Full Of Contradictions In Life And Writing

The thesis is designed to take a fundamental research into the American poet,Edwin Arlington Robinson, who lived about a century ago but has not got adequateattention by Chinese scholars. We could find no collection of his poems in Chineseversion and the number of special papers about him is rather limited. Thus, the thesis,by giving a detailed analysis of the poet and his works from various angles, mightwell help improve the research in the field.The thesis begins with an introductory section where relevant studies so far havebeen reviewed only to show the poet is very controversial among the criticizers andobtains too little care in China. Hence, there is necessity of the thesis's efforts toexplore more about E. A. Robinson.The second chapter talks of the main points about Robinson's life story, by whichwe could get some necessary information about the poet. For example, we could seethe poet was pretty talented in poetry;and what is more, we could sense the poet'srespectability in persisting in the poetry-writing career while his time wascharacteristic of money-worship or materialism.The third chapter dwells upon a seeming contradiction between the old form andthe new content and the fresh diction as well. Although Robinson has been labeled asconservative by many critics, it is he who initially put the modern Americancolloquial into poetry and laid emphasis on the characters' mental analysis. So, theconcise diction in contrast with indirect express and the care of the present in contrastwith the use of the past have constituted his distinctive features.The fourth chapter analyzes his tone, clarifying some misunderstandings. Forexample, the darkness revealed in his poems just represents how he saw the world, butnot that he was pessimistic. Instead, it would take more courage to admit darkness oflife and write it into poems. Furthermore, Robinson braved through all kinds ofpressure and distraction in actual life so as to be absorbed into poetry-writing, whichhappen to shed light on his boldness and activeness in his attitude toward life.The next chapter selects some of his major images, such as "night", "light", and"child" to explore their respective deep-hidden meanings. It could be seen throughthis analysis that Robinson has a strong consciousness of "regaining paradise", thatis,"the child in the night" symbolizes the puzzled people in the world who try to seekthe "light", which symbolizes the bliss. So it can also be inferred that Robinson'swriting is of considerable instructive purpose.The last chapter concludes the thesis with a summary of the above chapters and afurther explanation of his remarkable persistency in his poetry career and hisdistinguished characteristics of his works, by which the Robinson's long-lasting valuegets testified.