The Rat by Edwin Arlington Robinson
The poem reflects on a man whom others pitied, scorned, and condemned as mean, useless, and unclean, comparing him unfavorably to a rat. After he has gone alone to a final hiding place among those who will not return, the speakers recognize the falseness of their own moral superiority and resolve to speak less contemptuously of rats and more honestly of men.
By Edwin Arlington Robinson · First published 1910 · Genre: Lyric Poetry, Sonnet, Narrative Poetry · 123 words
First lines
AS often as he let himself be seen
We pitied him, or scorned him, or deplored
The inscrutable profusion of the Lord
Who shaped as one of us a thing so mean -
What this Textopian page supports
The Rat is listed on Textopian as a poem by Edwin Arlington Robinson, dated 1910 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: 1910 CE
- Language: English
- Genres: Lyric Poetry, Sonnet, Narrative Poetry, Psychological Poetry, Social Critique
- Length: 123 words
- Structure: 1 section, 13 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Standard (8th-9th Grade)
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- Work identity for The Rat by Edwin Arlington Robinson
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Genres
- Lyric Poetry — A concise, highly compressed poem that expresses a reflective and morally charged response to an unnamed man's life and death.
- Sonnet — The work consists of fourteen lines and follows the structural and rhetorical conventions of a sonnet, including a turn from condemnation to self-implication.
- Narrative Poetry — Though brief, the poem implies a narrative: a socially despised man has died, prompting the speakers to reconsider their judgment of him.
- Psychological Poetry — It examines collective disgust, pity, scorn, guilt, and the human tendency to project moral failure onto another person.
Tags
American poetry · early twentieth century · narrative verse · character study · psychological portrait · social realism · small-town life · alienation · loneliness · disillusionment · human failure · mortality