"Richard Cory"

Between the two of the Edwin Arlington Robinson poems that we could choose to write this blog about, I would have to go with “Richard Cory.” I would pick “Richard Cory” over “Miniver Cheevy” because I personally think that “Richard Cory” shows more of a similarity and a better display of Robinson’s philosophies than “Miniver Cheevy” did.

“Richard Cory” is a short poem about a man named Richard Cory who is admired by all of the normal people in his town. He was “richer than a king” and every time he talked, he would “flutter pulses” of whomever he was addressing (Robinson 575). Even though everyone looked up to him and envied him, the end of the poem throws in a little twist; one night, Richard Cory goes home and kills himself by shooting himself in the head (Robinson 575). It is very easy to determine what the point to this poem is; money can not buy you happiness.

I think that this philosophy of “money can not buy you happiness” shows a similarity to the philosophy of Emerson and Thoreau. This shows a connection to the transcendentalist idea that material wealth and money is no way to true happiness and understanding. Nature is the only way to find truth and understanding of one’s self and the universe around them. Another little thing that stood out to me in the poem was the little phrase “And he was always human when he talked” (Robinson 575). The reason why this stood out to me was because it implies that the people did not think of him as a human, something more, a god of some sorts maybe. During the entirety of the description of Richard Cory, it never once mentioned anything about what he did nature wise, like how he hiked or anything like that. All it said was about how well he dressed, how formally educated he was, and how wealthy he was. That ended up meaning nothing to him.

Robinson, Edwin Arlington. "Richard Cory" Glencoe Literature. By Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Douglas Fisher, Beverly Ann. Chin, and Jacqueline Jones. Royster. New York: Glencoe/McGraw-Hill, 2009. 575. Print.