"Richard Cory" is a narrative poem written by Edwin Arlington Robinson. It was first published in 1897, as part of The Children of the Night, having been completed in July of that year; and it remains one of Robinson's most popular and anthologized poems. The poem describes a person who is wealthy, well educated, mannerly, and admired by the people in his town. Despite all this, he takes his own life. The song "Richard Cory", written by Paul Simon and recorded by Simon & Garfunkel for their second studio album, Sounds of Silence, was based on this poem.
Context
The composition of the poem occurred while the United States economy was still suffering from the severe depression of the Panic of 1893, during which people often subsisted on day-old bread, alluded to in the poem's focus on poverty and wealth, and foodstuffs. Robinson wrote "Richard Cory" around the same time as "Reuben Bright". David Perkins, in his A History of Modern Poetry, called some of those early poems including "Reuben Bright" and "Richard Cory" "revolutionary", with narrative elements of prose fiction brought into a lyric poetry written about realistic subject matter in vernacular language.
Adaptations
As music
The poem was adapted by the folk duo Simon & Garfunkel for their song "Richard Cory". The Simon & Garfunkel version of the song's ending differs from the poem in that the speaker still wishes he "could be Richard Cory", even after Cory has killed himself. Paul McCartney and Wings performed the Simon & Garfunkel adaptation on their album Wings over America. The punk band The Menzingers wrote a song titled "Richard Coury" which was inspired by the poem. The difference in spelling from Cory to Coury is because the band has a personal friend whose last name is Coury. The American composer John Woods Duke wrote Three Poems by Edwin Arlington Robinson, which includes the full text of the poem "Richard Cory". Martini Ranch recorded a song based on the poem on their album Holy Cow. See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Cory_
Other
wrote a play based on the poem, also titled Richard Cory. The play, which is presented with a nonlinear timeline, suggests the reasons Cory killed himself, including family problems and changing views on humanity. American humorist Garrison Keillor wrote a variation of the poem for the Introduction to his The Book of Guys, which suggested that Cory's wife was the reason he killed himself. The character Ben Nicholson, played by Paul Lambert misquotes the poem in the episode "The Case of the Envious Editor" of the CBStelevision seriesPerry Mason starring Raymond Burr.
