Jessica Zelenak raises a good question in her blog about Edward Arlington Robinson. Why does he end his poems so quickly and not give the reader very much detail? Does he like to keep things short and sweet, or does he just want to make the reader figure things for themselves and use their imagination?
"Mr. Flood's Party" is a very deep and depressing poem about what appears to be an older gentleman who is an alcoholic. Because of Robinson's lack of detail this is only a guess. If you think about it, Robinson was smart to make his poems debatable because the more different interpretations there are, the more discussion there is about the poem, and the more Robinson's poetry is discussed and spread around. This poem displays a man whose only relationship is with himself and a jug of alcohol. After reading the poem I felt that it was about a man who was outcasted by his friends and kicked from his town for doing a wrong deed. He looks down at the town he used to belong to "where friends of other days had honored him." He has turned towards his only friend, the alcohol, in his times of loneliness, but he realizes it has ruined his life as "he [raises] again the jug regretfully." He is quietly calling for help "like Roland's ghost winding a silent horn" because he knows he might drink himself to death.
"Thomas Hood" is another very short to the point story. After learning that the character in this story has many "eternal tragedies" like Robinson himself, maybe he made the poem so short because it is about him and he does not want to disclose too much about himself. Hood seems good at hiding "his bitterness within" with a cloak "of puns and pleasantries." No one would think anything out of the ordinary when this man passes by and no one notices his pain. He is leading a double life which only makes him unhappier because he is hiding from the truth.
The last poem of Robinson's that I am going to discuss is "Aaron Stark." I pictured Aaron to be a snarled, haggard, deformed man that wanders the town, bigger children make up stories about him to scare the little children. Robinson only describes the man's physical features and does not tell what kind of person he is on the inside. Why do you think this is? I think he is criticizing the way people judge others not by what kid of person they are but what they look like. The part of the poem that really struck me was the way Aaron laughs at the end. As I thought about an explanation for this, two popped into my head. 1) Aaron knows how artificial these people are and hates how he can get pity from the townspeople but he still remains a "loveless exile moving with a staff." He thinks it is ironic that they can pity him but still not offer him help or love. 2) Second, he loves scaring people and making them pity him. Does he really enjoy making the townspeople scared of him because that is the only reaction he can get because he is so hideous and any reaction is better than no reaction? Since Robinson is so vague I think you can interpret his poetry any way you want and I think that is the way he wanted it. SO is Robinson no wordy enough? No, i think he is just wordy enough!
Posted by TrishaWehrle at November 27, 2004 6:37 PMTrisha,
After thinking about it, and reading your blog I agree, Robinson IS wordy enough, but in a different way. Robinson is wordy in the way that he leaves his readers discussing the possiblities of his poems. Instead of using a bunch of words in his poems to create an ending, or to be descriptive he lets the reader add the words and create their own descriptions. In that way, Robinson's poems are really creative.
p.s. Thanks for commenting and expanding off my blog!!! :)
Posted by: Jessica Zelenak at November 29, 2004 8:35 AMThanks Jess. Its nice to see we can comment on each others because it seems like no one else wants to comment. LOL I think everyone is too busy tryin to finish up thier own blogs. CRAZINESS
Trisha
Posted by: trisha at November 30, 2004 10:52 AMTrisha, I must disagree with this interpretaion of EAR's Mr. Flood. I think that the central theme of the poem is not alcoholism, but instead the introspection which we all face as we grow old, and the world changes around us. The fact that Mr. Flood drinks, I think, serves to help EAR create the image of Roland, a character who died full of regret as he had acted to late. So Mr. Flood feels. He has waited until late in his life, banished to a hermitage, alone and friendless. Instead of speaking to the alcohol, Mr. Flood speaks to a specter of himself, conjured in his own mind, and we might imagine him moving to stand in different positions as he speaks in the alternate form. Let's think of Mr. Flood, not as an alcoholic, but instead as a lonely old man, who, as a product of his times, has a drink to toast his own misery, but who is firstly a regretful hermit.
Weston,
Thanks for the comment. I am just astounded that I posted this blog 3 years ago in a class, and people are still reading it and responding. That is exactly why his poetry is so great. People will continue to ponder and talk about it forever. He was a genius!
Posted by: Trisha Wehrle at June 12, 2007 12:42 AM