The Burning Book by Edwin Arlington Robinson
“The Burning Book, or The Contented Metaphysician” portrays a man who has attained a vision so absolute that no human lore could alter it. Having spent much of his life seeking a way to reveal divine truth to others, he now burns the work he has written. The curling pages become ashes of his former glory, and what once seemed world-ending importance is reduced to the end of a story. He accepts that his words cannot guide others to the realm he has reached. With nothing left to teach or preserve, he finds joy in silence and awaits release beside the embers, attended by the peaceful sense of a finished dream.
By Edwin Arlington Robinson · First published 1897 · Genre: Lyric Poetry, Philosophical Poetry, Meditative Poetry · 252 words
First lines
OR THE CONTENTED METAPHYSICIAN
TO the lore of no manner of men
Would his vision have yielded
When he found what will never again
What this Textopian page supports
The Burning Book 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: Lyric Poetry, Philosophical Poetry, Meditative Poetry, Spiritual Poetry, Symbolist Poetry
- Length: 252 words
- Structure: 1 section, 26 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Standard (8th-9th Grade)
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- Work identity for The Burning Book by Edwin Arlington Robinson
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Genres
- Lyric Poetry — The work is a concise, musical first-person-adjacent meditation structured in rhymed stanzas, emphasizing inward emotion and reflection rather than narrative action.
- Philosophical Poetry — Its central figure is a metaphysician confronting the limits of knowledge, language, teaching, and human access to transcendent truth.
- Meditative Poetry — The poem dwells contemplatively on renunciation, silence, mortality, artistic exhaustion, and the peace found after abandoning a lifelong intellectual task.
- Spiritual Poetry — References to God's face, a nun's sacrifice, ineffable voices, release, and peace frame the speaker's experience in spiritual and quasi-mystical terms.
Tags
poetry · American literature · modernist poetry · early twentieth century · lyric poetry · psychological insight · melancholy · isolation · mortality · human nature · inner conflict · social alienation