Edwin Arlington Robinson

Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869-1935), American poet, best known for his poems set in Tilbury Town, an imaginary New England village modeled after Gardiner, Maine, his childhood home. Born in Head Tide, Maine, Robinson was educated at Harvard University. His first volumes of poetry, The Torrent and the Night Before (1896) and The Children of the Night (1897), contain psychological portraits of the townspeople of Tilbury, whose inner depths of character are presented with acute understanding and irony. In 1899 Robinson moved to New York City, where his volume Captain Craig and Other Poems (1902) attracted little interest. In 1905, however, this work was favorably reviewed by President Theodore Roosevelt, and thereafter Robinson's poetry received more attention.

Robinson's book Town Down the River (1910) contains additional character portraits, notably that of Miniver Cheevy, a romantic in love with the past who consoles himself through drunkenness. Robinson achieved his first major success with The Man Against the Sky (1916), which was concerned with the limited nature of humanity. He also composed a trilogy of narrative poems—Merlin (1917), Lancelot (1920), and Tristram (1927; Pulitzer Prize, 1928)—based on Arthurian legend. His other works include Collected Poems (1921; Pulitzer Prize, 1922), Roman Bartholow (1923), The Man Who Died Twice (1924; Pulitzer Prize, 1925), and Matthias at the Door (1931). For the last 25 years of his life Robinson spent his summers at the MacDowell Colony of artists and musicians in Peterborough, New Hampshire.