Edwin A. Robinson Biography Quotes 7 Report mistakes

Overview
Edwin Arlington Robinson (December 22, 1869 - June 6, 1935) was an American poet whose austere, finely metered verse helped bridge 19th-century traditions and the psychological concerns of early 20th-century literature. Best known for character studies such as Richard Cory, Miniver Cheevy, Mr. Flood's Party, and Eros Turannos, he developed a fictional setting, Tilbury Town, modeled on his Maine upbringing, to examine isolation, failure, resilience, and the ambiguities of moral choice. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry three times, became an exemplar of disciplined craft in an era of experimentation, and influenced a generation of poets through his example of formal precision joined to modern insight.

Early Life and Family
Robinson was born in Head Tide, a village in Alna, Maine, and raised in nearby Gardiner, the riverside town that would become Tilbury Town in his poems. His father, Edward, was a businessman with civic standing, and his mother, Mary Elizabeth (Palmer) Robinson, fostered his early reading. He was the youngest of three brothers: Dean, the eldest, and Herman, whose troubled adulthood and early death shadowed the family. The family fortunes declined in the 1890s, and personal griefs accumulated, experiences that Robinson later transmuted into the sober empathy of his portraits. Emma Shepherd, a woman he long admired, married his brother Herman; the marriage and Herman's struggles affected Robinson deeply and entered the emotional register of his work. He never married and cultivated a quiet, reserved life centered on writing.

Education and Apprenticeship
After local schooling in Gardiner, Robinson attended Harvard University from 1891 to 1893 as a special student. He contributed poems to the Harvard Advocate and found encouragement especially from the charismatic teacher and critic Charles Townsend Copeland, who recognized his seriousness of purpose. Financial and family pressures forced Robinson to leave Harvard without a degree. He returned to Maine and then moved between Gardiner and Boston while he learned his craft, reading widely, honing his command of meter and rhyme, and drafting the psychological sketches that would become his signature.

First Books and Struggle
Robinson issued his first collection, The Torrent and the Night Before (1896), at his own expense, followed by The Children of the Night (1897). These books introduced Tilbury Town and poems like Richard Cory and Luke Havergal, but they brought little money. Captain Craig (1902), a long poem printed in a small edition, confirmed his ambition yet did not ease his poverty. He relocated to New York City, living frugally while pursuing publication, and depended on friends and sympathetic editors to keep writing.

Theodore Roosevelt and a Public Turn
Robinson's fortunes changed when President Theodore Roosevelt read the 1905 edition of The Children of the Night, praised it in print, and used his influence to secure Robinson a modest position at the New York Custom House. The salary, while small, stabilized Robinson's circumstances from 1905 to 1909 and allowed him to continue writing. Roosevelt's intervention remains one of the notable instances of presidential support for an American poet, and it created a bridge between Robinson's early obscurity and later recognition.

Mature Work and Recognition
With The Town Down the River (1910) and The Man Against the Sky (1916), Robinson refined the Tilbury Town mode into psychologically acute miniatures of longing, pride, self-deception, and endurance. Mr. Flood's Party, a study of memory and decline, became one of his most enduring pieces. He also undertook large-scale narratives: Merlin (1917) and Lancelot (1920) reimagined Arthurian materials, culminating in Tristram (1927), which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1928. His Collected Poems (published in 1921 and expanded later) earned the Pulitzer in 1922, and The Man Who Died Twice (1924), a short narrative in verse, won the prize in 1925. These honors, along with steady publication by major houses, moved him from precarious survival to national stature.

MacDowell Colony and Working Habits
Robinson often worked at the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire, whose founder, Marian MacDowell, fostered an environment of disciplined solitude that suited him. There, free from the demands of city life, he composed portions of his later narratives and refined his dramatic monologues. Colleagues at the colony respected his unassuming manner and rigorous routine: early rising, methodical drafting, and continual revision. The colony gave him a community without social pressure, balancing the reserve he cultivated elsewhere.

Style, Themes, and Method
Robinson maintained traditional forms during an era when many poets turned to free verse. He favored iambic meters, sonnets, and carefully rhymed stanzas, but his sensibility was modern, probing the motives and disappointments of ordinary lives. Tilbury Town supplied a stable stage for recurring concerns: the burdens of social expectation, the ache of unrealized aspiration, the irony beneath reputation, and the human need for dignity amid failure. In Richard Cory he set polished surface against private despair; in Miniver Cheevy he anatomized self-pity and the romance of a past that never was; in Eros Turannos he compressed a marriage into a stark, musical fatality. His compassionate detachment owed something to New England reticence and much to personal sorrows involving his brothers Dean and Herman and the fate of Emma Shepherd, experiences he transformed rather than narrated.

Later Years and Final Works
Robinson's reputation and sales improved in the 1920s, allowing him to devote himself fully to poetry. He continued to publish steadily, extending Tilbury Town and returning to long narratives. Tristram's success confirmed his mastery of sustained story in verse. In his final years he produced new work with undiminished technical care, including King Jasper (1935), a darkly meditative narrative that appeared shortly before his death. Robinson died in New York City on June 6, 1935. He was widely mourned as a craftsman of uncommon integrity who had kept faith with meter and rhyme while delving into the uncertainties of modern life.

Legacy
Robinson's influence has been lasting, particularly in the dramatic monologue and the psychologically charged lyric. Younger poets learned from his tonal control, his unobtrusive virtuosity, and his refusal to caricature even the most benighted of his characters. The constellation of people around him shaped that legacy: the early encouragement of Charles Townsend Copeland, the crucial public endorsement and employment arranged by Theodore Roosevelt, the supportive environment provided by Marian MacDowell, and the intimate family tragedies involving Herman, Dean, and Emma Shepherd that gave depth to his vision. Through Tilbury Town he created a world large enough to stand for American experience and precise enough to feel like lived life, ensuring his place among the most significant poets of his era.

Our collection contains 7 quotes who is written by Edwin, under the main topics: Wisdom - Truth - Love - Mortality - Loneliness.