and complex. The narrator also talks in a very normal tone. His diction is, mainly, informal, as if it was one ordinary person addressing another person he knew. The tone is conversational and yet it does more than just convey information. This is because of the breaks in his informal diction that hint at something else. For example, no one would use terms like "imperially slim" or "cleanly favored" in normal conversation. While the choice of words serves specific purposes, the change in diction also has a purpose. If Robinson merely wanted to give people's awestruck response to Richard Cory, then he could have had the narrator speak this way throughout the poem. Instead, he breaks off his informal speech with the insertion of such expressions. The constant repetition of "and" as he lists the aspects of Richard Cory makes the sentences sound excited and rushed. But, it also makes them sound clumsy -- as if the writer was only used to writing the simplest style. But, the diction gets even grander. It sounds almost like Biblical words when he gets to the last stanza and tells how the people, "waited for the light, and went without the meat, and cursed the bread" (620). Then, suddenly, the last two lines become very simple and flat as he tells about Cory's end.
In terms of imagery, the poem creates open images. The reader could fill in any person's picture that might occur to him from the outlines of Robinson's description. Cory seems grand to the "people on the pavement", and the narrator uses general terms to describe the impression Cory makes. He does not, for example, tell the reader anything about how Cory actually looks. Is he dark or fair, young or old, short or tall? The general impression of Cory, like the use of slightly formal diction to describe him, creates a sense of distance between Cory and those (including the reader) who observe him.
The combination of terms that create the picture of Cory as a...