Sonnet by Edwin Arlington Robinson
The speaker laments a lifeless, unchanging age and longs for a true poet whose brilliance could restore the lost Muses and bring new light to Parnassus. He condemns “little sonnet-men” who mechanically produce short-lived, soulless songs. Though people, nature, seasons, and sunsets remain as they have always been, he asks why the age is barren and wonders whether a great figure will arise, seize a banner from the western sky, and make an immortal name.
By Edwin Arlington Robinson · First published 1897 · Genre: Sonnet, Lyric Poetry, Literary Criticism · 145 words
First lines
OH for a poet - for a beacon bright
To rift this changless glimmer of dead gray; / To spirit back the Muses, long astray, / And flush Parnassus with a newer light; / To put these little sonnet-men to flight
Who fashion, in a shrewd mechanic way, / Songs without souls, that flicker for a day, / To vanish in irrevocable night.
What does it mean, this barren age of ours?
What this Textopian page supports
Sonnet is listed on Textopian as a poem by Edwin Arlington Robinson, dated 1897 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: 1897 CE
- Language: English
- Genres: Sonnet, Lyric Poetry, Literary Criticism, Ars Poetica, Modernist-Adjacent Poetry
- Length: 145 words
- Structure: 1 section, 8 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Fairly Easy (7th Grade)
Good citation fit
- Work identity for Sonnet by Edwin Arlington Robinson
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Genres
- Sonnet — The work is explicitly titled "Sonnet" and uses a fourteen-line, tightly structured poetic form with an octave and sestet-like rhetorical development.
- Lyric Poetry — It presents an intense personal voice expressing frustration, longing, and aspiration for a great poet capable of renewing art and culture.
- Literary Criticism — The speaker condemns contemporary "sonnet-men" who produce technically competent but spiritually empty poetry, directly evaluating poetic practice and artistic standards.
- Ars Poetica — The poem concerns the nature, purpose, and necessary vitality of poetry, calling for a poet whose work possesses enduring imaginative and cultural force.
Tags
poetry · sonnet · American literature · modernism · lyric poetry · introspection · melancholy · isolation · mortality · human nature · psychological insight · formal verse