Name: _____________________________________________________
Period: _______ Date: _______________________
“Miniver Cheevy”
BY EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON
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 set 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 mediæval 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.
Name: _____________________________________________________
Period: _______ Date: _______________________
“Richard Cory”
BY EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON
Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.
And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
"Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked.
And he was rich—yes, richer than a king—
And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.
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 through his head.
Name: _____________________________________________________
Period: _______ Date: _______________________
Cheevy and Cory Discussion Question
Miniver Cheevy
Study Questions
1. For what does Cheevy sigh and mourn in the first five stanzas? What does Cheevy curse in the sixth
stanza?
2. What are Cheevy’s feelings about gold, according to the seventh stanza?
3. To what does Cheevy attribute his unhappiness in line 31? What does he keep on doing, according
to the last line of the poem?
Interpreting
4. What do lines 9-10 reveal about Cheevy’s character? Lines 17-18? Lines 25-26?
5. Basically, how does Cheevy see himself? How do we see him? What really causes his unhappiness?
Extending
6. Could Richard Cory and Miniver Cheevy be found only in a small Maine town at the turn of the
century? Explain your answer.
Richard Cory
Study Questions
1. Which line in the poem identifies the speaker?
2. Which lines tell you about the economic condition of the speaker?
3. What is Richard Cory “from sole to crown”?
4. What effect does he have when he says “Good morning”?
5. What, “in fine,” do the people thing of Richard Corey (stanza 3)?
6. What is the “surprise” ending?
Interpreting
7. How are the “we” of the poem different from Richard Cory?
8. What do “crown” (line 3) and imperially” (line 4) indicate about t the speaker’s impression of
Richard Cory?
9. What effect does Cory’s final action seem to have on everyone in Tilbury Town? What does Tilbury
Town’s reaction to Cory’s life and death suggest about human understanding?