An Evangelist's Wife by Edwin Arlington Robinson
The Evangelist’s Wife answers her husband’s questions about her altered manner with bitterness and irony. He suspects jealousy of another woman, but she rejects the idea that the woman’s appearance matters; her grievance is that he will not spare even an hour to think about what his devotion costs her. She denies that he is cruel in any ordinary sense, suggesting that recognizable cruelty might at least be easier to understand. Instead, he fails to perceive her suffering and asks whether she is jealous of God. She accepts the accusation sarcastically, invoking Michal, who in David’s time “had to go,” to imply that a wife may be displaced by her husband’s religious or sacred allegiance.
By Edwin Arlington Robinson · First published 1921 · Genre: Dramatic Monologue, Lyric Poetry, Sonnet · 160 words
First lines
"WHY am I not myself these many days, / You ask? And have you nothing more to ask?
I do you wrong? I do not hear your praise
To God for giving you me to share your task?
"Jealous - of Her? Because her cheeks are pink,
What this Textopian page supports
An Evangelist's Wife is listed on Textopian as a poem by Edwin Arlington Robinson, dated 1921 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: 1921 CE
- Language: English
- Genres: Dramatic Monologue, Lyric Poetry, Sonnet, Psychological Poetry, Religious Poetry
- Length: 160 words
- Structure: 1 section, 12 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Very Easy (5th Grade or below)
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- Work identity for An Evangelist's Wife by Edwin Arlington Robinson
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Genres
- Dramatic Monologue — The poem presents a single speaker, the evangelist's wife, addressing an implied listener and revealing her resentment, emotional isolation, and criticism of her husband's religious priorities.
- Lyric Poetry — Its compressed first-person expression of private feeling, jealousy, pain, and irony is characteristic of lyric poetry.
- Sonnet — The work has fourteen lines and employs a tightly structured, rhetorically developing poetic form associated with the sonnet.
- Psychological Poetry — The speaker's fragmented questions, denials, and bitter revisions expose a conflicted inner state shaped by neglect and spiritual rivalry.
Tags
poetry · narrative poem · dramatic monologue · American literature · early twentieth century · psychological portrait · religion · evangelism · marriage · domestic life · faith · doubt