu-
tion of civilization that World War I symbolized, found it
in Malory‘s Arthurian cycle. He wanted to portray in verse,
as Malory had in prose, the crumbling of a world, the
shattering of an ethos - and out of his search came Merlin,

Lancelot, and ten years later, Tristram.

 

Merlin, published in 1917, was not kindly received.
Odell Shepard was merciless in his attack on it, maintain-
ing that a malicious elf must have suggested the Arthurian
legend as a subject to Robinson. His method and manner had

not changed, but the subject-matter did not harmonize with

 

lcf. Hagedorn, op. cit., 306.
-44-

his method. Shepard's severest criticism was:

"upon a style that has shaped itself in the
delineation of modern types of mind - com-
plex, eccentric, intensely individualized -
is laid the talk of depicting certain very
unmodern characters which throughout a long
and august tradition have been treated as
simple, conventional, naive. The result, in
less skillful hands would have been burlesque...
Mr. Robinson resembles his own Merlin,wno has
much to say about what he has seen and known
without giving much notion of what it is, and
who seems to rely upon our remembrance that
he has been impressive in other scenes".

To him Robinson's method applied to Arthurian material,
was faulty and ill-advised, seemingly because it had never
been used before in relation to the legend.1 Nor were the

2
other reviewers more favorable. The New York Times felt

 

that Robinson was a respectable poet, but a heavy one.

E. 8. Reed gave Merlin probably its most favorable review.
Although he found it unlike any Arthurian poem he had ever
read before (it was hard for critics to forget Tennyson)
his attitude was different than Shepard's. Reed thought
the poem deserved to be ranked with the best verse that the
legends had inspired. Its "foundations were dug deep" and

the compression of style gave a sense of "reserve force".

 

lOdell Shepard, "Versified Henry James", The Dial,
LXIII (October 11, 1917), 339-341.

2Stark YOung, "Merlin", The New Republic,

x11 (September 29, 1917f, 250-251.

 

3"Notable Books in Brief Review", The New YOrk Times
Revigfl 9: Books (August 26, 1917), 314.

 

-45-

Its characters were powerless against "inexorable law, the
inevitable sequence of growth and decay". Each volume of
Robinson's deepened Reed's conviction that Robinson was the
foremost American post. "In laying down herlin we have but
one criticism to offer: it is too soon ended".1

In December, 1919, Robinson celebrated his fiftieth
birthday. His friend, Percy hacKaye, summoned Robinson's
friends to pay tribute and they respnded lyrically in the

newspapers and magazines. The New York Times carried tributes

 

by Vachel Lindsay, Edgar Lee hasters, Ridgely Torrence, Edwin
Markham, Amy Lowell, Sara Teasdale, and many others. Bliss
Perry provided an introduction, stressing the consistency

of Robinson's work and its relation to the main current of
English poetry. The remarks were of course complimentary,
and a few were perceptive.2 Percy LiacKaye3 and Harriet
Monroe4 wrote rather mawkish tributes, while Kermit Roose—
velt claimed that "there was never a master who depended for

his fame less on any individual poem".5

 

lEdward Bliss Reed "Poetry of Three Nations", The Yale Review,
VI (July, 1917), 863-864.

I
éPoets Celebrate E. A. Robinson's Birthday", The New York
Times Review 9; Books (December 21, 1919). 1.

 

3Percy MacKaye, "E. A. - A Milestone for America",
The North American Review, CCXI (January, 1920), 121-127.

 

4Harriet Monroe, "Mr. Robinson's Jubilee," Poetry
XV (February, 1920), 265-267.

5Kermit Roosevelt "An Appreciation of the Poetry of Edwin
Arlington Robinson" Scribner's Magazine LXVI (December,19l9),

763-764. ““"—“'

-46..

The Outlook waxed slightly eloquent:

 

"The influence of Mr. Robinson is more widely
acknowledged today than at any time in the

past decade, and his place among contemporary
poets seems surer today than at any time since
the publication of The Children 9: the Night,
which after all, is gratifying indication that
work of the first order will find its way to
the front, no matter how void it may be of

the superficial advantage of popular appeal".

 

 

Robinson was grateful for the attention and realized
that it was not simply prompted by popularity, but rather
by the sympathetic understanding of an esoteric group who
appreciated him - that some of them clearly did not approve
of certain elements in his work he no doubt realized, and
that his popularity was limited he must have known too.

But Robinson hoped that popularity might come some day,
acknowledging to a friend that he didn't know why but "for
the majority of semi-intelligent readers my books might
as well be written in Sanskrit".2

‘Despite what the critics had done to Merlin, Robin-
son published the second Arthurian legend, Lancelot, in
1919. This time the reviewers were a trifle more kind,
possibly because they followed the laudatory comments
that his birthday celebration had brought forth. Yet some

of the critics continued to feel that Robinson had rushed

 

'1"A Poet's Birthday", The Outlook,
CXXIII (December 24, 1919), 535.

2Hagedorn, op. cit., 234
-47-

into a land where angels feared to tread - that of Tenny-
son, Swinburne and Arnold. Babette Deutsch thought
nggglgt finer than Mgglig by as much as it was closer

to Robinson. His chief distinction was that he mingled
Puritan austerity with a "discerning tenderness".l
R. M. Weaver felt Robinson's genius to be "essentially
dramatic". The poet's analysis of soul at war with soul
was "subtle, unsentimental, and contagiously sympathetic".
His verse was noble, his Judgment mature, and his method
economical. Though a tragic moralist, Robinson gave at
the end of his poem"the promise of something other than
utter night".2 Carl Van Doren found Robinson as much at
home in Lancelot as in Tilbury Town, "hitting the univers-
al with his narrowest strokes". nggglgt had the "stark,
unpopular grandeur" of tragedies in which men are over-
whelmed by reason of some trait of their souls - that
passion for an ideal which lifts men above their senses
and rends them from their societies. The verse was as
"athletic and spare as an indian runner, though it walks
not runs", and varied in admirable accord with situation
and character. Since Browning there had been no finer

dramatic dialogue in verse, thought van Doren, and no apter

 

1Babette Deutsch, "A New Light on Lancelot", Poetry

XVI (July, 1920), 217-219.

2Raymond M. Weaver, "Some Currents and Backwaters of

Contemporary Poetry", The Bookman, LI (June, 1920),
457-458.

 

-43-

 

characterization than in the ironical talk of Gawaine.
Braithwaite agreed that in Lancelot, by reason of thought
and feeling plus supreme consciousness and evocation of
beauty, Robinson proved himself the greatest of all living
American poets.2 0f the prominent critics Weaver and
Braithwaite wrote perhaps the most discerning and encour-
aging reviews.

In 1920 a lesser known work of Robinson's, The Three

 

Taverns, appeared. It received only a few reviews, grave
and quietly complimentary. Samuel Roth in a grouped re-

view in The Bookman referred to Robinson as a poet who held

 

the "remote admiration which men accord to writers much
discussed but little read". He was a poet of wisdom and

understanding. The Three Taverns might in the future prove

 

to be the most important book of that year. It was the
book'bf a man of a people, and of a civilization".3 Carl
van Doren enthusiastically found the book "packed, and as
such things go in the world, perfect". The miscellaneous
poems were held together in a pattern by a "tone of mingled

wisdom", a "clear, hard, tender blank verse, and those un-

forgettable eight line stanzas and dramatic sonnets which

 

1Carl Van Doren, Tragedy in Lancelot", The Nation
CX (May 8, 1920), 622-623.

 

2wm. Stanley Braithwaite, "The Arthurian Legend in Poetry",
The Boston Evening Transcript (June 12, 1920), 9.

3Samuel Roth, "Robinson - Bridges - Noyes", The Bookman,
LII (December, 1920), 361-362.

-49-

 

go to make up one of the most scrupulous and valuable of
living poets". The poet achieved his "immense pertinence
to the moment" only by indirection of actual events.
"Every line bears acutely on the times". He notes the
historical nature of five of the longer poems and cites
"Tasker Norcross" as being the most memorable.1 Mitchell

Stewart found the "claret of The Three Taverns... too

 

cool for most palates", noting Robinson's indirectness,

his passion for silhouettes, and his disdain for superfic-
ial tricks. The form, metre, and rhythm of the verse are
"not unfamiliar...we have seen the like for many days",

as for some men "clothing is a part of character for others
it remains a trivial, inconsiderable item". Ironically
Stewart criticized Robinson for failing to "express the
spirit of his time; whatever that may mean...since the
spirit of an age is only a fiction".2 Harriet Monroe

found that The Three Taverns interested her intellect—

 

ually, but brought her little "emotional thrill". The
searching essays in character analysis "left her cold",
but in Robinson's meditative poems "one tastes more keenly
the sharp and bitter savor of his high aloof philosophy".

She seems a trifle unhappy that he offered no "solution

 

1Carl Van Doren, "Wisdom and Irony", The Nation,
0x1 (October 20, 1920), 453-454.

 

2Mitchell Stewart, "Edward Arlington Robinson",

TQ2_D181, LXX (May, 1921), 569-571.
_50-

to the problem of creation, either in general or in
detail" but she liked his lines:

"That earth has not a school where we may go
For wisdom, or for more than we may know”.

and his counsel for the meantime:
"Say what you feel, while you have time
to say it - . H l

Eternity will answer for itself .

Robinson by this time had begun to turn books out
at a rather prolific rate. The year 1921 brought Agog's
Harvest, which he called "a dime novel in verse". Harriet
honroe observed that it was done with a "kind of cold
thrift...the music...being slow and stern".2 John Farrar
felt that he built his climax with a "masterful restraint".
The poem was a "brilliant drawing of the intense calm of
a suffering neurotic..; in American literature, surely
there is no more powerful dramatic poem".3 Carl Van Doren
found it a shuddering ghost story written in a "steel-hard,
steel-spare, steel-bright-sty1e". Its language was Yankee

idiom lifted into literature, but its brevity and under-

statement led to obscurity. There was no "royal road to

 

lHarriet Monroe,"dobinson's Double Harvest" Poetry,

XVIII (August, 1921), 274-276.
2Ibid. 274.

BJDhn Farrar, "E. A. Robinson's Dime Novel",
The Bookman, LIII (May, 1921), 248.

 

-51..

Robinson", but "the summit was worth the ascent".
William Stanley Braithwaite proposed a collected
edition to Robinson, one that would challenge the
critics to face not a single book, but a life-work. Mac-
millan's agreed, publishing a complete works in 1921, the
first of four such collections to be published in a
seventeen year period in more than one edition each.
Herbert Gorman was lyrically complimentary in

The New Ybrk Times.2 Carl Van Doren regretted Robinson's

 

 

long delayed fame. His greatness was due to his steady
penetration through the facts before him to the truths
beneath them which gave his verse "significance and coher-
ence". He never ceases to cerebrate said Van Doren or
allows his readers to - by readers, Van Doren meant,
"selected readers". His rhythms throbbed with "heightened
thought" and no line or stanza escaped his steady hands
before it "ran off singing".

"Endowed at the outset with a subtle mind and

a temperament of great integrity, he has kept

both incorrupted and unweakened, and has

hammered his lovely images always out of the
chastest designs".

 

lCarl Van Doren, "In a Style of Steel", The Nation,
CXII (April 20, 1921). 596.

2Herbert S. Gorman, "Edwin Arlington Robinson's Poetry",
The New Ybrk Times Book Review and Magazine
(October 30, 19217, 6.

3Carl Van Doren, "Greek Dignity and Yankee Ease",
The Nation, CXII (November 16, 1921), 570-571.

 

-52-

 

Yvor Winters foun d Robinson superior to Browning by reason
of his "fusion of basic philosophy, emotional viewpoint,
imagery and form". He declared that a few critics had
feared in the last few years that Robinson was "deterior-
ating"; going through the collected edition, "one is
reassured". Robinson's greatness lay said Winters not in
the people of whom he wrote, but in the "perfect balance”
and the "infallible precision" with which he stated their
cases - an indication of his fine perception and organiz-
ation of material. Robinson had the "culture to know that
to those to whom philosophy is comprehensible it is not a
matter of the first importance". He knew that these people
were not greatly impressed by a "ballyhoo statement of the
principles of social and spiritual salvation". The few
times he gave his opinion he did so quietly and intelli-
gently and then "passed on to other things".1

Army Lowell dashed off twelve pages for The gig; in
which she "dared" to say that Robinson was sure to rank
among the "most important poets of this nation". With some
precision, she pointed out that though he had dropped
fourteen of the original poems the omission need cause the
reader no regret, except possibly the title poem of The

Children of the Night - an odd deletion but one that show-

 

ed a developing critical faculty. His austerity, restraint

 

lY'vor Winters, "A Cool Master", Poetry, XIX (February,1922),
278-288.

-53-

and insight were pure New Englandisms, she believed. He
had been caught between the "old Puritan atavism and the
new, free spirit" and his answer was a "creedless relig-
ion". He was the forerunner of the new poetry and its
oldest and most respected exemplar. Unfortunately his
historical monologues were seldom "apt as portraiture".

He built his poetic world out of a series of poignant
incidents and by the deftest of little touches. But she
deplored the "melodrama" of "Avon's Harvest", which grows
out of external happenings", and found his increasing use
of circumlocutions in direct contradiction to his "own
theory of straight-forward speech". She cited as example
his allusions to the characteristics of a certain gentle-
man as "an index of adagios" to his calling billiard
balls "three spheres of insidious ivory", and his naming
a hypodermic syringe "a slight kind of engine". Such cir-
cumlocutions, Miss Lowell believed came from an atavistic
fear of the common-place producing the old poetical jargon
which he himself had done so much to banish from contem-
poary poetry. But still she thought Robinson a better poet
than Crabbe because of his insight, placing him more akin,
to Hardy. Robinson was a better technician she thought,
but Hardy had a more penetrating understanding which helped
him to "dissect" his characters "reverently" while Robin-

son‘s approach was one of "dry-eyed pity".

-54-

She defended Robinson from the critics who found
"the beating of the knell of doom" in his work. Doom
there might be, she admitted, but it was an adjunct, not
a preoccupation. His preoccupation was with the unanswer —
ed question: Is the light real or imagined, is man a dupe
or a prophet, ”is faith unbolstered by logic an act of
cowardice or an eXpression of unconscious pondering intell-
ectuability?"

Merlin as a series of lyrical intervals was excell-
ent,she said, but as a long poem it was inchoate. The
pattern of Lgflgglgt was too traditional, a fusion of all
the dramatic poets all Speaking at once. The heady wine
of Robinson's increasing fame had lulled his critical
faculty somewhat - "would he have written gygg'g Harvest
ten years ago?" She advised him to forget his assured
public and "seek again the silence of his own personality
which seems the only condition under which his genius can
freely create."

Continuing her review, Miss Lowell found his art
not wide and inclusive, but narrow and deep. He had almost
no early failures to look back upon with regret. His later
work showed no marked advance over his earlier, even in the
matter of technique. He gained his full stature early
and what he had already written had won him a "high and

. l
permanent place in american literature.

 

1Amy Lowell, "A Bird's Eye View of Edwin Arlington
Robinson", The Dial, LXXII (February, 1922), 130-142.

-55-

Conrad Aiken, a promising young poet, felt that
no contemporary English poet had Robinson's insight into
character, his intellectual beauty or his exquisite
sense of form. Hardy's dramatic lyrics surpassed his
occasionally in range and fire, but do not match them in
subtlety and finish.1 Helen Walker waxed lyrical about
this poet whose songs rose "clear and high, and far, with
a great message - a lilting music - and a deep and true
philosophy."2

This collected edition brought forth more serious
discussion of Robinson's philosophy than any single book
had previously. The critics accepted his high seriousness,
the fact that his forms were merely vehicles for his
thought even when "exquisitely beautiful", and devoted
themselves to defining his philosophy and admiring its

"restrained and austere" art forms. Amy

union with his
Lowell wrote the most comprehensive and discriminating
review while Yvor Winters was most"philosophically" sym-

pathetic. The Collected Poems received the Pulitzer

 

prize for poetry, and the award of the Authors Club of
New York for the most distinguished contribution of the
year to American literature. Yale gave Robinson an honor-

ary degree. In an.address before the Royal Society of

 

IConrad Aiken, "The New Elizabethians" The Yale Review,
XI (April, 1922), 635-636.
2

Helen Walker, "The Wisdom of Herlin", The Forum, LXVII
February, 1922), 179-181.

 

 

-55-

Literature in London, Jehn Drinkwater labelled Robinson

1
"one of the six greatest poets writing today”.

Rgman Bartholow published in 1923, was not happily

 

received even after the praise which followed Robinson
through 1922. Edmundflilson called it "one of the most

arid products of a mind which has run much into the sands".
He admitted that a poem can be the vehicle for a novel

but cannot forgive Rbbinson for the "absence of poetry in
his poem". Though they were sometimes interesting, Robin-
son's poems could never be said to be beautiful. A steril-
ity had blighted his work - its glamour fading paler and
paler - it was poignant rather than intense. His old
blank-verse idylls of New England, thought Wilson)had more

"beauty and life".2

The Man Who Died Twice , published in 1924, evoked

 

mixed responses. William Norris found it to be the
"culmination of Robinson's increasing preoccupation with
what might be called spiritual psychology". The actual
story was left practically untold, but the spiritual story
was recounted in full detail. The remorse, the pride,

and the crumbling spiritual stature of the wrecked

musician were of supreme and sole importance. But more

 

1Hagedorn, op, cit., 326.

2Edmund Wilson, "Mr Robinson's Moonlight", The Dial,
LXXIV (May, 1923). 515-517.

-57-

 

critically Norris added that when Robinson wandered into
the "dark wood" he had neither "free wind" nor "open
vista".1 Louis Untermeyer, honoring Robinson with the
title of the "ripest and most philosophical of our poets"
lamented his indecisiveness in not choosing between the
factual and the fantastic point of view in the poem. The
result was that the book was a "cross between a grotesque
narrative and inspired metaphysics, but curiously enough
it is one of Robinson's triumphs". His insight into the
tortured soul of Fernando Nash seemed more profound than
in any of his other portraits. The tempo is more andante
than usual, marred only by an excessive amount of self-
cussing in which the author allowed the composer who wasted
his genius to indulge. His penance, said Untermeyer, was
not only inglorious, but repetitively voluminous. It was
Robinson and not Fernando Nash that Untermeyer read into
these lines of "ironic illumination":

"There was the pain of seeing too clearly

more than a man soflwiiling to see nothing

snould nave to see .
Mark Van Doren said that for the conscientious reader there
need not be any obscurity in the poem. The details of he

story were not to be taken too literally, for the theme

 

1William A. Norris, "The Dark Wood", The New Republic
XLI (January 21, 1925).

2Louis Untermeyer, "Seven Against Realism",

The Yale Review, XIV (July, 1925) 792-793.

 

Q

was abstract and the application universal; it was a
tale of the unpardonable sin, a man in full conscious-
ness that his soul is one of the rarest gifts of the gods
violates that soul and descends to a slow ruin. To Van
Doren the poem was a "symphony of the most gorgeous con—
tent" and yet authentically a poem for the music was un-
heard, but he rather wished that some composer would
attempt some hing with the lines and ideas of the poem
for its basis.1

Dionysus in Doubt (1925) was the third of the
'trilogy that filled the lull between the cOllected

edition and Tristram. H. S. Corman was a personal friend

of hobinson's and his review in The Bookman was kinder

 

than most.2 James Daly found it unutterably beneath
Robinson's "usually distinguished level" and regretted
its publication. Spacing it in blank verse did not
prevent the "laborious social tract” from being "dull
prose". He admired its sincerity, the high courage of
its intention, but for all its profundity of motive,
it never came alive. "The Sheaves" was a great sonnet
and he liked "Not Always". In the sonnets "wisdom

pulses and there is beauty in all of them". If Robinson

 

l

 

Hark Van Doren, "A Sym honZ of Sin", The Nation,
CXVIII (April 16, 1924§, 4 5.

2H. S. Gorman, "E. A. Robinson and Some Others",
The Bookman, LXI (July, 1925), 595—596.

 

_L'

J9”

were totally unknown, thought Daly, his sonnets would win
him high distinction, but now they could only augment and
confirm a long held eminence.l

About this time Robinson was in need of something
to reassure his public after the comparative mediocrity
of his last three books. The critics were aware of him,
but to the general reading public he was a poet "talked
about" but "difficult", except for his early work and
shorter poems. Tristram, the third portion of his Arthur-

ian cycle, proved to be the work that made him famous.

 

lJames Daly "The Inextinguishable God", Poetry,
XXVII (October, 1925), 40—44.

-50-

THE PUBLIC ACCLAIM OF TRISTRAM
Tristram brought Robinson the favor and popularity

for which he had longed. ‘Within three weeks of publica-
tion it was reprinted four times and a dozen times more
during the year. The book of 4400 lines that Robinson
expected "only the heroic few" to read became a best
seller. The Literary Guild issued it as its book-of—the-
month and published a monograph on Robinson by Mark Van
Doren.1 They held a public reception in the Little The-
atre in New York that left fifty guests standing. All of
the distinguished people in New York art and letters were
there to greet him. Robinson himself balked at taking
part in the program. A.former actress, Mrs. August Bel-
mont, read passages from the book, and Carl Van Doren
spoke "of the finest Tristram poem in the English lan-
guage." For once in his life Robinson was at ease, both
gay and witty, in receiving his procession of admirers.
This period marked the climax of his popular acclaim.
Previously he had been the poet critics talked about,

but comparatively few peeple read.

 

l
Hark Van.Doren, Edwin Arlington Robinson, 1927.

-51-

 

The critics received Tristram with mixed feelings,
but most of them were sure that it was an "important" book.
H. S. Gorman felt that one might be "quite dogmatic in as-
serting that this is the finest long poem that has ever
been produced in this country." The poet's talents were
fused beautifully in a theme that called for every ”iota
of his poetic strength." His "unquestioned genius" had
"circumscribed a moving and flame-like subject" with un-
faltering art and in a "language that runs through the
mind like a long string of perfectly cut Jewels."1“ John
Farrar's review sounded as if he were still under some
sort of mystical enchantment cast by the poem. It was a
poem, he said, such as a poor reviewer dreams of finding
once in a life time and quite frankly he didn't eXpect it
to "come from the pen of Mr. Robinson" because of late
years his work, while mellow, had been "more erudite than
impassioned" and the involutions of his thought have some-
times seemed to obscure the flow of his rhythm." But in
grigtgam he was a mature poet writing a poem which for
beauty, technique, passion, and dramatic skill was the
"equal at least of any great poem in the English lan-
guage." It was strikingly origina13‘the story had never

A «“fl .- l‘4.# A__._‘ __ “AA __._‘__

w .—t 4“

13. S. Gorman, "High Spots in Spring Books", The figgkman,
LXV, (July 1927l’555.

 

-62-

been told so vividly. It moved "majestically from first to
last." His psychological moods of men and women were accom-
panied with the "pound of physical passion and the rhythm
of natural beauty." The dialogues between Tristram and
Isolt had a "flaming beauty of desire unrealized and real—
ized, of love torn and twisted and faithful, of courage and
yet, underneath of irony." It was a far better poem than
ggglig or Lancelot. "Here is a book that your great grand-
children will know, even if you neglect it!"1 Frederick
Pierce was not "diSposed to quarrel" with the verdict that
Robinson was the greatest contemporary American poet, but
lamented that his "range of mood" was small. In Tristram:

What was best and deepest in the ro-
mantic attitude has been preserved - the
sense of life's transitoriness, the sense
that we are breaking bubbles on.changing
seas of time and being. What was best in
modern realism has been preserved too:
the clean cut analysis of human nature;
the realization that ancient characters
did not seem dimly, romantically 'ancient'
to themselves; the realization that the
seeming villain of a piece is often a de-
generate rather than a devil. The verse
flows on within narrow limits perhaps, but
with unerring Judgment and unfailing dig-
nity. . . Such poetry as that does not be—
long to any age or movement. It is a
part of the lasting heritage of the race.2

 

1John.Farrar, "A New Tristram", The gggkmgn, LXIV

(June 1927), 465-466.

2Frederick E. Pierce, "Four Poets", The Yale Review, XVII
(October 1927),l77-l78.

-53-

 

 

William Rose Benet felt that in some ways The hgh.hhg high
in a different category. In 321§§£§9 the poet was subtle
and sephisticated in the greatest sense in his understand-
ing of true love and passion. Its essence lay in the
profound manner in which Robinson went to the root of an
analysis of love in connection with fatality. It was in-
tricately comprehensive; that would be its abiding power
"for generations of readers." Benet felt that the high-
est praise that he could give was that Robinson had told
"the whole story with far-reaching implications."l

Carl Van Doren, Who called it the "finest Tristram
poem in the English language," felt it "too early" to de-

cide whether Eggstrah was really better than.Merl;h or

-_-.‘-

other twentieth century verse. The death of Tristram and
Isolt at the end was a commentary on the world's inade-
quacy to contain such lovers. He found no "magic" in the
poem beyond the magic of love itself; "that is enough for
Mr. Robinson, as it should be enough for anybody." Van
Doren paid tribute to the speed of action, the fine sinew

‘A ‘ _. A -

‘__ __‘ A ‘_._ _. _‘ A4-
—— — —‘ ‘— v-7—

1
William Rose Benet, "Escort to Leviathan," The 99;;993,
CXLVI (June 1, 1927),158, 160.

-64-

of the blank verse, the frequent flights into authentic
rapture and to the "profound interpretation of Mark's mind
at the close." It was "certainly one of the best narra-
‘tive poems we have."

Van Doren's review was cautious compared to Conrad
Aiken's and Harriet Monroe's. Aiken felt that Robinson's
method was "halfway between the tapestry effect of Morris
and the melodrama of Wagner." His characters were too
Robinsonian. They were ”modern and highly self-conscious
folk" who could think and fall but not act. Tristram was
rather a "namby-pamby" creature. The lyricism was somee
times very beautiful, but not as beautiful as certain pas-
sages in.hgh;;h. The dialogue was repetitive as if "he
were bent on saying the same thing three times over, each
time more complicatedly and abstractly and involutely than
before." Once Robinson even forgot to "finish a sentence."
His obscurity made the poem too frequently ”unrewarding
reading," which was regrettable as Robinson.had given the
poem ”great beauty of design." That it contained many
pages of extraordinary loveliness went without saying.2

Harriet Monroe too lamented Tristram's loss of

strength for action. He was not a great warrior perform-

"— fl __'~_

lCarl Van Doren, "Tristram," The Forum, LXXVIII
(August 1927) 312-313.

2Conrad Aiken, "Tristram," ghg Egg hgpublic, LI
(lay 25, 1927), 22.

 

-55-

 

ing "deeds of derring-do, nor a great lover in the old, fierce
wild sense of carnal and emotional magnificence in love," but
a Rmubh troubled modern who was talkative, argumentative
rather than.impassioned." She felt that Isolt of Brittany
was the character most alive, the one who achieved the most
beautiful and vital poetry. Because she was a figure, "not
violent but docile, not tragic but pathetic, not demanding
completeness but accepting compromise unwillingly," Harriet
lonroe felt that Robinson "instinctively" understood her
type better than.Tristram's because Isolt came "more within
range of modern civilized psychology, therefore of his sym-
pathy." ‘She found Isolt's final speech to her father, after
Tristram's death which revealed the futility of her love and
marriage, to be the "most humanly true and moving passage in
the book." It was a finer work than either hgglhh or
LEQSElQE: but all of them had "something remote and theoret—
ic and unachieved"; they had "neither the emotional intene
sity nor quite the rhythmic Splendor of this poet's narra-
tives of modern life." or these last she felt that ghg HEB
Ehg hhgg 1!;93 was ”perhaps the best." Although.gg;§hggh
was a 'tour-de-force of exceptional hardihood and somewhat
astonishing success" she could not feel that it would "rank
ultimately among his best works."

____ “A J ‘ A

-66—

Unlike the other critics, Harriet Monroe tried to an—
alyze why this particular book of Robinson's had attained such
popularity. She felt that it was not only due to the "Liter-
ary Guild's powerful boost which pushed this book to a record
sale, far exceeding any, or perhaps all, of the poet's ear-
lier volumes,” but also to the combination of the glamour of
the "rusty-rich love-legend with modern psychological in-
sight in character analysis."1 It may also have been that
Tristram.was published in a year of peace, whereas hgglhh
and Lancelbt had been published during the war years When
reality competed with the romance of the legends. Then too
in 1927 the rather general economic well being of the public
put them in a mood to deal with the beauty of impassioned
romance, psychologically and humanly treated.

Despite published Opinion to the contrary2 EILEEEEE
received everything from the highest praise - down, Most of
the critics conCeded that Robinson had a rather good mastery
of blank verse: to one it was "like a long string of perfect-
ly cut Jewels," while to another it lacked the "rhythmic
splendor" of his narrations of modern life. This one poem

was less accused of obscurity than any other long poem.

 

1
Harriet Monroe "On.Foreign Ground", Poetr , XXXI
(December 19275, 160-167.

2Winifred Burns, "Edwin Arlington Robinson in the Hands of
the Reviewers", Poet hghg, XLVIII (Summer 1942), 164-175.

-57-

 

I: [1".

 

 

Robinson's use of Arthurian material in a modern
manner was at last accepted by most of the critics although
Harriet Monroe had her regrets. The fact that Robinson had
poetic "genius'I was undiSputed but critics were undecided
whether he was "a" major poet or "the" major poet. Conrad
Aiken made the sole 232$ phg when he criticized the char—
acters as being too Robinsonian, a few sentences following
commenting that Tristram was rather a "namby-pamby" crea-
ture.

Robinson had become a great man, even by the stand-
ards of the man in the street and he rather liked it. His
sense of inferiority slipped from him, for he had justified
his own existence; Gardiner, whose disapproval had so
plagued him (especially after the editorial of the "poet in
the subway") "quivered with pride of him."1 An elderly
relative saw his picture in a mail-order catalogue and
yielded all doubt. Robinson had his economic freedom at
last and was able to ask Lewis Isaacs to tell his friends
that he would no longer need their annual gift of $1200 a
year. When he was asked how monetary success felt, he ad-
mitted that he liked it, of course, "but I have learned to
get along with so little that it doesn't seem to make much
difference." Yet it did. He bought new clothing and ex-

 

1
Hagedorn, 345.

ercised great care in the choice of material and color. He
delighted in fine English neckties, gloves and linen hand-
kerchiefs such as he had not been able to afford previous-
ly. His greatest satisfaction was that he would have fi-
nancial security when he was old. He paid long standing
debts, many of which as Hagedorn points out, had really
been paid in full or more by Robinson's habit of giving
away his manuscripts in recompense for favors. He had al-
ways given what he could to friends in trouble, but now
he "became alert to recognize the need before it was ex-
Pressed."1 Isaacs, who was handling his investments, pro-
tested but Robinson responded, "You've never walked the
streets of New York without a nickel in your pocket." His
friend had no answer.

Characteristically, during his period of public pop-
ularity, he gave no lectures, appeared before no suburban
women's clubs, Joined no clubs, and accepted no more degrees
from universities. He enjoyed his fame but did not exploit
it. Within three weeks of the triumphant reception of
gghghggh.he returned to his studio in Peterborough. By
seniority as well as distinction he had become the colony's
first citizen and he carried the responsibility with unpre-

_ v.__ !-‘ fi‘ # 4; -.--o

l
Hagedorn, 346.

tentious dignity. He was a joy to Mrs. Mac Dowell for his
stabilizing effect on the colony. His industry set a stand—
ard which would not vanish with him, his integrity chal-
lenged loose thinking and loose living, and his equable_
temper deflated the temperamental. He Judged no one and
interfered with nobody, but his gentleness and a certain
aristocracy in him had their effect. His name took on an
authority which even the young "rebels-against-everything"
accepted.1

In 1927 the second of the collected editions ap-
peared, but for some unknown reason it did not receive
many reviews. Possibly it was overshadowed by the success
of Tristram that year. Stewart Beech paid Robinson the
traditional compliments in The ghdependeht and added that

 

in the final analysis perhaps it was Robinson's refusal to
find poetry either "divine or extraordinary as a medium
for his thoughts" which kept him so long in the background.
Tristram convinced a wary public that it was "as natural,
for him at least, to think in poetry as to think up poe-
try.“ He had touched an "immortal beauty with the colors
of a simple and honest mortality" and it was in this that

his "genius" lay.2

l
Hagedorn, 350.

Stewart Beech, "Harvest of a Major Poet," ghg Inde endent,
CXX (January 21, 1928), 68.

-70-

An edition of sonnets, collected from 1889 to 1927,
was published in 1928, receiving more critical notice than
the 1927 collected edition. William Rose Benet's review
was rather general but mildly and quietly complimentary.1
Conrad Aiken was more explicit in ghg hghkhhh. He felt that
Robinson treated the sonnet formally, a little abstractly,
at a "low pitch of intensity;" he was not much gifted on the
”sensuous side;" there was a kind of Puritan bleakness in
him which rather fortunately blended with his intellectual
irony and dry Yankee humor; and if his sonnets never glowed
or became radiant or melted "into a sort of white-hot integ-
rity, as one feels the best sonnet should" they were never-
theless excellent. Aiken read them with a genuine pleasure
and the feeling "rare enough in poetry that one's mind" was

being "employed"; but afterward he failed to remember them

particularly because they were "just a little colorless."2

———- — —— fi—w‘

lwm. Rose Benet, "Sonnets 1889-1927," zhg §aturd§y Review hf
hiherature, V (November 24, 1928), 412.

 

2Conrad Aiken, "Unpacking Hearts with'Words,‘ Ih§.§gghg§h,
LXVII (January 1929), 576.

-71-

Cavender's hghgg, published in 1929, inaugurated
Robinson's custom of publishing one book a year until his
death. It was greeted with at least as many reviews as

Ighgtram. Newspapers scattered all over the country cap-

italized on its news value after the success of 2£$§§£§§

1
and titled their reviews accordingly. Most of the impor—

__.__ —. 4 ___- A4‘J__A4 ‘- _‘ ___.— _-_. *A_

11 was not able to locate any of these articles in Michigan
libraries, but to show the scepe of opinion indicated in
the titles and the nation wide interest I have selected
eleven to cite from the thirty-nine of which I have a
record:

Anon. "A New England Tragedy," Cincinnat; Times-
Star (May 23, 1929), 9.

Annie-Eunice Browning, "New Robinson Study Annoys
This Reviewer," Th9 Thlgh ghlbune (June 16, 1929),10.

Nathan.Haske11 Dale, "A Dramatic Narrative Poem by
Maine's Great Poet and Author of Tristram," gghtland
Evenhhg hggg (January 23, 1929), 5.

Vardis Fisher, ”Neuroses in Poetry," The Criticgl
Review - New York University Daily News Literary

Efiphlement‘TMEy‘l929), 2:‘3, 22.

Ferner Nuhn, "Thoughtful Finished " The Qgg hghhgg
Sunday hgghghgg (February 9, 1930), 37‘

R. G. Mc'Williams, "Leading Master of Verse Shines
in Latest Volume," Thg hirmingham Newg (May 12, 1929),
Magazine Section, 5.

 

”Robinson's Contemporary Poems Free of liltonic WOrds;
Reveal Feeling of Simplicity and Restraint," ghg

Dail Messehggg (Canandaigua, New York) (June 3,
1929;, 5

John‘Wm. Rogers, "Dark and Illusive Poem is Robin-

son's Caggnggrlg EQE§§:" hallas Times herald

(May 197 1929), Pt v, 9.
(Footnotes continued next page)

-72-

 

 

 

n
o w .
. v
f
D I O
_ -.
. .
_ . _ .
p
i . _ . — . v
c
_ e
, _ .
- - . - - . - . ..
. , .
. e
. .
- .- - - fl- - - .. - e - _ -- - . - .
I
-i- o. - - .. i
. _ ‘ |
o ,
.
a
. A . ,
- - H. -.... -1-“ - - - -
. e
.-
e e
. _ , -. g . l.
I
h... .9 _i.
. .
e .. , - _ .
5 e .‘
. q _ -
. l I e w I—
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o w
. v
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. - - _ ._ . --» - _ - - -.
e p .
.

tant magazines reviewed it, also under equally interesting
titles. Louis Untermeyer considered the "unfolding of the
tale" rewarding but decided that it was the sheer poetry
of it that was compeling and convincing. He was moved to
denounce the French addition to English poetic form:
"Whatever the definition of poetry may be, poetry itself
has little to do with rhyme and meter." The lift or in-
tensity of thought in Robinson's poem carried the words
beyond thought, even beyond feeling and entered "that
other dimension which is poetry" where "meanings lie
beyond meanings," and "sense and sound, sense and es-
sence are one."
Behind the austere introspections,

the half-lit silences, the syntactical

convolutions, a richness that is part

tone, part texture, manifests itself.

It is a reticent color that in the

midst of darkness - a darkness in

which the poem is dyed - makes itself

somehow felt, now in a flicker of wit,

now in a page of music, now in a philo-
sophical aside.

 

Footnotes continued from previous page)

"Sternly Tragic Mood Pervades Robinson Poem,"
Th3 §§l£ Lake Tribune (May 5, 1929), ll.

Floyd S. Van Vuren, "Tragedy of Cavender's
House,! The Milwaukgg Journal (April 27, 1929), 6.

Thomas K. Whip 1e, "Ghosts," The Argonaut
(San Francisco) (May 18, 1929), 55; 1-5.

-73-

But more than any other "feature" Qggghggglg hghgg revealed
to Untermeyer Robinson's restless, uncertain but persistent
search for moral values — a quest and a questioning of ul—
timates. Untermeyer noted that this search seemed to be
running through an age no longer satisfied with skepti-
cism, Even the "brilliant explorer of 'The wasteland'"
could not live in the limbo he explored; it was significant
that the same year that Eliot turned to a faith beyond in-
tellect, Robinson was "driving past reason" to find:

. . . . . . . there must be a God, or if not God
A purpose and a law. -

The poem was not so grammatically involved as some
of Robinson's, but the critic suspected the poet of taking
a perverse pleasure in writing sentences as contorted as:

There might be so much less for us to learn,

That we who know so little, and know least

When our complacency is at our best,

Might not learn anything.

He admitted that this was an "exceptionally calisthenic
construction" and that for the most part the new poem pro-

ceded without "such verbal back-somersaults." Cavender's

 

hghgg was "less panOpliedfl than Trihhghh, "less dramatic"

than.Th§ hhh.Who hied Twice, and while simpler it was no

 

less characteristic of its author. It was one of his major
creations and one which had "the deep breath of permanence."1

1Louis Untermeyer, "Essential Robinson," The Saturday Revieg
9T hgterature, v (May 11, 1929), 995-996. """"‘

 

-74.

Helen.Mac Afee felt that Robinson was "more himself
than in Tristrah.” His revelation of tragedy had a stark,
intense vitality "unrelieved by ornamentation or pictures-
queness" of any kind, though his verse was "often tortuous
by reason of its attempt to follow ascertainable facts to
their hidden tangled roots."1 Ben Ray Redman (a critic who
wrote a complimentary book about Robinson in 1926 the year
before TTTghggh in which he called him the "greatest poet
whom this country has yet producedfiz) felt that the "chill
wind" that blew through Cavender's Housg was "somewhat dis—
appointing after the white fire and red fire of Tristram."3

Conrad Aiken thought that diffusion was carried too
far; it was a little bit thin; there was too much mere dia-
logue and too little scene; and while the poem as a whole
was skillfully managed the reader was apt to come away from
it "feeling a little empty handed." Robinson's "curious
dry euphuism," "careful balances and repetitions," "elabo-
rate bandyings of set phrases to and fro between the
speakers, like alternating themes in a piece of music" be-

came monotonous and cloying; by reminding one so forcibly

of all the other conversations in all his other poems he

‘

1Helenlac Afee, "The Dark Hell of the Muses," Thg Thgg
Review XVIII (June 1929) 813-814.

2
Ben Ray Redman, Edwin Arlingtgh Robinson, 95.

3Ben Ray Redman, "Old Wine in New Bottles," New York heraTQ
Tribhhg Books (September 8, 1929), 10.

-75-

 

weakened the reader's "belief in the actuality of the two
present protagonists." Aiken believed that "The Man
Against the Sky” was the finest of Robinson's poems and
that Merlin was the best of the longer narratives.1
Jessica North believed other poets had all ”gone
astray after color and form;” one poet alone "has resisted
the warm appeal of the senses to spend his life putting
down the elusive intricacies of the mind." She felt that
if Robinson could be less elaborate and less devious his
poems would be "more moving;" he would never be content to
"take an idea by the throat neatly and efficiently" but
liked "to play with his conceptions letting them almost
escape and then snatching them back," so that they "were
sometimes in a bedraggled condition at the finish;" he
neglected all sorts of virtues which modern poets were
taught to pursue, such as "subtlety of rhythm, economy of
words, and realism in conversation — that he can make us
forget his shortcomings even momentarily amounts to
genius." She admired his deft musical phrases, his sin-
cerity of craftsmanship, his sustained elegance of ex-
pression, and his really profound knowledge of the ways

of the humanmind.2

1Conrad Aiken,-"Poetry," The hogkmgn, LXIX (May 1929),
2

Jessica North, "A Classic of Indirection," ghetr , XXXIV
(July 1929), 233-236.

-75-

ggvehderls housg was neither generally condoned or
condemned. The critics had begun to realize that Robinson's
forms and methods were merely vehicles for his thought; the
beauty that he achieved was in general neither sensuous nor
‘colorful (though his descriptions of Vivien in hgTTTh.were
an exception), but a result of his ability to intensify
thought and describe his characters by indirection. His
ability to comprehend psychology was not doubted, but his
style and "calisthenic constructions" too often obscured
his meanings.

The third collected edition, published in 1929, let
the new hhgchah Literature magazine to announce that though
it was not the policy of the magazine to review the works of
living poets or novelists the editors felt that all who took
a "serious interest in contemporary literature'l would wel-
come this new edition.1 Louise Bogan believed that though
Robinsonis success with the Arthurian legends was greater
than Tennyson's, the poet did not realize that the "lust,
barbarity, and agony inherent in these tales could not be
tamed to Tilbury Town's measure." Their power under such
treatment thinned out to the "back-chat of gaffers around

the stove of a country store." She found Robinson's Arthur

 

——

l
Anons, hhggiggh Literature, I (1930).

.-77-

a disgruntled weakling; Lancelot a young and Merlin an old
fool; Guinevere and Vivien, a queen and an enchantress;
and those other women "big and fit for warriors display the
wiles of rather sentimental schoolmarms." The poet's "style
failed the matter;” the philOSOphy that ”can bear only the
weight of disillusion breaks down and a kind of dispirited
mysticism is the result." The nonelegendary narratives
(from_hyon's Harvest on, she thought, bore the mark of the
same thinning resolution; the stories were compounded of
horror and despair - full of ghosts as Henry James later
work was "full of terrors and revenants;" Robinson's style,
like Henry James, spent itself in weakening modifications,
afterthoughts, and negations. Miss Bogan felt that the
later sonnets, notably "The Sheaves" and "New England,"
belonged to the poet's best work. In spite of his limita—
tions she believed that he "stands in our literature as a
figure of undoubted strength.“l

Robert Hillyer in the New England Quarterly at-
tempted a rather comprehensive evaluation of Robinson's
work in just four pages. He believed that there was not a
more careful craftsman than Robinson - in his first two

books he had mastered the sonnet form and blank verse as

7.. 1 ‘ W 7 i

1
Louise Bogan, "Tilbury Town and Beyond, " Poetry, XXXVII
(January 1931), 216- 221.

-73-

mediums which in the main served him throughout his career;
"these are both literary forms and call for an intellectual
rather than an emotional or sensory response." Hillyer be—
lieved that his artistic purpose was "nothing less than the
exposition of the human mind" - which theoretically meant
that the scope of his material should be as great as man's
experience, but actually it was limited by Robinson's "ina-
bility to portray the emotions and sensations which cause
states of mind."
It seemed to the critic that modern verse in general
contained no human beings but only "birch trees and larks
. . . with the shadow of the author like that of a bad
photographer falling across the picture." Robinson was
different in that he withheld himself and studied his fel-
lowmen:
In the shorter poems he employs direct
description or narration, leaving implicit
the person behind the event; in the longer
forms he reverses the method, and by dis-
course, as with Captain Craig, or almost
chemical analysis, as with Fernando Nash,
he fishes cell after cell from the agonized
brain-pan and establishes - not perhaps the
character - the separate parts of a char-
acter. _
Hillyer believed that the method of the shorter poems would
be more enduring because he could remember "The Veteran
Sirens," "Luke Havergal," and "Miniver Cheevy" long after

he had ceased to follow the "hesitations of Tristram."

-79-

The critic felt that Robinson's great virtue lay in
his delineation of the "actual, that moment which implies
all the past and all that is to come;" when he paused too
long "what is ponderable becomes merely heavy." The poet's
vices were his lack of lyrical cadences when he wrote in
three or four stress metres and the lack of lyrical feeling
in the longer poems; Robinson could compensate for the lack
of musical exaltation in poems where the thought itself was
intense - not in the long poems for they contained too few
fine passages to elevate an entire book, but in the sonnets,
epigrams, and shorter character sketches. It seemed to
Hillyer that only "the flawless literary technique and the
grave and sweeping thoughts" of "The Man Against the Sky"
and "Ben Jonson.Entertains a Man from Stratford" sustained
at any length the full poetic gifts of their author - the
first by its philosophical breadth and the second by "sim-
ple insight devoid of crabbed and dubious psychology." He
thought that Robinson might agree with him because "The Man
Against the Sky" was put at the beginning of this collected
edition.

Hillyer thought Robinson to be the "most impressive
figure on our literary horizon" not only because of his

success in the shorter works but also because of his great

-30-

failures which though “in themselves frustrate" imparted
to every sonnet and character sketch the "sense of powers
held in reserve; if his major works were not of great
beauty at least his minor works bore the "impact of a ma-
jor poet.“

Horace Gregory, a young poet himself, acknowledged
the debt of all living poets to Robinson for bringing to
poetry the "dignity of serious performance." He believed
that Robinson had established the tenets of his own faith
sometime between the writing of Captain graig in 1902 and
Th3 hhh Who Died Twice in 1924 and that all that had re-
mained for him to do was to perfect his technique and per—
form the physical 1abor of writing poetry to test "the
validity of his own dogma" in the three divisions of his
work. These were: the semi-dramatic narratives of which

ghhhhTh ggth was the first and Thg glggy Q; the Nightin-

 

gales (1930) was the latest; the Arthurian legends re-
worked in modern terms; and a sizable quantity of short
blank—verse narratives and miscellaneous lyrics which in-

cluded a "fairly large collection of sonnets."

1Robert Hillyer, "Collected Poems," The New England
Quarterly III (January 1930), 148e1517

-81-

Gregory felt that Robinson, like Hardy, had devel-
oped a principle of self criticism which prevented him from
committing any of the grosser errors evident in the work of
such contemporaries as Edgar Lee Masters and Vachel Lindsay
(though he failed to mention what they were) and had com-
posed the bulk of his work within what the critics had come
to "recognize as Robinson's own standard of excellence."

It was unfortunate that some book club hadn't
steered The glory 9T the Nightingales into the best seller
class, Gregory thought, for it was "easily read and almost
as easily forgotten;” given a wide distribution the story
with its "subdued gun play and delicate moderation of melo-
drama" could become popular in a worthy sense and serve as
an attractive introduction for Robinson to people who mere-
ly knew him as a name discussed in literary company. The
poem had all the "high polish and slickness of a well
turned detective story." The critic thought that Robinson
had never shown the technique of his narratives to a better
advantage. His blank verse had become a flexible medium
with stops and pauses that reflected the "tempo of our
speech," and almost needless to say there were no heavily

dramatic gestures in the phrasing of individual lines.

 

-82-

Gregory considered that this poem in realtion to the main
body of the poet's work merely proved that he had said
very nearly everything that he had to say about human
weakness, mortality, and the study of the great American
failure that he had begun in the Mauve Decade; if the
poem contributed little or nothing to the advance of
Robinson's fully recognized reputation it certainly veri-
fied the opinion that he was an "artist of remarkable in-
genuity." 1

William Rose Benet, in his review of Robinson's
latest poem, took time to evaluate his progress in rela-
tion to his contemporaries:

Robinson's success as an innovator
becomes more apparent with the passing of
years. The progress of his quiet creation
has not been even, but when one compares
it with the development of the talents of
most of his contemporaries it gathers to
itself an astonishing mass and variety of
accomplishment. Our best modern poets seem
to have worked at their highest pitch for
but a few years. Then if death did not in-
tervene, we continued to hear their voices
in repetition and in a less striking repe-
tition of their most characteristic utter-
ance. A few with the inevitable lessening
of the lyrical impulse seemed rather to go
to pieces: they were no longer surprised by

 

l
Horace Gregory, "The Glory of the Nightingales,"
The New fighhblic, LXIV (October 29, 1930), 303-304.

-83-

impetuous inspiration. They were neither
self—critical enough nor assiduous enough
sagaciously to build on their initial
promises, developing their most native vir-
tues, discarding the experimentation that
proved uncharacteristic. Robinson more than
any of them, save perhaps Frost, was able
wisely to weigh his particular powers, to
proceed along the individual trail he had
blazed at the start.
Benet felt that though Robinson's manner had fre-
quently become mannerism and he had repeated himself,
just at the moment when the critics' axes were about to
fall some new creation of the poet's made its "unobtru-
sive appearance with force and freshness sufficient to
cause the gossipers to look a little silly." The poet's
first innovation was the transformation of the sonnet into
a vehicle for a novel "in petto;" he brought a new tone
into the lyric, invented Browningesque tales of charact-
ers, developed the dramatic lyric, and proceeded to
psychological analysis in his long poems in blank verse.
Though Robinson's idiom had never changed, Benet felt that
they needn't so long as he "continually conquered new prov-
inces." 'Contrary to some of Robinson's other critics,
Benet felt that the poet's first concern was to present
human beings in action and his chief comment was on fata 1—
ity. If The glory 9; Th3 Nightingales was not one of the

poet's greatest achievements, Benet considered it just one

 

~84-

more example of the poet's ability to analyze the human
Spirit "under all manner of Special strains and stresses;"
above being a poet he could be the most profound psycholog—
ical novelist of the day if his characters didn't "talk
Robinson" and not as "they might speak in life."1
Odel Shepard, who seems never to have been overly
appreciative in his reviews of Robinson, suggested in.Th§
hgghhhh that the other reviewers had praised Thg QlQTz‘gi
the Nightingales on the basis of the poet's reputation and
not on its worth. He felt that the book contained “no
glory and no song;" that the title had been chosen with
sardonic intent; and that the subdued and level tone of
the blank verse was the work of a highly skilled craftsman
in words but that "not one memorable line stands forth."
The story itself was depressing rather than impressive, in
Shepard's Opinion:
We see love and friendship ruined,
honor sullied, even hatred - the one
bright thing before us - made futile,
sand a firm intention to commit murder
foiled by mocking chance. To phrase it
crudely, Mr. Robinson seems to say that

in our time the purposes and even the
strongest passions of the individual are

William Rose Benet, "Round About Parnassus," The Saturday
Review'gT hghgrature, VII (September 20, 1930), 142.

-85-

compelled into channels of no individual's
choosing . . . It may be that Mr. Robinson
more or less consciously intended this strange
and forbidding narrative poem as a prephecy
of years coming on into which neither he nor
any other sensible man would care to live.

But the poem is not altogether a prOphecy;

in some reSpects it is painfully like a 1
description of what we now see about us.

Though Robinson's critics were well aware of his pre-
occupation with fatality from 1902 on, the publication of
TTTstram, Cavender's House, and The Glory QT the Nightingales
led them toward the conclusions that the poet was a fatalist
and an agnostic, as he is labelled in most anthologies, text-
books, and biographical surveys. Many times during his poet-
ic career the critics had reason to believe that he was
slipping, but each time he changed his form and his style
just enough to regain their interest. It was a source of
satisfaction to Robinson when a French scholar, Charles
Cestre, in lecture courses on his poetry at Bryn.Mawr and at
Harvard, called him America's classical poet in.whom "poet-
ical genius" had "perfect equipoise of thought." His publi-
cation of one book a year from 1929 on to the time of his
death endangered his reputation, but his growing economic
security compelled him to do so even at the risk of having

it said that he was capitalizing on his fame. His friends

1
Odell Shepard, “The Glory of the Nightingales,"
Th9 hgghhgh, LXXIV (September 1931), 97-98.

-86-

 

tried to make him see that, even though he had nothing,
they would not let him want. "That's well enough for a
poet who is producing," he said, "but a poet who has

stopped writing is just an old man, and he can't be

helped." 1

 

l
Hagedorn, 365.

-37-

THE RECEPTION or THE "ANNUAL POEMS“'
Rdbinson wrote the 2500 lines of Mattias E2 the

Door in a white heat during the summer of 1930.. Still pos-

 

sessed by the theme, he turned to the third chapter of the
gospel of St. John which had been his inspiration, and in
three days he let Nicodemuh_"write itself." Hagedorn re-
calls a letter Robinson wrote in his youth tthis friend
Arthur Gledhill in which he said:
I fear that I haven't the stamina to be a
Christian - accepting Christ as either human
or divine...though I see a glimmer of light
once in a while and then meditate on possib-
ilities.
Hagedorn felt that these poems came from Robinson's uncon-
scious ancestral resevoir as the "song of the intellectual
mystic, who wanted to give himself wholly yet could not
quite manage it."1
Matthias gh_hhg,hggg,was published in 1931. Eda Lou.
Walton's review in Th; Nation attributed Robinson's success
with the narrative form in which almost all other narrative
poets failed to his selection of highly significant and sym-
bolic incidents; the aesthetic result of his fusion of the
reality of the subject - the scene and the character - with

the poet's vision was a high level in beauty of language and
feeling. She noted that though it had often been said that

 

IHagedorn, 261-263..
-88-

Robinson's deepest concern was with the idealism at the root
of failure it was rarely noted that the intensities reached
in his narrative poems were those of the dramatic interac-
tion of character upon character. The last three poems
proved to the critic that Robinson had ability in the treat-
ment of human drama. They were a profound and important
elaboration of the themes of his earliest verse, matured by
a greater understanding of human nature and the forces that
motivate it. She felt that no more could be asked of a poet
than that he
widen and deepen his observation until

it becomes a comprehensive study of life,

a poetic philosophy which is illuminating

and satisfying to both the heart and mind,

and this is the Eccomplishment of the

mature Robinson.

Harriet Monroe found the characters in MEEEDEEE 25
hhg 9293 "a bit theoretic and shadowy;" the story ran more
simply and swiftly than was customary with Robinson through
the flowing rhythms of his "beautifully orchestrated blank
verse." The talk of the four characters was "more like
talk" and was less burdened with psychological analysis such
as "clogged the dialogue of I!l§££§fl°" She notedthat Robin-
son's ill-assorted couples were always childless and seem-
ingly oblivious of the existence of children but Miss Monroe

1Eda Lou Walton, "So Wrapped in Rectitude," The Nation,

cxxxn (October 14, 1931), 403-404.

 

-89-

 

thought that it was because the ”fearsome sanity and direct-
ness of children," and the "thrilling emotions" they genera-
ted often straightened out marital tangles so that no story
was left for the "poet resolved for tragedy." She noted that
he had perfected his blank verse since he had written.§hp§gTh
Crai , which was Rstark and a bit frigid," though even then
it often attained subtle harmonies. His verse had become
”singularly reSponsive" with a restrained music in conformi-
ty with highly intellectualized motives.1

Odell Shepard found hgthhghh El hhg 2993 more satis-
factory than The Glory QT the Nightingales. Rather flip-
pantly he said:

To those who know Mr. Robinson's style
and manner it is unnecessary to say that
the poem is subtle in thought, often ob-
scure in expression, replete with ironic
innuendo and understatement. There is to
be sure no suggestion of song or of ecstacy
anywhere in it; the mood is monotonous and
weary; for sentences at a time, the verse
is differentiated from prose - and a prose
quite“ lustreless and dull - only by the
beat of the metre. Yet the poem wonks out
to a conclusion of tragedy rather than mere
deSpair which lifts it to a high level.

The lives of two men and one woman are
thwarted and wrecked to work the cure of an

 

1Harriet Monroe, "Robinson's Matthias," Poetgy,
XXXIX (January 1932), 212—217.

-90-

almost impregnable pride in the righteous
and admirable Matthias. They die that he
may be born. We feel that any one of them
is worth far more in actuality than he can
ever be after any conceivable purification,
but this Mr. Robinson implies is one of

the mysteries of life and death, and of all
sacrifice.

Nicodemug, published a year later in 1932, did not

fare much better than its predecessor. Babette Deutsch

found it much like Robinson's other work in form and mat—

ter, but wished that in "travelling the old road he had

discovered more of the old beauties;" the familiar melody

was too insistent, the basic fact of character was not

“sufficiently explicated by the verse." Of his use of

drama she said:

1

It is of course a poet's distinc-
tion to have a voice of his own, but
when he is writing poetry that verges
on drama (the nearest thi to poetic
drama that we seem to have , his
problem is how he shall weave back and
forth between his personal tone and that
of the men and women he is representing.
It is a delicate business and one that
lies, possibly, not within the province
of the poet's consciousness. Yet Robin-
son has himself carried it through more
than once, never more victoriously than
in "Ben Jonson Entertains a Man from
Stratford." That success is nowhere
repeated here.

A4a-“-‘— 4‘.— A # ;.

Odell Shepard, "Recent Verse," The Yale Review, XXI
(March 1932), 591.

-91-

Miss Deutsch noted that the title poem had an anti-climactic
conclusion and felt that "The Prodigal Son" was the most
satisfactory and rereadable poem in the book.1

Harold Rosenberg noted that it was difficult to
rather than philosophically trenchant because Robinson's
unit of measure was larger than the image on the line - the
tension was carried by the whole passage. He overlooked
the title poem and cited "The March of the Cameron Men" for
its passion built up by the entirety of what had preceded,
"here intoned by Robinson with admirable clarity" and an
absence of wordiness, in a "language cadenced by feeling
and rhythmically complicated within the tradition of its
formal line."2

The reviews of ThTTTgT, published in 1933, were no
more encouraging. R. P. Blackmur, writing in Egghgy,
damned Robinson by saying that he had a "negative compe-
tence;" the emotional content of his poem was not great nor
did its rhythmical texture require much emotion; the verse

scanned easy and assured, both in subject and meter, and

lBabette Deutsch, "The Hands of Esau," The New Republig,
LXXII (October 5, 1932), 213-214.

2
Harold Rosenberg, "Judgement and Passion," Egghgy, XLI
(December 1932), 158-161.

 

-92-

had "most of the negative virtues of sound versification."
The critic felt that the people were treated as pawns and
Dr. Quick as an interlocutor - for such treatment both wis-
dom and humor should have been firm and specific, but in-
stead both were adulterated, one with kindliness (which was
the ruination of rhetoric because it left so little to be
definite about) and the other with verbiage, so that ulti-
mately Dr. Quick has "the force, not of a brimming reser-
voir of human character, but only that of a Dickensian
'character'.” He cited 222.HE£;EEQ.2$EQ.21122.33 an oppo-

site example "where the conceptual strength alone is enough

to hold the elements of character in undissolved combination.'

The critics were not alone in their confusion and.
misapprehension of Robinson's later long poems. The Poet's
old friends too had trouble with the psychological studies,
groping clumsily for words to express their admiration for
poetry which they did not understand or feel at ease with.
"Newcomers among the professional critics began to speak of
Robinson as 'cerebral' and to intimate" that the poet who
had "painted Vivien at Broceliande and written the long

duet of the lovers at Joyous Gard, lacked emotion and

passion.” One young rebel was bold enough to tell Ropinson

 

L R. P. Blackmur ”Verse That is Too Easie," Poetry, XLIII

(January, 1934), 221-225.

-93-

11

one day in the dining-room at Peterborough that his work
was not vivid enough, being all blacks and browns and
greys. Robinson puckered his lips and let the criticism
have its moment of sultry silence. "Those are pretty
fast colors," he answered.

The criticisms on the Whole were not unfavorable,
though reserved, and only a few were savage; but Robinson
had for so long received the critics general approval that
it was a shock for him to face the decline which came dur—
ing the period in which he was writing too much. He was
bewildered by what he called the "blast of imbecility"
which greeted IéllEEEi the inability of the reviewers to
see that the poem was a comedy and not a well of esoteric
philOSOphy. He sputtered when passages which he had fanc—
ied as rather amusing were presented as examples of "uncon-
scious humor." He decided that it was "dangerous to be
different" and to turn again to "suicide and gloom." It
was partly because of its effect on the sale of his books
that the adverse criticism troubled him, but each new book
sold eight or ten thousand cOpies regardless of the cri—
tics. Another reason such criticism bothered him was that
he was not so sure as he pretended to be regarding poster—

1
ity's verdict on his work.

1
Hagedorn, 364-366.

AEEEEQEE: written during the summer of 1933, ex-
hausted Robinson physically, for he had been stricken with
a succession of headaches which probably were the result
of his having been knocked down accidentally by a baseball
two years previously in Boston. Though X-ray examinations
revealed nothing, he continued to feel the consequences,
particularly in his ear; whenever his car was seriously
affected, he was inclined to think that death might not be
far. After the exhaustion that hhhhghhh precipitated his
friends felt that a smash—up seemed imminent.

The new book was published in 1934. One critic at
least realized what it meant to Robinson. Robert Hillyer
recognized it as an allegory that reflected that "dark
night of the soul" which even the greatest artist passes
through when he doubts his powers. He found in it "hints
of the futility of all human endeavors" when Amaranth "the
unfading flower - the genius of Time itself - looks upon
them with his unconquerable eyes." The critic saw in it a
steady argument for form and seriousness in art; a "quiet
onslaught, also, against the precious school of criticism

which maintains that poetry need not mean anything."

-95-

The almost presey quality of Robinson's blank verse
disturbed Hillyer by its lack of integrity within the line;
the "enjambments" very often seemed "merely fortuitous as
if the author had reached the end of his five feet and so
started another line;" his ear was also disturbed by an
”unintentional jingle of rhyme, sometimes of false rhyme."
Hillyer believed that when Robinson said of Fargo that he
made "an oily-fiery sacrifice one day" instead of clearly
saying that he burned his paintings, the poet was "padding."
The critic thought that although the allegory sometimes be-
came obscure, the merits of the poem vastly out-weighed the
small faults; the epigramatic quality was well able to
point satire or sharpen pathos, no other work of Robinson's
was so rich in memorable phrases; almost without exception
the characters, although personifications of general types,
were also "laughably real."

Hillyer believed that the poem had "wit, shrewdness,
and some majesty" and that those readers who had been disap-
pointed in Robinson in recent years would "welcome this re-
juvenation of his powers." He would go so far as to say

that the poet had never surpassed Amarhhgh.

———’—v‘ v

jRobeht Hillyer, "Amaranth," The New England Quartegly,
VII (March 1935), 113-114.

 

 

Horace Gregory took an Opposite view, commenting that
Robinson's annual book was written to help him escape bore-
dom. He reiterated his idea that Robinson had said all that
he wished to say when he completed Th3 Mhh.WhO Died Twice.
The Arthurian cycle was merely an elaboration of his thesis
that gave him the proper feeling of detachment from his
material and it amused him to do the legend well, to give it
fresh meaning, to show that Tennyson had by no means exhaust-
ed its possibilities. Gregory felt that Robinson's art and
psychological insight were limited and dull - hhhgghhh,
SEléEEflE: and a half dozen others he could add were examples,
but the poet did understand the psychology Of failure. The
characters in.hhh3§h§h the critic believed were not motivated
by their own volition, but by "that curious will we recognize
as Robinson's mind."

Gregory made the point which most other critics con-
sistently had either missed or left unsaid - that Robinson's
"survivors" (Eben Flood, Ben Jonson's Shakespeare, and Mer—
lin) all had the "gift Of self knowledge equal to genius
which implied the intelligent use Of irony and that vaguely

defined quality, integrity." 1

l
Horace Gregory "The Weapon of Irony," Egghgy, XLV
(December 1934), 157-161.

-97-

Carty Ranck greeted hhhhhhhh with an enthusiastic

1
review in The Bostgh Transcript; Percy Hutchison was warm

2
in his praise in The New York Tlmgg Booh Beview; and the

 

 

western reviewers were kind; but The New Republig dis-

 

missed the poem in four inches Of cold contempt as
a most pathetic revelation of the

bitter - yet heroic — self-doubt in

the mind Of a poet who had once struck

genuine fire, knows that he did, and

fears that he never will again.
Other reviewers said the book was "just another evidence
Of hardening poetic arteries." Some declared the theme
"sentimental", others found the material "workable" enough,
but the treatment "vague and superficial." Hagedorn found
it ironic that the most savage assault on the fame Of the
"one conSpicuous mystic in contemporary American poetry,
the creator of the reborn Matthias, the interpreter of the
Christ—hungry Nicodemus," should have been published in

Th3 Christian gghhygy.3

Robinson, who was always acutely sensitive to criti—
cism, was hurt deeply. He mused that a man might dream half

a life time over some conception and a critic would presume

l
Carty Ranck, "An American Poet in a Ni htmare Land," The
hoston.Evening Transcript (September 2 , 1934), Pt. III,2.

Percy Hutchison, "Edwin Arlington Robinson's Dramatization
of a Dream," The New York Timg§ Book Revigg,

(September 30:119325,11.

3Merrill Root, "The Decline of E. A. Robinson," The Christian
gghtu , LI (December 5, 1934) 1554.

Cf. Hagedorn, 371‘

 

-98-

 

in half an hour to understand and appraise it. His distress
deepened the physical exhaustion in which his summer had
ended. His friends persuaded him to submit to an explora-
tory Operation the following January which revealed a cancer
that could be removed only at the cost Of hastening his
death. The incision was closed and the doctors told him
that he was suffering from arthritis and "stomach trouble."
He remained in the hOSpital and there corrected the proofs
for £198 Tghpgg. He exulted when The Atlahtlc MQQEElI
printed a favorable review Of'Amaranth,1 lamenting that the
critics had been pretty severe with him, but he acknow-
ledged at the same time that he had published tOO frequent-
ly during the last ten years; no poet could afford to have
a new volume year after year, "But what could I do? I

needed the money." He died not long after and King Jasper
2

 

was published posthumously.
Robinson had always been distrustful of contemporary
themes but he was unable to resist the temptation to write
what he called his "treatise on economics," titled hThg
Thhpgg after the mine down which the last Of his patrimony
had vanished thirty-five years before. He gave the poem a
triple significance - first as a story of six unhappy beings,

1Theodore Morrison, "Modern Poets," The Atlantic Mohthly, CLV
(March 1935) The Atlantic Bookshelf, lo, 12.

2
Hagedorn, 372-383.

 

 

-99-

caught in a cataclysm of all that is life to them; then, as
a symbolic drama of the disintegration of the capitalistic
system; and last as an allegory Of ignorance, knowledge and
aSpiration. Robinson had always been preoccupied with the
paradox Of those "who having eyes see not" and it had per-
meated much of his work. The poet had intended to write

a brief foreword to King Jasper but with his customary dis-
taste for preface he changed his mind.

The critics were kinder to this last poem and made
concessions to Robinson's taste. M. Boie in Thg hgh'hhgThhg
Quarterly' called it a dramatic story, skillfully construct-
ed and subtly told and enlarged his idea:

The power and movement Of the charact-
erization; the natural exposition through
the actions and speeches of the characters;
the preparation for the struggle; hinted in
the ironic beginnings of the first sections,
and woven into the narrative with tightening
suspense; and the division of the action into
episodes that rise steadily to the climax,
vigorously pose the conflicts until they are
dramatically resolved, and the end of the
poem rises, as in all true tragedy to a note
Of exaltation through suffering.
The critic wished that Robinson had chosen less time-worn
symbols to embody a story that was so essentially timeless -
the struggle Of the evils Of individual desire for power as
against the evils of revengefulness and violence with both
failing through "lack of knowledge and lack Of respect for

the ideal life."

-100-

Boie felt the blank verse was pliable and perfectly

suited to the quiet rhythms Of the poet's thought:
It is the tone qualities Of the whole

poem - the beautiful slow music of con-

templation, excited at times by conversa-

tion and action, by terror and pity; varied

by the constant use of run-on lines, chang-

ing sentence structure and caesuras, double

endings, hovering accents, and metrical si-

lences - that are arresting and memorable.
It was passages rather than individual lines that Boie noted
he read again, passages that revealed Robinson himself - it
was "this quiet persistence in being his own self that is
most revealed and most to be respected in King Jasper" be-
cause Robinson knew and proved the necessity for a man to
think and write in his own way; "in his own loneliness he
wrote, not Of himself, but out Of himself."

He admired Robert Frost's preface to the book in
which Frost stated that a poet's thinking and caring about
life and human beings, and his expression Of it in his own
way - the way that what he is and what he has tO say dic-
tate, are what matters most.

F. 0. Matthieson thought that the tone Of Robinson's

most enduring work, the earlier dramatic monologues which

vOiced the loneliness Of the individual, rose from the cour-

 

l
M. Boie, "Review of King Jasper," The Egg England Quapterly,
IX (March31936), 154-156.

-101-

 

 

-
s
.
v e
v ,
e
O
. n
.
e
. . _ _ . _ - - p e . . _ .

 

age with which they faced the failure Of the Emersonian tra-
dition to resolve the problem of society and solitude -
against the meaningless chaos of the world they posed a self-
reliance that was no longer hopeful, but beneath its ironic
wit, stoical to the verge of despair.

The partial failure Of Robinson's effort tO come to
grips with contemporary society in.hghg Thppgg, Matthiessen
believed, was attributable to the long solitude Of the poet's
grief for the lot Of individual man which disqualified him
for the full handling Of the social problems and caused his
treatment, despite the energy of his thoughtful verse to
fall into allegory that was bare and Obscure.

William Rose Benet felt that as the last work of a
man who had dedicated a long life to poetry, worked more as-
siduously at his craft than most artists, wielded a style
that was "one of the most saliently individual Of our time in
literature," and sometimes failed in the significance of what
he had to say - hThg Thgpgh was a narrative Of extraordinary
directness and vitality. "Its characteristics are really

symbols, but they are symbols significant Of our era." 2

1F. 0. Matthiessen, "Review Of King Jasper," The Talg Review,

XXV (Spring 1936), 603-07.

2
William Rose Benet, “The Phoenix Nest," The Saturdgy Review
QT Literature, XIII (November 16, 1935), 8:

 

 

 

-102-

THE CRITICISM SINCE ROBINSON'S DEATH

The general trend of the criticism of Robinson did not
change appreciably after his death, except that it tended to
deal more than previously with the development of his phil-
osOphy. Floyd Stovall in 1938 noted that

Robinson looks beyond the tragedies of persons

and societies and beholds life as an eternal and

creative will evolving through a succession of 1‘

changing patterns toward an ideal of perfection.
In the same year Frederic Carpenter stated that in Tristram
Robinson realized for the first and perhaps'the only time,
the positive implications which had been implicit in tran-

2 In 1940, Iinfieid

scendental philosophy from the beginning.
wanley Scott ventured the opinion that though he might yet
be applauded or censured for insisting that Robinson was
America's greatest poet, he believed that the eventual val-
uation of Robinson would have to evaluate the American con—
cept that would preserve both the rights of democracy and of
the individual, for Robinson had stated his adherence to that

concept, and had revealed all its consequences, more often and

more brilliantly than any other poet.3 The same year H. H.

 

1 Floyd Stovall, "The Optimism Behind Robinson's Tragedies”,
American Literature, X (March 1938), 1-23.

2 Frederic Ives Carpenter, ”Tristram the Transcendent”, New
E land Quarterl , XI (September 1938), 5016523.

3 linfield Townle Scott, ”Robinson to Robinson", Poetgy,

.. 103-

Waggoner wrote a review of the pertinent details of Robinson's
”lifelong struggle against the unyielding despair of scientific

determinists."1

Leuise Dauner felt that the concept of "the
good man" assuming a personal obligation to his society, and
reinvesting his resources for the "enrichment of the 'Whole
Good' underlies both the 'character' poems and the 'social'
poems."2 Richard Crowder observed that by the frequency of
their recurrence the problems of social man were more important
to Robinson than those of the intellectualist and the aesthete;
his preoccupation with the relationships of men and women in-
dicated that the problem of love was fundamental to his think-
ing; Robinson's own complex attitude was a mixture of the
theoretic, the aesthetic, the religious , the political and
the social--that is, he was analytical, sensitive to beauty,
mystic, desirous of recognition, and deeply aware of man‘s
relation to society.3

or the books published about Robinson and his work, four
are particularly worth study. Charles Cestre, the French
scholar, who once called Robinson America's classic poet in

1 Hyatt Howe waggoner, "E. A. Robinson and the Cosmic Chili,'“
New England Quarterly, XIII (march 1940), 65-84.

2 Louise Dauner, "Vox Clamantis: E. A. Robinson as a Critic
of American Democracy", New England Quarterly, xv
(September l9#2), 401-426.

3 Richard Crowder, ”Here Are the Men; E. A. Robinson's Male
2382' New England Quarterly, XVIII (September 1945),
3 7.

-104-

whom poetical genius had its "perfect equipoise of thought",
published his modified Bryn Mawr lectures in 1930 as An lgEng
duction £2 Eggin Arlington Robinson. Cestre characterized
Robinson as the heir of the romanticists in his enrichments of
his poetry, the precursor of the imagists but thoroughly him-
self in his balanced interpretation of conduct and his vigorous
insight into the permanent truths of life. It is a particularly
important book because Robinson felt that Cestre understood

him perhaps better than any other critic.

Estelle Kaplan's book, Philosophyig_thg Poetry g£_§gg;g
Arlington Robinson, published in 1940, is one of the Columbia
Studies in American Culture, suggested and guided by Professor
Herbert W. Schneider. Miss Kaplan thinks that

The point is not so much that Robinson is an idealist,
as that perhaps, through the influence of Royce, he

is willing to allow full range to the skepticism im-
plicit in idealism rather than to the dogmatic fatallsm
of materialism. His skepticism means that one can
never know, not that knowing is useless. The puritan
trait seems to indicate that in his letters, as in his
poems, he is talking not only about material things but
also about heaven and hell in the human soul. He is
carrying on the gospel of Emerson and of New England
deepened by an idealistic appreciation of pessimism.

His conscience is 'New England' and is preoccupied with
his own spiritual state-~his soul; it is in truth a
spiritual selfishness 'that hangs to a man like a
lobster', especially in New England. This combination
of puritanism, transcendentalism, and pessimism (Haw-
thorne, Emerson, and Hardy) gradually crystallized into
a permanent pattern for his poetry, but it was at the 1
same time an expression of his 'New England conscience'.

 

 

L? Estelle Kaplan, Philosophy i_, he Poetry _§.Edwin ArlingtOn
Robinson, 11-1 .

- 105-

   

One of the most valuable little books to the student of
Robinson’s poetry is Ivor Winters' Edgin,églingtgg§§gpig§gg
published in 1946. It considers the influences on Robinson's
style (Browning and Praed), tells the stories of the narrative
poems, and evaluates the poet's work as a whole. linters feels
that Robinson's most successful work is to found among his
shorter poems such as "Hillcrest", ”Eros Turannos", "The Van-
dering Jew", ”Many Are Called”, ”The Three Taverns", and
"Rembrandt to Rembrandt". Despite a lack of richness in his
language, Winters thought that Robinson found his ”closest
relatives" among Wordsworth, Tennyson, Browning, Hardy, and
Bridges, that "his position in relation to these poets is not
that of the lowest".1

The only biography of Robinson to date is that of Hermann
Hagedorn, a fellow member of the MacDowell Colony who first in-
duced Robinson to go there in 1911. The book was published in
1939 Just two years after Robinson's death. 0n the whole it 18
a very good piece of work; but while it has much wit and is
well written, one has the feeling that there is much more to be
said. Perhaps Hagedorn was hampered by the fact that those of
whom it might be said were still alive and would not particularly
appreciate Hagedorn's or the public's interest; though his
descriptions of Alfred Louis, Joseph Lewis French, and Isadora

 

l Yvor Winters, Edwin Arlington Robinson, 144.

-10 6-

Duncan stand out--but perhaps they would in any book. The
book is written with the sympathy of a friend and Robinson,
fine as he was, was made to appear too often as a virtuous
prig rather than as Hagedorn intended when he surrounded his
New Yerk Clan life with strong drink, pornographic pictures,
and wild stories. Robinson's early and middle years are fairly
well covered but the last twenty years are treated in a point-
ilistic fashion. There is a need for a definitive biography
and though there have been rumors that various writers are

contemplating one it has yet to be confirmed.

-107-,

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I

TEXTS

Robinson, Edwin A. Collected Poems, New York: The
MacMillan Company, 1944.

eeeeemmeameoeeoeo-eJMo van zorn; é. Corned! 1n Three ACtB,
The MacMillan Company, 1914.

e.................. The Porcupine; a Drama in Three Acts,
The MacMillan Company, 1915.

................... Untriangulated Stars: Letters of E. A.

Robinson 22 Harry 2g Forest Smith, 1890--1295_, Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1947.

Torrence, Ridgely Selected Letters 9; Edwin Arlington Rob-
inson, New York; The MacMillan Company, 1940.

II
BIBLIOGRAPHIES

Beebe, Lucius an Bulkley, Jr., Robert J. n_Bibliogganng g;
the Writings 9;,Edwin Arlington Robinson, Cambridge:
The Dunster House Bookshop, 1931..

Burns, Winifred ”Edwin Arlington Robinson in the Hands of

the Reviewers." Poet Lore, XLVII (Summer 1942), 164-
175.

Hogan, Charles Beecher A Bibliogranny n§_Edwin Arlington
Robinson, New Haven: Yale University Press, l936.

e e e e 04 e. o. e. eoe e e e e e e e e e- :EdWin Arlington Robinson: New Bib-
liographical Notes.” Pa ers of

the Biblio ra hical
Society 9; America, xxxv 1943', 115-123;.

Lippincott, Lillian A Bibliogranhz of the Writingsa and

Criticisms of Edwin Arlington Robinson, Boston:
The F. W. Faxon Company, l937.

-108-

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Millet, Fred B. 2Contemborary American Authors: n_Critica1
Survey and212 Bio-Bibliogranhies, New York: Harcourt,
Brace, and Company, 1940.

III
BOOKS: BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL

Brown, Rollo Walter Next Door to a Poet, New York: D.

Appleton-Century Company, Inc., 1937.

Cestre, Charles An Introduction to Edwin Arlington Robinson,
New York; The MacMillan Company, 1930.

Coffin, Robert P. T. New Poetry n£_New England: Frost and
Robinson, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1936.

Hagedorn, Hermann Edwin Arlington Robinson,A Biognanhy,
New York: The MacVillan Company, 1935.

Kaplan, Estelle Philosophy in the Poetry Lf Edwin Arlington
Robinson, New York: Columbia University Press, 1940

Lowell, Amy Tendencies ;n_Modern American Poetry, New York:
The Macmillan Company, 1917.

........... Poetny and Poets, Boston: Houghton Mifflin
Company, 1930

Monroe, Harriet Poets and Their Art, New York: The Mac-
Millan Company, 1926.

Mbrris, Lloyd The Poetr of Edwin Arli ton Robinson New
York: George H. Daren Company, 1923.“,

Redman, Ben Ray Edwin Arli ton Robinson New York: Robert
McBride a Company, 192%. ’

Richards, Laura E. E. A. R., Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 1936.

Van Doren, Mark Enyin Arlington Robinson, New York: The
Literary Guild of America, 1927.

Winters, Yvor Edwin Arli ton Robinson, NorfolK”Conn.:
New Directions Books, 1956.

-109-

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IV
PERIODICALS:
CRITICISMS OF SPECIFIC BOOKS:

IQ; Torrent and the Night Before

Anon. ”Current Poetry." The Literary World, xxvxn
(August 7. 1897), 26m“. ""-

Clark Helen A. "Notes On American Verse." Poet Lore, IX
(1897 )) #48 .

Eggleston, Edward "Edward Eggleston: An Interview.“ The
Outlook, LV (February 6, 1897)) #36.

 

 

Payne, William Merton "Recent Poetry." The Dial, XXII
(February 1, 1897))92.

Peck, Harry T. "A Literary Journal." The Bookman, IV
(February, 1997)’509.

Trent, William P. ”A New Poetic Venture." The Sewannee
Review, V (April, 1897))243.

The Children 2; the Night

Anon. "The Children of the Night." Boston Evening Trangcrigt,
(November 25, 1905),4.

..... ”The Children of the Night." Boston Evening Transgrigt,
(December 18, l897)°l3.

..... ”Current Poetry.” The Literary World, XXIX (September 3,
1898 ), 284 .

.....4 gRoeent American Poetry." The Natiog, LXVI (June 2, 1898L
2 e

..... "Recent Poetry." The New York Times gaturday ggview 2;,
Books, (Nevember 25, 1905), 7935

Gardiner, John Hays "The Children of the Night." Boston Even-
;gg Transcript, (December 24, 1897), 5. """""" """'

Greenslet, Ferris ”Recent Poetry.“ The Nation, LXXXI
(December 21, 1905)5SO7..

Roosevelt, Theodore ”The Children of the Night.” The Outlook,
LXXX (August 12, 1905))913.

-110-

u t..-

_-.-—

 

Thompson, Vance ”A New Poet." The Musical Qourier, XXXVII
(July 13, 1898))Art and Drama, v.

Thorne, William H. "Shakespeare, Foss and Company." ng,globe,
VIII (March, 1898), 29.

gaotain Craig

Anon. ”A New Poetry." The Independent, LV (February 19,
1903)) 446.

...... ”A New Volume of Poetry." Boston Evening Transcripp,
(October 29, 1902))18. '

..... ”Recent Poetry." The Natiog, LXXV (December 11, 1902%

. o

..... ”Some Recent Books of Verse.” 1he Argonaut, LII
(January 5, l903)>6.

Braithwaite, William 3. "The Lutanists of Midsummer--Edwin
Arlington Robinson and His Distinctive Art.” Boston

Evenipg Transcript (August 11, 1915))18.

Payne William M. ”Recent Poetry." The Dial, XXXIV
(January 1, 1903) > 18.. "'"" """"'

Scollard, Clinton ”Recent Books of Poetry." The gritig, XLII
(March, 1903), 232.

Sherman, Frank Dempster "Recent Poetry." The Boox prer, XXV
(December, 1902), 429. . ' '

Sinclair, may ”Three American Poets of Toaay.“ The Atlantip
monthly, XCVIII (September 1906L,330.

Stickney, Trumbull ”Captain Craig." The Harvard Mbnthlt,
(December, 1903))99.
Thngown Down the River

Anon. ”Curiept Poetry." The Literary Digest, XLII (March 4,
1911) 2 ..
)

...... “Three Books of Verse.” The Outlook, XCVIII (June 3,
1911), 245.. — ——

-1116

~- .-_~ - .

 

 

4..

 

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iv. a

 

..... ”Three Poets_of the Present." The New York Times Bgview
p£_Books (February 12, l9ll),79.

Braithwaite, William S. ”Down the River." Boston Evenipg Tran-
scripp (October 29, 1910),6.

1e Gallienne, Richard "Three American Poets." The Forum, XLV
(January, l9lll,88.

Payne,6zilliam M. "Recent Poetry." The Dial, L (March I, 1911!
1 .

Van Zorn

 

Boyce, Neith "Books and len." Harper's Weekly, LX, (February
6, 1915),131.

Braithwaite, W. S. "Van Zorn." Boston Evenipg Transcript
(November 4, 1914),8.

Hamilton, Clayton "A Shelf of Printed Plays.“ The Boozman,
XLI (April, 1915))182.

ghg_Porpupine

Braithwaite, w. s. ”The Poet as a Dramatist." Boston Even-
ipg Transcript (December 24, 1915),6.

Towse John Rankin ”The Porcupine." The Nation, 011
(June 29, 1906)’7l7. ' "

The Ian Against the §§1_

Anon. "Edrin A. Robinson's New Book of Poems." New York Times
Review pgbBooks (April 2, 1916))121.

 

 

...... ”Mr. Robinson's New Poems." The Outlook, CXII
(April 5, 1916))786. '

..... ”The man Against the Sky.” The North American Review,
00111 (April, 19l6))633.

Braithwaite, W. S. I'The man Against the Sky." Boston Even-
;pg_Transcript (February 26, l916))9.

- 112-

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Braithwaite, w. s. "The Year in Poetry." The Bookman, XLV
(June, 1917))429.

Firkins, Oscar N. "American Verse." The Nation, 0111
(August 17, 1916))150. “"' ""'"'

Lowell, Amy "E. A. Robinson's Verse." The New Republic,
VII, (may 27, 1916))96.

Reed, Eduard Bliss ”Recent American Verse." The Yale Review,
VI (January, 1917))421.
Merlin

Anon. ”Notable Books in Brief Review." New York Times 33:
view pg_Books (August 26, 1917),313

Reed, Edward Bliss ”Poetry of Three Nations." The Yale
Review, VI (July, 1917))863.

Shepard, Odell "Versified Henry James." The Dial, LXIII
(October 11, 1917% 339.

Young, Stark "Merlin." The New Republic, XII (September 29,
1917)) 250.

Lancelot

Braithwaite, W. S. "The Arthurian Legend in Poetry.“ Boston
Evenipg Transcript, (June 12, 1920)’9.

Deutsch, Babette "A New Light on Lancelot." Poetry, XVI
(July,1920))217.

Gorman, Herbert S. ”Lancelot." The New Republip, XXIII
(July 28, 1920))259.

van Doren, Carl "Tragedy in Camelot." The Nation, CX
(May 8, 1920),622. '

Weaver, Raymond M. ”Some Currents and Backwaters of Con-
temporary Poetry." The Bookman, LI (June, 1920),457.

Wilkinson, Marguerite "i . Robinson's New Arthurian Poem.“
The New York Times Review of Books, (Aprillll, 1920)’l70.

..

The Three Taverns

Gorman, Herbert S. "E. A. Robinson, E. L. Masters, Typical
Poets of Today." New YOrk Times Book Review and Magazine,
LXX (May, 1921)’56§T— 'm“

Mitchell, Stewart "Edwin Arlington Robinson." The Dial, LXX
(May, 1921))569.

Roth, Samuel "Robinson--Bridges--Noyes." The Bookman, LII
(December, 1920),}61. "”" '

Van Doren, Carl ”Wisdom and Irony." The Nation, CXI.
(October 20, 1920)7453.

Avon's Harvest

Braithwaite, W. S. "A Poetic Tale of Consuming mystery."
Boston Evenihg Transcript (April 2, 1921), 6.

Farrar, John ”E. A. Robinson‘s Dime Novel." The Bookman,
LIII (May, 1921), 248.

Mbnroe, Harriet "Robinson's Double Harvest." Poetry, XVIII,
(august, 1921), 274.

Van Doren, Carl "In a Style of Steel.” The Nation, CXII,
(April 20, 1921), 596.

Collected Poems (1921)

Aiken, Conrad "The New Elizabethans." The Yale Review, x1,
(April. 1922). 635. "‘““"“"“'

German, Herbert S. "Edwin Arlington Robinson's Poetry." New
York Times BooksReview and Magazine (October 30, 19215, .

Lowell, Amy ”A Bird's Eye View of Edwin Arlington Robinson.”
The Dial, LXXII (February, 1922), 130.

Van Doren, Carl ”Greek Dignity and Yankee Ease." The hation,
CXIII (November 16, 1921), 570.

Walker, Helen "The Wisdom of Merlin.“ The Forum, LXVII,
(February, l922), 179.

-ll#-

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Winter,8Yvor ”A Cool Master." Poetry, XIX (February, 1922),
27 ..
Roman gartholow

Anon. ”Roman Bartholow." The North American Review, CCXVII
(June, 1923) , 862e

Dudley, Dorothy "Wires and Cross Wires." Poetr , XXIV
(May. 192 ) 96.

Van Doren, Mark "Roman Bartholow." ghe Nation, CXVI (June 13,

Wilson, Edmund ”Mr. Robinson's Moonlight." The hial, LXXIV
(MEI. 1923). 515-.

The Man Who pied Thice

Corman, Herbert S. "A Crop of Spring verse." The Bookman,
LIX (June, 1924), 467.

Mbore, Marianne "The Man Who Died Twice." The hial, LXXVII,
(August, 1924), 168.

Norris, William A. "The Dark Wood." The New Re ublic, XLI
(January 21, 1925), 238.

Untermeyer, Louis ”Seven Against Realism." The Yale Review,
XIV (July, 1925), 792. ' ' ' "'

Van Doren, Mark' "A Symphony of Sin." The Nation, CXVII
(April 16, 1924») , -445.

hgohysus i2 Doubt

Anon. 6"Dionysus in Doubt." The Dial, LXXIX (September, 1925),
2 1.

Daly, James "The Inextinguishable God." Poetry, XXVII
(October, 1925), 40.

Gorman, H. S. ”E. A. Robinson and Some Others." The Bookman,
LXI (July. 1925). 595.

- 115..

*‘ _a

Van Doren, Mark "First Glance." The Nation, CXX (April 15,
1925), 428.

Wilson, James S. "Appollo in Doubt." The Virginia Quarterly
Review, I (July, 1925), 319.

:gistram
Aiken, Conrad ”Tristram." The New Republic, LI (may 25, 1927),
22.

Benet, Wm. Rose "Escort to Leviathan." The Outlook CXLVI
(June 1, 1927), 158.

Farrazé John "A New Tristram." The Bookman, LXIV (June, 1927),
5..

Gorman, H. S. ”Edwin Arlington Robinson's ’TristramL'P" The .
LIAM 11211.2! 2!. 10.29. mmmwfiw 7. 1927).
2.

German, H. S. "High Spots in Spring Books." The Bookman, LXV
(July. 1927). 555.

MOnroe, Harriet "On Foreign Ground." Poetry, XXXI (December,
1927). 150.

Merrie, Lloyd ”The Career of Passion." The Nation, CXXIV
(Key 25. 1927). 586. “""““'

Pierce, Frederick E. "Fbur Poets." The Yale Review, XVII
(October, 1927), 177.

Pipkin, Emily Edith ”The Arthur of Edwin Arlington Robinson."
Ihe Ehglish Journal, XIX (March, 1930), 183.

Ranck, Carty 'A”Poet Rewrites a Tragedy of Love." Boston
Evenihg Transprip , (May 7, 1927), 9.

Van Doren, Carl ”The Roving Critic." The Century Ma azine,
CXIV (June, 1927), 255-

.....5ié....... "Tristram." The Forum, LXXVIlI (August, 1927),

-116-

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Collected Poems (1927)

Beach, Stewart "Harvest of a major Poet." The Independent,
CXX (January 21, 1928), 68.

Dale, Nathan H. ”A Collected Robinson." Boston Evenihg
Transcript (June 23, 1928), Book Section, 4.

Robinson, Henry Morton "No Epitaph." The Commonweal, XI
(November 13, 1929), 60.
Sonnets, l889-192Z

Aiken, Conrad ”Unpacking Hearts with Words." The Bockman,
LXVIII (January, 1929). 576.

Benet, Wm. Rose "Sonnets 1889-1927." The Saturday Review 2;
Literature, V (Ndvember 24, 1928), 412.

Cavender's House

Aiken, Cbnrad "Poetry." The Bookman, LXIX (May, 1929), 322.

Hughes, Richard ”Poetic Prestige." The Forum, LXXXII (July,
1929), lvi.

NacAfee, Helen ”The Dark Hill of the Muses." The Yale Review,
XVIII (June, 1929). 813. “‘ ""‘ """

North Jessica "A Classic of Indirection." Poetry, XXXIV
(July, 1924), 233.

Redman, Ben Ray "Old Wine in New Bottles." New York Herald
Tribune Books (September 8, 1929), 10.

 

Untermeyer, Louis "Essential Robinson." The Saturday Review
p£_Literature, V (May 11, 1929), 995.

Collected Poems (1929)

Bogan, Iouis “Tilbury Town and Beyond.” Poet , XXXVII
(January, 1931), 216.

Hillyer, Robert ”Collected Poems." The New Ehgland Quarterhy,
III (January, 1930), 148.

-117-

 

 

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Nather, Jr., Frank J. "E. A. Robinson, Poet." The sstnrday
Review CT Literature, VI (January 11, 1930), 629.

The Glohy g; the Nightihgales

Benet, Wm. Rose ”Round About Parnassus." The Saturda Review
9; Literature, VII (September 20, 1930), 142.

Gregory, Horace ”The Glory of the Ni htingales.” The New
Republic, LXIV (October 29, 1930 , 303.

Hicks, Granville ”The Talents of ur. Robinson." The Nation,
CXXXI (October 8, 1930), 382.

Shepard, Odell "The Glory of the Nightingales." The Bookman,
LXXIV (September, 1931). 97.

White, Wm. L. "America’s Psychological Poet." The South
Atlantic Quarterly, XXX (July, 1931), 334.
Matthias §£_the Deer

Monroe, Harriet ”Robinson's Matthias." Poethy, XXXIX
(January, 1932), 212.

Shepard, Odell "Recent Verse." The Yale Review, XXI (March,
1932). 591.

Walton, Eda Lou ”So Wrapped in Rectitude." The Nation,
CXXVIII (October 14, 1931), 403.
Nicodemus

Deutsch, Babette ”The Hands of Esau." The New Republic,
LXXII (October 5, 1932), 213.

Rosenberg, Harold "Judgement and Passion." Poetr , XLI
(December, 1932), 158.

Talifer

Blackmur, R. P. "Verse That Is Too Easie." Poetry, XLIII
(January, 1934), 221.

-118-

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Amaranth

Benet, Wm. Rose ”The Phoenix Nest." The Saturda Review 9T
Literature XV (February 23, 1935), 508.

 

Gregory, Horace ”The Weapon of Irony." Poetry, XLV (December,
1934). 157.

Hillyer, Robert "Amaranth." he New England Quarterly, VIII
(March, 1935), 113..

Hutchison, Percy "Edwin Arlington Robinson's Dramatizatiun
of a Dream.“ The New York Times Review pT_Books
(September 30, 1935). 5.

Merrison, Theodore "Modern Poets." The Atlantic Mbnthly,
CLV (March, 1935), 10. "” "“""'

Ranck, Carty "An American Poet in a Nightmare Land.“ Boston
Evenihg Transcript (September 26, 1934), 2.

Root, Merrill "The Decline of E. A. Robinson." The Christian
Centuhy, LI (December 5, 1934), 1554.

Untermeyer, Louis "Six Poets." The American Mercury, XXXIV
(March, 1935): 113.

Kihg Jasper

Arkin Newton ”King Jasper.” The New Republic, LXXXV
(January 8, 1936), 262.

Benet, Wm. Rose ”The Phoenix Nest." The Saturda Review pp
TCteraturgL XIII (November 16, 1935), .

Boie, M. "Review of King Jasper." New Ehgland Quarterly, IX
(March, 1936), 154.

Matthiessen, F. 0. "Review of King Jasper." The Yale Review,
XXV (Spring, 1936), 603.

Scott, Winfield Townley ”The Unaccredited Profession."
Poetry, L (June, 1937), 150.

-119-.

 

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GENERAL CRITICISMS

Anon. "A Poet's Birthday." The Outlook, CXXIII (December 24,
1919). 535. -

..... "Edwin Arlington Robinson's Sombre Muse." Current
Opinion, LXXIV (May, 1923), 549.

..... "Robinson as a Poet Born Ahead of His Time.“ urrent
Opinion, LXXII’(April, 1922), 525.

..... "Robinson's Tribute to Hardy: Two Sonnets.” he Sat-
urday Review 9T,hiterature, X1 (April 27, 1935). .~

App, Austin J. ”Edwin Arlington Ropinson's Arthurian Poems.“
Thopght, X (December, 1935), 468.

Beatty, Frederika "Edwin Arlington Robinson as I thew Him.“
South Atlantic gyarteriy, XLIII (October, 1944). 375.

Benet, Wm. Rose ”E. A.” The Forum and Centhhy, XCIII (June,
1935). 381.

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee "Phoenix Nest.” The Saturda. ROVle' 2; Lit-
erature, XXVI (April 17, 194377'5£.'

................ "Round About Parnassuw." The Saturday Review
pgflhiterature, VII (August 30, 1930), 88.

Blanck, J. ”Edwin Arlington Robinson Collection Presented to
New York Public Library.” Publisher's Weekly, CLII
(November 22, 1947), 354.

Brown, David ”E. A. Robinson's Later Poems." New Ehgland
Quarterly, X (September, 1937), 487.

............. ”Some Rejected Poems of Edwin Arlington Ropinson.”
American hgterature, VII (January, 1935), 395.

Burns, Winifred "Edwin Arlington Robinson.in the Hands of the
Reviewers.” Poet Lore, XLVIII (Summer, 1942), 164.

Carpenter, Frederic I. "Tristral.the Transcendent.“ New
Ehgland Charterly, XI (September, 1938), 501.

Collamore, H. Bacon “Robinson and the War.” Colby Librahy
Quarterly, I (March, 1943), 30.

-120-

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Centur , XCIII (June, 1935), 343.

 

 

Crowder, Richard "E. A. Robinson's Craftsmanship: Opinions
of Contemporary Poets." Modern Language Notes, LXI
(February, 1946) l.

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee "The EmerSGNCé 0f Ee Ae Re" SOUth Atlantic
Quarterly, XLV (January, 1946), 89.

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee ”Here Are the Men: Ee Ae Rdbinson's M319
Character Types.” New Ehgland Charterly, XVIII
(September, 1945), 346. '

Dauner, Louise ”Avon and Cavender: Two Children of the Night."
American Literature, XIV (March, 1942), 55.

.............. ”The Pernicious Rib: E. A. Robinson's Concept
of the Feminine Character." American Literature, XV

(MEI. 1943). 139.

eeeeeeeeeeeeee ("Vox Clamant18:3E. Ac RObinson a8 a Crltlc of
American Democracy." New Ehgland Quarterly, XV (September,
1942), 401.

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Davidson, L. J. "Lazarus in Modern Literature.” Ehglish
Journal (College Edition),XVIII (June, 1929), 16.

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x1 (April, 1922), 467. '

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(November, 1932), 675.

Fletcher, J. G. ”Portrait of E. A. Robinson." North American
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Gregory, Horace and Zaturenska, Marya "The Vein of Comedy in
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Hall, J. H: "Reading and meditating E. A. Robinson's Poems.“
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Hammond, Josephine "The Man Against the Sky--Edwin Arlington
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Hudson, H. H. ”Robinson and Praed." Poetry, LXI (February,
1943), 612. -

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Ledoux, Louis V. "In Memorian: Edwin Arlington Robinson."
The Saturday Review 2; Literature, XI (April 13, l935),
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urday Review pT_hiterature, XII (October 19, 1935), 3.

MacKaye, Percy "E. A.--A Milestone for America." The North
American Review, CCXI (January, 1920), 121.

Mason, Daniel Gregory "Edwin Arlington Robinson: A Group
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Monroe, Harriet ”Edwin Arlington Robinson." Poethy, XXV
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eeeeeeee-eeeeeee "Mr. RObinaon'B JUblleee" Poetrz, XV
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eeeeeeeeeeeeeee ”Rebinson 8.8 Man and Poet." P06t!:!, XLVI
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urday Review pT_hiterature, III (May 21, 1927), 839.

Nolapoulos, James A. "Sophocles and Captain Craig." New
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Schmitt, Howard G. "A Letter on Changes in Text by E. A. 8.»;
2119. W 52112! 9.2 Literature. XVI (May 22, 1937), 19.

Scott Winfield T. "Robinson to Robinson.“ Poetr , LIV
(May. 1939). 92. ——‘Y'

ee-eeeeeeeeeeeeeee-e ”RObinBon in Focus.“ Poetrz, LXV ((Jan.
uary. 1945). 209.

Stovall; Floyd "The OptimisI.Behind Robinson‘s Tragedies.“
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Sutcliffe, W; Denham ”The Original of Robinson's Captain~
Craig.” New England Quarterly, XVI (September, 1943),407.

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Otto F. "Edwin Arlington Robinson." The Forum, LI
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Van Norman, C. Elta "Captain Craig.” College Ehglish, II
(February, 1941), 562.

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Ea! 113281229 QAIarterly. x111 (March, 1940), 65.

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Weber, Carl J. ”E. A. Robinson and Hardy.” The Nation, CXL
(May, 1935). 508- A.

Williams, Alice Meacham "Edwin Arlington Robinson, Journalist.
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Winters, Yvor "Religious and Social Ideas in the Didactive
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Zabel, Morton D. "Edwin Arlington RObinson." The Commonweal,
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.......e......... "Robinson in America.” Poetry, XLVI (June,
1935). 157.

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