"Miniver Cheevy" is usually described as a mocking self-portrait, but such an observation tells us little about the poem itself. Indeed, such phrases as "mocking self-portrait" are usually a means of dodging a poem. I suggest that one must ask why Miniver Cheevy (not Edwin Arlington Robinson) prefers an earlier, more "romantic" era than his own, what it is that he loses, if anything, by being out of phase with his time, and, finally, if his anachronistic attachment is virtuous or vicious. These questions burden an admittedly middle-weight poem and I shall not burden it further with specific answers. Still, does not the sum of reasonable answers amount to an impression that Miniver's escapism is really an effort to establish an individuality which a world of "progress" denies?