Symbol Analysis
Anaphora is the repetition of words or phrases at the beginning of lines. Anaphora was popular with free verse poets like Walt Whitman. It's less popular with poets who write in regular forms and meters like Robinson. They've usually got enough repetition going on at the end of lines that they don't use it at the beginning of lines too. But Robinson is all about anaphora in "Richard Cory," which often makes us feel like we're reading a long list of R.C.'s great qualities. (Of course, this makes his suicide at the end of the poem all the more shocking.)
- Lines 5-6: Check out those "And he was always" phrases at the beginning of these lines. There's so much good stuff to say about reliable R.C. that the speaker begins putting it all in a list.
- Lines 9-10: Oh look, more "Ands." You've got another great thing to say about Richard Cory, speaker? Just add it to the list.
- Lines 14-15: Here, the "ands" shift. This time, they advance the narrative of the poem forward. They tell us what the townsfolk are up to, and what Richard Cory is up to (and, well, it's nothing good for a change).