Edwin Arlington Robinson

I am going to be doing a reflection over Edwin Arlington Robinson's poem "Miniver Cheevy". The poem itself has a lot of repetition and pattern to it. The poem continuously says repeats "Miniver" then explains him. They explain all the things he loved or disliked in a creative, yet very effective way. The straight forward writing style makes this author very much like Thoreau because he also like to write about things as straight forward as Edwin. Though Edwin does like to use what I would call secretive ways of writing in the poem. For example Edwin writes, "(Robinson) Minever loved the Medici, ;Albeit he had never seen one; He would have sinned incessantly ;Could he have been one." which is insisting that two contradicting this giving the story a lot of range and variety. The poem consistently goes through talking about this one person which insists that the author may have known the person very well, or made him up. This is a lot like Emerson's writings because Emerson was well known for his characters and how realistic and personal all of them were. They all seemed to display different lives and personalities as real people do, making many wonder if some of his characters were really based on real people. A literary critic said, "Like many of Robinson's poems, "Miniver Cheevy" is a character sketch of an emotionally tormented man, but Robinson's use of satire coupled with a playful meter lends the poem its comic effect." (Cusatis) about Robinson's "Miniver Cheevy". This is going back to what I said before about the character and the way he might have gone about writing the character’s personality. The writing of a character can be very difficult for many authors but Emerson and Robinson share a common trait that which neither of them have any problems with doing just that, and doing it very successfully. In my opinion, if an author can make up or even mock a person into

Cusatis, John. "'Miniver Cheevy'." In Anderson, George P., Judith S. Baughman, Matthew J. Bruccoli, and Carl Rollyson, eds. Encyclopedia of American Literature, Revised Edition: Into the Modern: 1896–1945, Volume 3. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2008. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= EAmL1232&SingleRecord=True (accessed March 7, 2012).

Robinson, Edwin A. ""Miniver Cheevy" by E.A. Robinson." The Poem Tree: An Online Poetry Anthology. Web. 07 Mar. 2012. .