Richard Cory, Edwin Arlington Robinson - Charles R. Morris (essay date 1965)
Charles R. Morris (essay date 1965)
SOURCE: “Robinson's ‘Richard Cory,’” in Explicator, Vol. 23, No. 7, March, 1965, item 52.
[In the essay below, Morris argues that Robinson's choice of British-sounding words in “Richard Cory” evokes the class divide between Richard Cory and the townspeople who narrate the poem.]
Holding a different view on Edward Arlington Robinson's “Richard Cory” from that which marks Mr. Burkhart's comment (explicator, Nov., 1960, xix, 9), I am inspired to try again. Cory is made a king, it is true, but, judging from “pavement,” “sole to crown,” “clean favored,” “imperially slim,” “schooled,” and “in fine,” he is made an English king. For “pavement” we Americans would say “sidewalk”; for “from sole to crown” we would say “from head to foot.” Physically, this “gentleman”—a word used with special overtones in England—was “clean-favored”; Americans...
[The entire page is 383 words long]
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