![]() ![]() Usually Robinson is not only economic but actually close- fisted with his clipped phrases sometimes in his desire to get rid of excess verbiage, he throws away everything but the meaning-and keeps that to himself. It is not because Robinson is fond of words that he indulges in such roundabout rhetoric it is the occasional mistake of an essentially direct mind in an effort to avoid baldness. He speaks of a hypodermic needle as “a slight kind of engine” billiard balls are referred to, in a sort of indirect irony, as “three spheres of insidious ivory.”. It is a simplicity that is sometimes deceptive and often circumlocutory. Robinson's idiom, though a simple one to read, is not always an easy one to understand. His precise and almost astringent tone is in itself a curious study. They flow, like his lines, as smoothly and pointedly as a sharp conversation. His rhymes are brought in with a masterly ease, showing what rhyme, at its best, should be: a natural, musical punctuation. Unperturbed by the battles over new forms and metrical innovations, he has gone on, like every first-rate artist, making old forms distinctive and definitely his own. When most of the preceding generation were poeticizing in ornate and artificial numbers, Robinson was the first to express himself in that hard and clear utterance which became part of our present manner and, later on, was adopted as one of the chief articles in the creed of the Imagists. His shrewd appraisals, his constant questioning instead of placid acceptance, his reticence that screens a vigorous analysis-these qualities reveal the spirit of the early Puritan operating with the technic of the modern psychologist. Lacking a fundamental buoyancy, Robinson has other qualities which may be less national but are no less local. His ironic studies of character are as incisive as (and far sympathetic than) those of Masters' his New England backgrounds are as faithful as those of Frost's. But, beneath a superficial indebtedness, no living writer has achieved a more personal idiom or a more melodious speech-or a more indigenous one. He uses, with surprisingly few variations, the traditional English forms there are lines when he seems to be speaking with the accents of Robert Browning in the rhythms of W. At first glance, Robinson seems one of the least American of our poets. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |