Edwin Arlington Robinson was a depressed and sorrowful poet of the late nineteenth and early twentieth. On December 22, 1869, he was born in Head Tide, Maine to Edward and Mary Elizabeth Palmer Robinson. Hyatt H. Waggoner, author of “E. A. Robinson” writes that Robinson hated the name Edwin Arlington, because it was randomly picked by a stranger and is showed the “accidental nature of man's fate” (228). He was raised in a wealthy household and a highly educated neighborhood that sparked his curiosity for literature. Dr. Alanson T. Schumann , Robinson’s childhood neighbor, cultivated Robinson’s poetic interests as a high school by having him do metric exercises His childhood was uneventful and had no notable trauma or hardships.
Although he lived a rather decent life as a child, his adulthood was anything but that. After multiple works had been turned down, Robinson started to spiralling into depression. When he became depressed, he started drinking which caused it to worsen. Robinson was even dangerously close to committing suicide, following the path of his older brothers. A response that a critic issued about some of Robinson’s poems, saddened him a put him into a period where he released very few works. In 1905, President Roosevelt gave him a job in the New York Customs House which boosted his confidence, so he began to write more consistently.
Robinson’s adulthood was troubled and he went through many trials that made his writing the
way it is. Robinson’s life was primarily troubled, but he also had some high points and successes.He was wealthy and pleasant during his childhood but that would change when adulthood arrived. When he became independent of his family, the struggles began. Throughout Robinson’s troubled life...
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Throughout Marilynne Robinson’s works, readers are often reminded of themes that defy the status quo of popular ideas at the time. She explores transience and loneliness, amongst other ideas as a way of expressing that being individual, and going against what is deemed normal in society is acceptable. Robinson utilizes traditional literary devices in order to highlight these concepts.
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Robinson was born the youngest of five children near Cairo, Georgia, on January 31, 1919. Robinson’s father, a sharecropper, left the family when Robinson was only about 2 years old. His mother, named Mallie McGriff Robinson, moved to Pasadena, California, to find work. (James 5) Trouble found Robinson at an early age, when he became a member of the Pasadena gang (7). At that school, he played several sports. He even lettered in: track, baseball, football, and basketball. His largest inspiration was most likely his older brother Matthew. He was a shortstop and catcher on the baseball team, a quarterback on the football team, a guard...
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