E. A. Robinson
The Poetry Foundation features this on a page that refers to "perfect" poems. How is that so? It strikes me as mechanical and static. I'm likely wrong but would like to know why!
The House on the Hill They are all gone away, The House is shut and still, There is nothing more to say. Through broken walls and gray The winds blow bleak and shrill: They are all gone away. Nor is there one to-day To speak them good or ill: There is nothing more to say. Why is it then we stray Around the sunken sill? They are all gone away, And our poor fancy-play For them is wasted skill: There is nothing more to say. There is ruin and decay In the House on the Hill: They are all gone away, There is nothing more to say. |
I agree. If there is nothing more to say - which does rather seem to be the case - then why does he go on so? And "Through broken walls and gray" is hardly perfect modern English syntax.
It's no villanelle, but this I think does that theme far better and with some actual bite: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poe.../the-listeners Cheers, John |
John,
"The Listeners" is a vast improvement on the theme, I agree. According to the bible of forms by Lewis Turco, The Book of Forms, "The House on the Hill" is the best representative of a Villanelle. I assume that since he provides no other example. So, is it truly a Villanelle? A perfect Villanelle? He does quote member Sam Gwynn's "mock villanelle," a take on Thomas's "Do Not Go Gentle." |
Ralph,
Props to Sam! I think "The Listeners" opens very strong and kind of tails off, but still, it sure beats "The House on the Hill." For a similar poem from a similar age, I think Kipling beats either in terms of pure craft: https://poets.org/poem/way-through-woods This was the sort of thing the Edwardians valued, and I can't at once think of one doing it better. But we're a long way from the villanelle. Cheers, John |
I had a professor for the general intro to American lit class who had done his dissertation on Robinson. I remember thinking he was never going to move on. Didn’t Simon and Garfunkel do a version of “Richard Cory.” Apparently, Teddy Roosevelt liked his poems and gave him a govt. job if I remember correctly. Tedious stuff.
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I adore him.
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I for my part am quite partial to Edgar Lee Masters:
Hod Putt HERE I lie close to the grave Of Old Bill Piersol, Who grew rich trading with the indians, and who Afterwards took the bankrupt law And emergeed from it richer than ever. Myself grown tired of toil and poverty And beholding how Old Bill and others grew in wealth, Robbed a traveler one night near Proctor's Grove, Killing him unwittingly while doing so, For the which I was tried and hanged. That was my way of going into bankruptcy. Now we who took the bankrupt law in our respective ways Sleep peacefully side by side. |
I should add that I do like Robinson and after reading some of his portraits, wrote my first poem on Thoreau, a sonnet. Of course, I can also make a case for the brilliantly expressed existential angst in "The House on the Hill" and amply amplified in his work. Things that are said while waiting for Godot. Inquiring minds love a house symbol. Poe's for one. Thoreau's for another. Frost has a hand in.
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My sister was certainly fond of the poem "Richard Cory" in her teen years.
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The repetition of nothing more to say is absolutely brilliant, imo. I should read more of him.
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