Miniver Cheevy

Miniver Cheevy

Miniver Cheevy, child of scorn,
  Grew lean while he assailed the seasons;
He wept that he was ever born,
  And he had reasons.

Miniver loved the days of old
  When swords were bright and steeds were prancing;
The vision of a warrior bold
  Would set him dancing.

Miniver sighed for what was not,
  And dreamed, and rested from his labors;
He dreamed of Thebes and Camelot,
  And Priam's neighbors.

Miniver mourned the ripe renown
  That made so many a name so fragrant;
He mourned Romance, now on the town,
  And Art, a vagrant.

Miniver loved the Medici,
  Albeit he had never seen one;
He would have sinned incessantly
  Could he have been one.

Miniver cursed the commonplace
  And eyed a khaki suit with loathing;
He missed the medieval grace
  Of iron clothing.

Miniver scorned the gold he sought,
  But sore annoyed was he without it;
Miniver thought, and thought, and thought,
  And thought about it.

Miniver Cheevy, born too late,
  Scratched his head and kept on thinking;
Miniver coughed, and called it fate,
  And kept on drinking.

"Miniver Cheevy" is a narrative poem written by Edwin Arlington Robinson, published in The Town down the River in 1910.[1] The poem (written in quatrains of iambic tetrameter for three lines, followed by a catalectic line of only three iambs), relates the story of a hopeless romantic who spends his days thinking about what might have been if only he had been born in a nobler and more romantic era.

Some scholars suggest that the character of Miniver is meant to be Robinson's self-aware skewering of his own sense of being an anachronism or throwback, but others add that Miniver represents a critique of the general culture of Robinson's time.[2] Regardless, the character portrait is similar to Robinson's Richard Cory, a deeply discontented individual unable to fit in with society and bent on self-destruction.[3] Robinson's preoccupation with such characters is one of the reasons he was called "America's poet laureate of unhappiness."[4]

References in popular culture

• In Woody Allen's 2011 film Midnight in Paris, the lead character Gil is compared to Miniver Cheevy by a condescending friend of his fiancée.
• In Joseph Heller's Catch-22, Major Major Major Major is also compared with Miniver Cheevy because of his late birth.
• Helene Hanff compared herself to Miniver Cheevy, in her 1970 book 84, Charing Cross Road.

External links

• Critiques of this poem
• Miniver Cheevy public domain audiobook at LibriVox (multiple versions)

Notes

1. 'Miniver Cheevy,' in "The Oxford Companion to American Literature," edited by James D. Hart, 4th edition (New York: Oxford University Press, 1965).
2. "Modern American Poetry".
3. "Miniver Cheevy".
4. "Miniver Cheevy by Edwin Arlington Robinson | Poetry Foundation". June 2022.