Literary Analysis Of Edward Arlington Robson's Richard Cory

People in the world live their day to day lives with a mask, and how close that mask is to their true self is individual to each person. Some create a mirror of themselves and some create complete contrasts, hiding what lies underneath. Edward Arlington Richard in his poem Richard Cory uses word choice, mood, and imagery to show the differences between a man’s outward appearance and his deep underlying depression. A poet normally writes their poems with a purpose, each line framed, each word thought through. A poet’s word choice can set a reader up with an exact frame of mind. Robison does so with his ethereal language when describing Richard Cory. He starts by introducing Cory as a man who was, “Clean favored, and imperially slim” (4), in this case the use of the word imperially means to be of superior or unusual sizing. Paired with the word slim, imperially implies that Cory has

It isn’t just the words in the poem, but sometimes even how the words are arranged, and the way they sound when paired together. The way a poem sounds to a reader out-loud might not seem a clue to the inner workings of a poem but can unveil a secret meaning all together. The rhyme scheme in this poem is simplistic as well as telling. In Robinson’s Richard Cory there is an alternating pattern, while it isn’t ‘A B A B’ the entire way, it does have a sense of purposeful rhythm. There is however, one misstep in the rhyme scheme, a hiccup so to speak. The only lines that don’t rhyme are lines five and seven ending with, “Arrayed” and “Said”, these lines being early in the sixteen-line poem shows that there is an early setback in the character’s life. Another mark on the pristine appearance of Richard Cory. This alternate rhyme set up means that while everything looks and seems perfect and there is a fault, a fault so large that is shows through his outer shell. Something that will ultimately add to the accumulation of Cory’s