Robinson was born in Gardner Town, Qingyin State in 1896. He entered Harvard University in 1891, but due to family poverty, he dropped out of school two years later and went to New York to make a living, where he worked as an inspector on the subway. In 1896, he published a collection of poems "The Rapids and Last Night" (later renamed "Son of the Night") at his own expense, which caused a sensation and was loved by the people. In 1902, the collection of poems "Captain Clegg" was published. President Theodore Roosevelt, who had always admired his poetic talent, helped him find a more leisurely job at the New York City Customs Service, which gave him plenty of time to write poetry. In 1916, the collection of poems "Shadows on the Edge of the Sky" was published, which received favorable reviews and established his position in the poetry world. His later important works were a trilogy of long narrative poems: Merlin (1917), Launcelot (1920) and Tristan (1927). He won the Pulitzer Prize three times, in 1922, 1925, and 1928.
Robinson's poetry can generally be divided into two categories. One type is a long narrative poem written in the later period based on the legend of King Arthur in the Middle Ages, using iambic pentameter blank rhyme. They are not stereotyped retellings of ancient legends, but recreations based on the characteristics of modern poetry. In these poems, he used the characters' unique passions to explain their actions, rather than supernatural factors as in the past. The psychological description of the characters in his narrative poems is relatively profound. Another type of his poetry is more popular among general readers. They are all short poems written in traditional poetic style, especially a group of "character portrait" poems, each of which describes a character in Tilbury town. portrait. Most of them are depressed losers and deformed people. For example, Richard Curry, who was "richer than the king", was envied by the whole town, but he decided to shoot himself; and Miniver Chevy, who despised money, but could not leave it; and Young The old Ibn Froud was so lonely that he had to drink to drown his sorrows. These poems reflect the real scenes in small towns in New England at that time and express the poet's dissatisfaction with capitalist society. They have meticulous and profound observations and simple and concise language. Some of the characters written in the poem are almost household names in the United States and have certain typical significance.
Robinson's poems strive to break away from the tradition of romantic poetry in the Victorian period and pursue novelty in conception and imagery. Mix passion, sarcasm and humor, and pay attention to digging into the depths of the characters' souls. These characteristics are consistent with later American modernist poetry, so he is often regarded as the forerunner of modernist poetry.
Robinson died in 1935.