"Richard Cory" is a narrative poem written by

Edwin Arlington Robinson Edwin Arlington Robinson (December 22, 1869 – April 6, 1935) was an American poet and playwright. Robinson won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry on three occasions and was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature four times. Early life Robins ...

. It was first published in 1897, as part of ''The Children of the Night'', having been completed in July of that year; and it remains one of Robinson's most popular and anthologized poems. The poem describes a person who is wealthy, well educated, mannerly, and admired by the people in his town. Despite all this, he takes his own life. The song " Richard Cory", written by

Paul Simon Paul Frederic Simon (born October 13, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter known for his solo work and his collaborations with Art Garfunkel. He and Garfunkel, whom he met in elementary school in 1953, came to prominence in the 1960s as Sim ...

and recorded by

Simon & Garfunkel Simon & Garfunkel were an American folk rock duo comprising the singer-songwriter Paul Simon and the singer Art Garfunkel. They were one of the best-selling music acts of the 1960s. Their most famous recordings include three US number-one sing ...

for their second studio album, '' Sounds of Silence'', was based on this poem.

Context

The composition of the poem occurred while the United States economy was still suffering from the severe depression of the Panic of 1893, during which people often subsisted on day-old bread, alluded to in the poem's focus on

poverty Poverty is a state or condition in which an individual lacks the financial resources and essentials for a basic standard of living. Poverty can have diverse Biophysical environmen ...

and

wealth Wealth is the abundance of valuable financial assets or physical possessions which can be converted into a form that can be used for transactions. This includes the core meaning as held in the originating Old English word , which is from an ...

, and foodstuffs.William J. Scheick.
Richard Cory
" Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition. Salem Press, 2007. eNotes.com. 2006. May 18, 2011 Robinson wrote "Richard Cory" around the same time as " Reuben Bright". David Perkins, in his ''A History of Modern Poetry'' (first published 1976), called some of those early poems including "Reuben Bright" and "Richard Cory" "revolutionary", with narrative elements of prose fiction brought into a lyric poetry written about realistic subject matter in vernacular language.

Adaptations

As music

The American composer Charles Naginski wrote the music to "Richard Cory", published 1940, included in Thomas Hampson's Album "I hear America singing" from 2001. The poem was adapted by the folk duo

for their song "Richard Cory". The Simon & Garfunkel version of the song's ending differs from the poem in that the speaker still wishes he "could be Richard Cory", even after Cory has killed himself. Them (with

Van Morrison Sir George Ivan "Van" Morrison (born 31 August 1945) is a Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician whose recording career started in the 1960s. Morrison's albums have performed well in the UK and Ireland, with more than 40 reaching the UK ...

) released their version of Simon's song as a single in 1966, which failed to make the charts. American Utah-based Folk band The 3 D’s included a musical interpretation of the poem as the 8th track on their 1964 album “New Dimensions in Folk Songs”, a collection of poems set to original music.

Paul McCartney and Wings Paul McCartney and Wings, often billed simply as Wings, was a British-American Rock music, rock band formed in 1971 in London by former The Beatles, Beatle Paul McCartney; his wife Linda McCartney on keyboards; session drummer Denny Seiwell; a ...

performed the Simon & Garfunkel adaptation on their album '' Wings over America''. The punk band The Menzingers wrote a song titled "Richard Corry" which was inspired by the poem. The difference in spelling from Cory to Corry is because the band has a personal friend whose last name is Corry. The American composer John Woods Duke wrote ''Three Poems by Edwin Arlington Robinson'', which includes the full text of the poem "Richard Cory". Martini Ranch recorded a song based on the poem on their album ''Holy Cow''. Melbourne band Tiny Little Houses released a song titled "Richard Cory" based on the poem, in October 2020.

Other

A. R. Gurney wrote a play based on the poem, also titled ''Richard Cory''. The play, which is presented with a nonlinear timeline, suggests the reasons Cory killed himself, including family problems and changing views on humanity. American humorist Garrison Keillor wrote a variation of the poem for the Introduction to his ''The Book of Guys'' (1993), which suggested that Cory's wife was the reason he killed himself. The character Ben Nicholson, played by Paul Lambert misquotes the poem in the episode "The Case of the Envious Editor" of the CBS television series '' Perry Mason'' (1957–66) starring Raymond Burr. Author George Flynn also directly references the original poem (and Simon and Garfunkel version) prominently in his novel ''Richard Cory Revisited'' as a thematic device.

References

External links

Edwin Arlington Robinson
critiques of the poem and other works by the author *Variations on the Richard Cory story b
A. R. Gurney, and Ed Dixon
* {{Authority control 1897 poems American poems Characters in poems Works about suicide Works by Edwin Arlington Robinson