Collected Poems of Edwin Arlington Robinson

"In The Man Against The Sky, Edwin Arlington Robinson presents us with a gallery of characters drawn from the streets, homes and gathering places of Tilbury Town, his fictional Northeastern dwelling place. A mysterious compelling stranger, a woman living on charity, a welcoming home - this and other portraits give us a compelling and perceptive view of the range of human character and feeling. As if to widen the horizons of Tilbury Town, he also imagines people from distant times and places. We hear Ben Jonson speculating about Shakespeare; we see Galahad at the moment of taking his seat at the Round Table, and Cassandra in her old age. At the end of the book, he sums them all up in the brilliant and troubling poem that gives the title to the book, a portrait of a man seen against a fiery sky, a lonely man, unknown, yet representative of all humanity and of the human struggle to achieve - or, at the very least, continue the struggle. "There can be no doubt of the high position he holds in American poetry when we examine 'The Man Against the Sky,' published in 1916. It would seem as though his previous books were merely working up to this achievement, so far beyond them is this volume. A little book of one hundred and forty-nine pages, and yet, in reading it, one experiences a sensation akin to that of the man who opens a jar of compressed air. It is a profound wonder that so much can have been forced into so small a space. For 'The Man Against The Sky' is dynamic with experience and knowledge of life." -- Amy Lowell, in Tendencies in Modern American Poetry, 1917, p. 51. A Freshwater Seas production."

In “Merlin,” Edwin Arlington Robinson delves into the minds and hearts of a gallery of characters from the story Camelot: Gawaine, Bedivere, Lamorak; Arthur himself; his fool, Sir Dagonet, and most importantly, Merlin himself and the woman he loves, Vivian. He places the action at the moment when Guinevere and Lancelot have fled to Joyeux Gard, and Arthur, goaded on by Modred and Gawaine, is reluctantly preparing an army to make war on them. It is at this time that he needs the advice and support of his old mentor, Merlin, more than ever before in his reign and his life, but it is at just this crucial time that Merlin has found that the love of Vivian is more important to him than kings, wars, knights, or Camelot itself. Age has finally caught up to Merlin, and he knows he cannot give what Arthur needs to save and restore Camelot. Robinson's focus throughout is on character. He does not give us jousts and quests. Rather, he gives us the quiet thoughts and conversations that turn the kingdom toward the final war, as each character tries to balance old loyalties, old dreams, old hopes and fears against new realities and new imperatives. Against that background, the sadness that is Merlin plays against the quick playfulness and hope of Vivian, leaving us with a new and remarkably touching view of the last days of Camelot. A Freshwater Seas production.