The House On The Hill Analysis

Arsalan Hassan

Ms. Landis

English 11-(5)

16 March, 2015

American Poetry Project Beauty is everywhere. It can come in any shape, color or form that can please an individual. Confucius once said that “Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it”, this plays in part that beauty is perceived differently for each person. What is considered beautiful to one person can be something entirely different to another person. “The House on the Hill by Edwin Arlington Robinson is a combination of Realism and Regionalism portraying the author’s home as what it actually was and had become because of America going forth in the Industrial Revolution. Regionalism portrays something before the beauty of it is lost. Romanticism is about youthful innocence and

Poe compares a woman he hold dear to as “Psyche” which by legend is a woman so beautiful that the god Eros (Cupid) fell in love with her (Huff). With the use of folklore to describe the beauty of this woman, Poe uses allusion to showcase beauty as something to be divine and presented in its greatest moments. Poe uses references rom legends to describe his own background and that of the woman he talks so dearly about so that he can emphasize her perfection as unimaginable and unyielding to no one. By straying away from the era of depicting art as what is was, Poe describes beauty of oneself in the greatest form, like that in a way of a Roman statue, as something more important than what it actually was(Helen). Poe uses historical reference to incorporate the beauty of a single woman, such that her stance is like that of a stature and her beauty is like that of a goddess. Therefore beauty is eternal and can be glorified to that of a goddess regardless if they are dead or

The House on the Hill showcases the House as in “ruin and decay” yet questions his reason for staying around such a “sunken sill” (House). The author talks about the House in a cold and distant way yet makes personal connections to it with imagery and similes to the House. From doing so Robinson showcases that despite the outside appearance the House is still something of great value to the author. With the use of two rhyme sounds throughout the poem, this villanelle lets the author depict his reluctance in tone to talk about past ghost still haunting him (Huff). Robinson believes his past still lies in the House and that no matter how long time passes, the House will still be of significance to him. Robinson adds on that like the House, he believes that everything he owns will someday rot and expire (Huff), which can play into the part that he believed in realist views of an object and depicting it as it was. Therefore the value of something is important and can always be held dearly while disregarding what it looks on the