Miniver Cheevy

Personally, I liked this poem and didnt dread reading it.  It was kinda interesting and weird all in one.  Actually it was interesting because of how weird it was.  To me, it was about a man who was drunk at a bar telling a story of his life in the past.  He talked about being a soldier and how "he missed the medieval grace of iron clothing (Robinson)."  To me, this signified being a knight and wearing iron armor to protect himself as he saved the lives of many innocent people.  Although this poem was short and sweet, I was able to kind of visualize the scene and understand what was going on.  To the average person, this probably sounds like an old man sitting at a bar late at night all by himself when a young man walks in.  The man sits by the elderly one and starts small talk while getting a drink.  Eventually the two become friends and the old man tells him stories of his childhood. From here, I think this story could be interpreted multiple ways.  Either the young man eventually got up and left leaving the old man talking to himself, or the young man stayed there and listened to more stories the old man had to offer.  Either way, just as the poem says, "Miniver coughed, and called it fate and kept on drinking (Robinson)."

Emerson and Thoreau both wrote poems, but I'm not sure how they are directly related to this of Robinson.  Robinson's poem was really short and didn't really have a life lesson or deep meaning intertwined in it like Emerson and Thoreau normally do.  Normally I have to read Emerson and Thoreau's poems multiple times in order to understand the physical meaning of the poem let alone the lesson or idea implied in the writing.  I liked Robinson's poem though because it was so easy to read and I was able to understand it for the most part and interpret it how I thought it should be interpreted.

Cusatis, John. "'Miniver Cheevy'." In Anderson, George P., Judith S. Baughman, Matthew J. Bruccoli, and Carl Rollyson, eds.Encyclopedia of American Literature, Revised Edition: Into the Modern: 1896–1945, Volume 3. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2008. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. Web. 4 March 2012.

Robinson, Edwin. "Miniver Cheevy." Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 531-533. Print.