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Biography
Though his family came from the East and traveled often
around Europe while he was growing up, Robinson Jeffers found
his true home as a young adult in northern California. Still
relatively unpopulated, California in 1903 had a wild, rugged
landscape that would serve as inspiration for many of Jeffers's
poems. Jeffers graduated from Occidental College in Los Angeles
in 1905 and after pursuing graduate studies in both medicine
and forestry, he decided instead to become a professional
poet. In 1914 he moved with his wife to Carmel, south of
San Francisco on the Pacific Coast, and made it his lifelong
home. As the century progressed, Jeffers became increasingly
outraged as California's natural beauty suffered from the
increase in population. His volumes of poetry include Tamar (1924), Roan
Stallion (1925), Give Your Heart to the Hawks (1933),
and Solstice (1935).
Explorations
Jeffers has a reputation as a bitter and misanthropic poet;
but if one hears echoes of Robinson and
the literary naturalists in Jeffers, one should also listen
for other moods and intuitions in his verse. In some of his
nature poems, there are interesting connections and comparisons,
even to the American Transcendentalists and Romantics. Hurt
Hawks (1928) and Carmel Point (1951) can show
us some of Jeffers's complexity and range.
1. The prosody of Hurt Hawks is reminiscent at
times of Whitman. Are there any
thematic similarities between this poem and the Whitman
elegies -- Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking or When
Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd? How are Whitman's
celebratory, life-affirming verse forms being used or echoed
by Jeffers here?
2. The final four lines of Carmel Point offer
the reader spiritual advice, of a sort. Are there parallels
between this counsel and what Emerson offers
in Nature or The Over-Soul? How far do those
parallels extend?
3. When Jeffers is moved to exclamation or "ecstasy" by
something that he observes in the natural world, what does
he celebrate? Is he a pastoral poet? Which poems influence
your thinking about this question?
Other sites to consult:
Explore
Jeffers Country. Part of the Robinson Jeffers
Tor House Foundation, this site has extensive Jeffers-related
materials: a biographical chronology; a list of major
works; photos; reviews, essays, and appreciations
of Jeffers's work; and links to other sites, including
material on Jeffers and his wife, Una.
Bibliography
of print and online Jeffers materials. From
Boon Hughey's Jeffers site.
Jeffers
Studies journal forum.
"The
Coming Jeffers Revival". An article by poet
Dana Gioia from the 1990 Quarry West 27.
http://www.jeffers.org/: Jeffers Studies and
the Robinson Jeffers Association.
http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/g_l/jeffers/exhibit.htm:
A Robinson Jeffers Exhibit from Modern American Poetry.
http://www.poets.org/poets/poets.cfm?prmID=203: The
Academy of American Poetry’s page about Jeffers.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/22/books/review/22LEITHAT.html:
A New York Times review of Jeffers’s Selected Poetry.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/article-preview?article_id=15252:
A New York Review of Books article on two new collections
of poetry by Jeffers.
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