Alma Mater by Edwin Arlington Robinson
In “Alma Mater,” a speaker answers a knock and finds a battered, ancient-looking man at the door, seeming both strangely familiar and disturbingly obscure. The visitor can give no explanation beyond moans and a cry before staggering inside and collapsing to die. Left with the dead man, the speaker searches his memory and wonders whether the visitor came through love, warning, hunger, fear, or malediction, questioning what forgotten, degraded part of the past has returned in these “rags of memory.”
By Edwin Arlington Robinson · First published 1896 · Genre: Lyric Poetry, Narrative Poetry, Psychological Poetry · 152 words
First lines
HE knocked, and I beheld him at the door -
A vision for the gods to verify.
"What battered ancientry is this," thought I, / "And when, if ever, did we meet before?"
But ask him as I might, I got no more
What this Textopian page supports
Alma Mater is listed on Textopian as a poem by Edwin Arlington Robinson, dated 1896 CE.
This source record anchors work identity, reading entry points, and catalog context for checking claims about the work.
- Work type: Poem
- Author: Edwin Arlington Robinson
- Date: 1896 CE
- Language: English
- Genres: Lyric Poetry, Narrative Poetry, Psychological Poetry, Symbolist Poetry, Dark Poetry
- Length: 152 words
- Structure: 1 section, 11 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Easy (6th Grade)
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- Work identity for Alma Mater by Edwin Arlington Robinson
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Genres
- Lyric Poetry — The work is a compact, highly expressive poem centered on a speaker's immediate encounter with a mysterious, dying visitor and the emotional uncertainty it provokes.
- Narrative Poetry — It presents a brief but complete dramatic incident: a ragged, apparently familiar man arrives, cannot explain himself, collapses, and leaves the speaker questioning his identity and significance.
- Psychological Poetry — The poem concentrates on the speaker's disturbed consciousness, especially guilt, repressed recognition, dread, and the troubling return of fragmented memories.
- Symbolist Poetry — The visitor plausibly functions as a symbol rather than merely a literal character, representing abandoned memory, a disowned past, moral failure, or psychic decay.
Tags
poetry · American literature · lyric poetry · early twentieth century · melancholy · nostalgia · memory · education · school life · youth · adulthood · disillusionment