Pulitzer Prize Poetry Winner
Tristram
by Edwin Arlington Robinson
Summary
The third panel of Robinson's Arthurian trilogy retells the love of Tristram and Isolt as a sustained study of obsession, jealousy, and ruined nobility. Long passages of supple blank verse stay close to the lovers' inner weather, treating myth as occasion for psychological realism. The poem brought a serious modern sensibility to material more often handled as romance.
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Historical Context & Significance
This book was a massive commercial success, a rarity for poetry, and earned Robinson his third Pulitzer in seven years.