[234] Miniver Cheevy

Miniver Cheevy, child of scorn,
   Grew lean while he assailed the seasons
He wept that he was ever born,
   And he had reasons.

Miniver loved the days of old
   When swords were bright and steeds were prancing;
The vision of a warrior bold
   Would send him dancing.

Miniver sighed for what was not,
   And dreamed, and rested from his labors;
He dreamed of Thebes and Camelot,
   And Priam's neighbors.

Miniver mourned the ripe renown
   That made so many a name so fragrant;
He mourned Romance, now on the town,
   And Art, a vagrant.

Miniver loved the Medici,
   Albeit he had never seen one;
He would have sinned incessantly
   Could he have been one.

Miniver cursed the commonplace
   And eyed a khaki suit with loathing:
He missed the medieval grace
   Of iron clothing.

Miniver scorned the gold he sought,
   But sore annoyed was he without it;
Miniver thought, and thought, and thought,
   And thought about it.

Miniver Cheevy, born too late,
   Scratched his head and kept on thinking;
Miniver coughed, and called it fate,
   And kept on drinking.

    -- Edwin Arlington Robinson

  "During these years Robinson perfected the poetic form for which he became
  so well known: a structure based firmly on stanzas, skillful rhyming
  patterns, and a precise and natural diction, combined with a dramatic
  examination of the human condition." -- EB

That pretty much sums up the reasons I enjoy his work, and today's poem is
an excellent example; a skilful portrait of a man born after his time, or at
least, a man who thinks so. It is also, on a larger level, a criticism of
an increasingly widespread syndrome - the tendency to idealise and
romanticise the past, not for its own merits but simply from a desire to
escape the present. Miniver Cheevy does not sound like the kind of person
who'd have lasted long in any of his beloved days of old.

m.

Biography and Assessment:

  Robinson, Edwin Arlington

  b. Dec. 22, 1869, Head Tide, Maine, U.S.
  d. April 6, 1935, New York, N.Y. American poet who is best known for
  his short dramatic poems concerning the people in a small New England
  village, Tilbury Town, very much like the Gardiner, Maine, in which he
  grew up.

  After his family suffered financial reverses, Robinson cut short his
  attendance at Harvard University (1891-93) and returned to Gardiner to
  stay with his family, whose fortunes were disintegrating. The lives of
  both his brothers ended in failure and early death, and Robinson's
  poetry is much concerned with personal defeat and the tragic
  complexities of life. Robinson himself endured years of poverty and
  obscurity before his poetry began to attract notice.

  His first book, The Torrent and the Night Before, was privately
  printed at his own expense. His subsequent collections, The Children
  of the Night (1897) and The Town Down the River (1910), fared little
  better, but the publication of The Man Against the Sky (1916) brought
  him critical acclaim. In these early works his best poetic form was
  the dramatic lyric, as exemplified in the title poem of The Man
  Against the Sky, which affirms life's meaning despite its profoundly
  dark side. During these years Robinson perfected the poetic form for
  which he became so well known: a structure based firmly on stanzas,
  skillful rhyming patterns, and a precise and natural diction, combined
  with a dramatic examination of the human condition. Among the best
  poems of this period are "Richard Cory," "Miniver Cheevy," "For a Dead
  Lady," "Flammonde," and "Eros Turannos." Robinson broke with the
  tradition of late Romanticism and introduced the preoccupations and
  plain style of naturalism into American poetry. His work attracted the
  attention of President Theodore Roosevelt, who gave him a sinecure at
  the U.S. Customs House in New York (held from 1905 to 1909).

  In the second phase of his career, Robinson wrote longer narrative poems
  that share the concern of his dramatic lyrics with psychological
  portraiture. Merlin (1917), the first of three long blank-verse narrative
  poems based on the King Arthur legends, was followed by Lancelot (1920)
  and Tristram (1927). Robinson's Collected Poems appeared in 1921. The Man
  Who Died Twice (1924) and Amaranth (1934) are perhaps the most often
  acclaimed of his later narrative poems, though in general these works
  suffer in comparison to the early dramatic lyrics. Robinson's later short
  poems include "Mr. Flood's Party," "Many Are Called," and "The Sheaves."

		-- EB

From: rben6 <rben6@>

I'd really like to know more of what is behind this poem, what he really
means by all the words that he's saying.I think if anyone knows, or
thinks they have a good understaning or it, then they should write and
tell us all.
-HB

From: "Ben Moss" <morbid_curiosity@>

http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/m_r/robinson/miniver.htm has a
great analysis of this poem. Robinson was such a fantastic poet.

From: StarRocker4Life@

Hi I attend Sussex Tech High and my English Teacher taught us this poem and 
we had to make a "mini" story to go along with it. I some what understand 
this but, all poems have more then 1 explanation!



~Lindsey~

From: "Michelle Holling" <sweetie_99_@>

I have to disagree with the statement all poems have more than one explanation, they might convey different meanings for whom ever is reading it but the author/poet had one vision and one intent on what the poem should
mean.Get more from the Web.  FREE MSN Explorer download : http://explorer.msn.com

From: Ed Carroll <ECarroll@>

While the poem on the surface is about a man stuck dreaming of the past
instead of his own present, the greater power of the poem is underneath and
revealed in the final line.  Miniver was drinking, which says much more
about his choices in his own life than his dreams of the past do.  My
father, who drank heavily for most of his life, often quoted this poem for
he knew the feeling of quietly wasting your life away by drinking alone.  

From: Hess Loren <Loren.Hess@>

I find Robinson's choice of a name for this character interesting:  Miniver
Cheevy.  Minimum Achiever.

A dreamer, not a doer; Minimer was one caught up in life of "quiet
desperation."

He escaped the angst of his reality by dreaming of the past; and he coped
with his reality by drinking.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Loren Hess
Director of Employee Relations
METT Therapy Services, Inc.
708-756-1000 ext. 5690


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From: Francis Dyer <francisdyer@>

Francis E.

From: Harry Hoffner <harryhoffner@>

"Miniver Cheevy, child of scorn,
Cursed the day that he was born"

I guess tht must have  been an unauthorised version!