“What looks simple is often the most difficult.”
(Conan Doyle)
Just to make us think about it!
“Richard Cory” is an apparently pretty simple short poem, written by Edwin Arlington Robinson and first published in 1897. In regard to the internal structure, we divided the poem into two main parts: lines 1-12 which illustrate the “deification” those people built, by feeding their own minds with an image that aroused admiration and envy, but that still reflects the facts that belonged only to the world of ideas of those people who saw him from a formal distance and for this reason didn’t know him. Nothing ensures that Richard Cory’s traces were such as those that had been believed by those people. Lines 13-16, although they could be subdivided into two distinct parts, choose to place them together for one simple reason – these last four lines are linked to reality. Those people, in fact, lived as if there was a shadow in their lives, something that prevented them from being happy and this was something that made the idealization of Richard Cory, and in fact, Richard Cory killed himself, ironically, on a night characterized by the author as “calm summer night” which translates to us as a pleasant feeling, hindering further those people’s understanding of the reason why Richard Cory had committed such an act. By the way, we saw the poem as a process of gradation, which reached a certain point. We can consider as a kind of apex “To make us wish That We Were in his place”, when those people clearly confess that really Richard Cory in his “perfection” bothered them so much, that they wanted to take his place – and after that, the poem falls into a deep abyss where all that poetic flourishing thrown over Richard Cory becomes a succession of negative events, which deviates from the narrative of positive events that the poem had been advancing until then. We can also highlight that the poem only seems simple on the surface; however a poem that leads us to reflection about so many kinds of subjects, in no manner may be considered ordinary, but a jewel waiting to be discovered by an attentive reader.
About “Richard Cory” – Edwin Arlington Robinson – this text was written by:
- Josiene Ferreira
- Eduardo
- Felipe
- Wesley
- Josivan
Literatura Inglesa 1 
It’s a good analysis for Richard Cory poem. For this, we can say that Richard Cory is not a type in the historical society of author. But yes, he’s an ideology, an ilusion or an ideal mankind. In some lines of RC poem, we can observe that’s a pure idealization of man and its qualities. Because, in its first lines, there’s a “deification” of the character, but, in its end one, there’s a sense of reality when the poem says: ” So on we worked and waited for the light, And went without the meat and cursed the bread, And Richard Cory, one calm summer night, Went home and put a bullet in his head”. Maybe, “The complexity of simplicity” would have some reason when it says: “Those people, in fact, lived as if there was a shadow in their lives, something that prevented them from being happy and this was something that made the idealization of Richard Cory, and in fact, Richard Cory killed himself, ironically, on a night characterized by the author as “calm summer night” which translates to us as a pleasant feeling, hindering further understanding those people’s understanding of the reason why Richard Cory had committed such an act.” Because, the Cory’s perfection is so enough. And, this is a kind of something that bothers anyone.
Yes, André! It’s exactly that! We may consider some starting points for analyzing “Richard Cory,” but I chose this for I think to find a parallel with Plato and his cave – that’s why I mentioned the world of ideas.
Thanks for the comment!
Josiene Ferreira.
This is a another interesting point of view about Richard Cory. Cogratulations for the group.