CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, NORTHRIDGE

ROBINSON JEFFERS:

HIS IMAGERY AND SYMBOLISM

A thesis submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in

English

by

Terry Beers

May, 1982 The Thesis of Terry Beers is approved:

h

California State University, Northridge

ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I wish to thank Professor John Clendenning for his remarkable patience, his keen insight, and his considerable support. Thanks also to Professor Richard Lid for his time and care, and to Professor Marvin Klotz for his additional criticisms.

iii For Patricia

iv TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS . iii

DEDICATION iv

ABSTRACT . vi

Chapter

I. INTRODUCTION 1

II. THE PHILOSOPHICAL VISION 7

III. THE LYRICAL VISION 29

IV. THE NARRATIVE VISION 53

v. CONCLUSION 92 NOTES 95

BIBLIOGRAPHY . 103

APPENDIX .. 108

v ABSTRACT

ROBINSON JEFFERS:

HIS IMAGERY AND SYMBOLISM

by

Terry Beers

Master of Arts in English

Robinson Jeffers is one of the least understood poets of this century. All too often his philosophy of Inhuman­ ism is viewed as an amoral and sometimes immoral celebra­ tion of violence, incest, and death. It is in fact none of these, and recent critics such as Robert Brophy and William

Everson have done much to correct Jeffers' image as an amoral poet.

But even so, the images and symbols used by Jeffers seem to belie their efforts. The indifferent hawk, the immortal rock, and other images of the powerful forces of nature shift focus away from mankind to emphasize instead the primacy of nature. Because Jeffers chooses symbols and images that reflect the power and sometimes the cruelty of

vi nature, many readers believe that Jeffers harbors a cruel vision of the universe. This thesis shows how the imagery and symbolism that Jeffers uses reflect and demonstrate a philosophy that is both religious and sublime.

Jeffers' Inhurnanism appears to be essentially a four­ part philosophy that can be traced back to thinkers such as

Nietzsche, Lucretius, and Emerson. Jeffers added his own observations of nature as well as the discoveries of Twen­ tieth Century science to create a creed that insisted on the insignificance of mankind while affirming the impor­ tance of nature.

This emergent philosophy had a direct and significant influence on Jeffers' poetry so that most of the imagery and symbolism that he used is interrrelated with Inhurnanism.

This interrelationship is shown in an analysis of selected lyric poems and narrative pieces. No attempt has been made to select the best of Jeffers' poetry; critical opinions differ and such an attempt would not receive universal acceptance. But the poetry selected is representative in its use of imagery and symbolism, and all of it strongly shows the traces of.Jeffers' greatest accomplishment: his vision called Inhurnanism.

vii Chapter I

INTRODUCTION

Indifferent to praise or condemnation, Robinson

Jeffers led the life of a semi-recluse in his Carmel retreat Tor House--itself both Jeffers' creation and his monument. As he composed his verses in a lonely tower built out of hand-hewn stone, Jeffers captured the imagina­ tion of the literary world both with his powerful, rugged poems and his romantic, solitary lifestyle. He became a

California institution and ennobled the Pacific Coastline of Big Sur country with his powerful vision and his expan­ sive spirit so completely that it will remain Jeffers country to both poets and critics for generations.

Robinson Jeffers was born on January 10, 1887 to

William Hamilton Jeffers, A.Bo, DoD., LL.D., and Annie

Robinson Tuttle. Hamilton Jeffers was a minister and a professor of Old Testament and Exegesis at Western Theolog­ ical Seminary of Pittsburgh. At the time of his son's birth, he was forty-nine years old; he was known as a strict disciplinarian, and a stern educator.

According to Lawrence Clark Powell, Dr. Jeffers began his son's education quite early; by the age of five

Robinson Jeffers was reading Greek, and in his fifth and

1 2 sixth years he traveled with his parents through Great

Britain, France, Switzerland, and Italy.l However, the prodigious early studies apparently affected his health; when Latin was added to the Greek, young Jeffers developed headaches. He was finally sent away from his native Penn­ sylvania to study in private schools in and around Zurich. 2

At the age of fifteen, Jeffers returned to the United I States to enter the University of Western Pennsylvania.

However, his parents moved West because of Dr. Jeffers• failing health. Robinson Jeffers accompanied them to Pasa- dena where he enrolled at Occidental College. Because of his study abroad and his superior language ability--by this time he was able to think in Italian, French, and German 3 -- he was given junior standing at Occidental at the age of sixteen.

During these years, Jeffers• love of nature began to develop; at the same time, he began to write verses inspired by hiking and camping trips in the nearby San

Gabriel Mountains. Sometimes Jeffers went on these trips alone; sometimes he went with a small circle of friends.

However, even within this limited social sphere, Jeffers

" ... was reserved and one could of course recognize that he 4 lived very largely within himself."

Jeffers graduated from Occidental in 1905 and entered the University of Southern California as a graduate student in Literature. Here, in a class on Goethe's Faust, he met 3

and fell in love with Una Call Kuster, the brilliant wife

of a prominent attorney as well as the leading woman auto

racer in Los Angeles. 5 Jeffers' attraction to Una alarmed

his parents. To break off the romance, Jeffers• parents

returned with him to Europe, where he was enrolled at the

University of Zurich to continue his studies. Dissatis­ fied, Jeffers soon decided to return to u.s.c. and study medicine.

While at medical school, Jeffers boarded at Hermosa

Beach, where he discovered his intense love for the Pacific 6 Ocean. Despite his demanding studies--including Physiol­

ogy, Embryology, Pharmacology, Bacteriology, Diatetics, and

Chemical Pathology--Jeffers found time to write poetry and

to hang around the docks to listen to the stories of seamen

and stevedores. He also rekindled his romance with Una

after a chance encounter at a Los Angeles crosswalk.

Soon after, Jeffers decided he had little interest in

becoming a physician, and he withdrew from medical school

to devote himself fully to literature. 7 In 1912, he used a

small legacy to finance publication of his first volume of

verse, Flagons and Apples. The same year, he entered the

University of Washington as a student in the School of

Forestry. In 1913, Una obtained a divorce and married

Jeffers in Tacoma on August 2.

After their. marriage, the newlyweds resolved to live

in England where Una had friends. However, the First World 4

War prevented their move; instead they settled in the

little artist colony of Carmel. According to Alex A.

Vardamis, their decision to live in Carmel was crucial to

Jeffers' work; with the exception of some short poems on

Ireland and Taos, all of Jeffers' mature work bears direct relationship to the harsh landscape of the Central Calif­ 8 ornia coast.

Jeffers worked hard in the early years of his residence in Carmel. He divided his time between writing poetry and working on Tor House, situated hardly a hundred feet from the cliff-lined Pacific.

His second volume of verse, Californians, was ready in

1916, and the same year Jeffers' twin sons, Garth and

Donnan, were born.

After the United States entered the war, Jeffers volun- teered for the Balloon Corps, 9 but the fighting ended before his induction. However, according to Arthur B. Coffin,

World War I left a deep impression on Jeffers:

The years between Californians and Tamar (Jeffers' third book] embraced World War I, which apparently stimulated Jeffers to self-examination. It was a period in which both his thinking and his craft mat~ ed and changed remarkably, as Tamar revealed. 0

With Tamar, Jeffers began to develop his doctrine of

Inhurnanism which became the connecting thread that would weave throughout his poetry.

Between the wars, Jeffers remained, except for short excursions, in Carmel. He cultivated his recluse image 5 with a sign on his gatepost forbidding visitors, but his reputation as a hermit was belied by the truth. Although

Jeffers avoided the mob, he was seldom without friends.

After he had become famous, and therefore appropriate copy for the local paper, frequent mention was made of weekend house parties at Tor House that included Benjamin . 11 De Casseres, Ed gar L ee Mas t ers, and George S ter 11ng. Later guests included Mable Dodge Luhan, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Lawrence Clark Powell. However, Jeffers did remain aloof from town society and Una became his chief contact _ with Carmel.

After Tamar, and before World War II, Jeffers published eleven major books of poetry, including The Women at Point

Sur, Dear Judas and Other Poems, Thurso's Landing and Other

Poems, and Solstice and Other Poems. However, his critical reputation began to lapse because of his repetitious themes, his hardening view of humanity, and his ever more strongly held philosophy of Inhumanism.

With the outbreak of World War II, Jeffers agonized through another period of self-examination. He took an isolationist attitude, and his poetry of the period spared no political leader from blame, not even Roosevelt. Again his critical reputation suffered; Random House went so far as to suppress some of Jeffers' more outspoken verse. But

Jeffers' reputation climbed for a time after the war due to the success of his free adaption of Medea, written for 6

Judith Anderson. It became a Broadway success and caused

" ... a flurry of new interest in Jeffers, though he now was considered a dramatist."12

In 1950, Una Jeffers died of cancer. The loss was all but total for Jeffers who depended upon her for inspiration as well as companionship and love. Everything he wrote afterwards, especially Hungerfield and Other Poems, reflected his intense grief over her loss.

Jeffers once wrote: "The only things of consequence a man can do. are to plant a tree, get a child, build a house, write a book. 1113 He did all these things before his death in 1962, and one other. He left a vision, a coherent phil- osophy that permeated his works--Inhumanism, Jeffers' rugged vision of man's inconsequence. Chapter II

THE PHILOSOPHICAL VISION

Jeffers was like his people: he demanded perfection and beauty and it was not there in human form. --charles Bukowski 1

Robinson Jeffers' philosophy of Inhurnanisrn is a corn- bination of two impulses: the impulse to destroy, and the impulse to build. It seeks to destroy man's vision of self-importance and his egocentric interest in his own well being. It also destroys man's traditional views of God.

But at the same time, it builds a vision to replace the one lost. In place of man's egocentric interest is offered a vision of unity between man and nature. In place of man's traditional views of God, Jeffers' philosophy offers an integrity that " ... transcends the old values of good and evil." 2 As Jeffers' interest grew in poetry, so did his interest in his philosophy. In fact, these interests are impossible to separate; for Jeffers' poetry is the medium through which he chose to express his world view. as a result, Jeffers' poetry falls into three distinct periods that correspond to the evolution of Inhurnanism. According to Arthur B. Coffin,

7 8

Jeffers' longstanding preference for the 'not-man' part of the world and his awareness of the short-comings of human nature were examined and variously tested in the first period .•.. What could be used from the first period of trial he carried into the second for application and veri­ fication .... In the final phase, as a result of the second period of inquiry and of concurrent historical developments, Jeffers expressed confi­ dence in his theories and resigned himself to the position of an unheeded Cassandra in a stubborn world.3

Thus, Jeffers' verse became a sort of "poetry as dis­ covery,"4 as he sought to unite his ideas into a coherent vision that was at once both mystical and practical. To achieve this vision, he drew upon his own observations of nature and humanity; however, these were influenced by an immense education that included study of many diverse phil- osophical theories and systems proposed by both ancient and modern thinkers. Of these, two of the most important to

Jeffers' thought were Nietzsche and Lucretius. According to Coffin, the proper study for the reading of Jeffers is

Thus Spoke Zarathustra and De Rerum Natura. 5

In a letter to Frederic I. Carpenter, Jeffers acknow- ledged his debt to Nietzsche, along with others, because he sought to break down "Conventions of monarchy, warlike patriotism, Christian dogma, purity." Jeffers went on to assert that what Nietzsche offered instead was temporary and without much influence, but what he threw down, stayed down. 6 Jeffers admired Nietzsche for sweeping aside human conventions in order to free mankind. 9

Thus, the aspects of Inhumanism that owe their exist­

ence to Nietzsche would seem to be those that are concerned with breaking the mold, much as Zarathustra did when he

descended the mountain and proclaimed: Once the sin

against God was the greatest sin; but God died." 7 Jeffers was sympathetic to this dismissal of Christianity; although he did not agree that God was dead, Jeffers was freed by

Nietzsche to condemn organized religions as exercises in

excess and untruth. Although Jeffers admired figures such as Christ and Buddha, he felt the various religious leaders were misguided men who became victims of their own love of man " ... the trap that catches noblest spirits, that caught--they /say--God, when he walked on earth." 8

Jeffers also sympathized with Nietzsche's measure of mankind, since both men found man wanting. Nietzsche's solution was the Ubermensch, the over-man that would become the realization of mankind's evolutionary and cultural

struggle. Instead, Jeffers proclaimed in 11 Roan Stallion" that "Humanity is /the start of the race; I say /Humanity is the mould to break away from." 9 Here the difference between Nietzsche and Jeffers is just -as important as the similarity. Both were concerned that man, especially man influenced by society or the mob, was far short of ful­ filling his full potential. Nietzsche's answer was that the death of God freed the over-man who would accomplish the liberation of the rest of humanity, "God died, now we 10 want the over-man to live."lO Jeffers' answer was that man must look to inhuman nature, and thus to God directly, to overcome himself and become " ... the coal to break into . ..11 f 1.re.

Thus Jeffers found in Nietzsche the philosophical authority to help clear away the dogma and societal customs that constrained the individual. But according to William

Everson, " ... unquestionably it was science that provided him with the objectivity, and hence the authority, to effect the religious mission he claimed for his own."12

Throughout his lifetime the discoveries of Twentieth Cen- tury science re-emphasized to Jeffers man's insignificance.

Astronomy especially influenced him through his brother

Hamilton, an astronomer at the Lick Observatory. The motions of the stars, their vast sizes, and the unknown forces that governed them awed Jeffers; and his earlier medical studies trained him enough in the scientific method so that he was unable to reject the implications of physi- cal science. Thus, astronomy convinced Jeffers that man was but a tiny cog in the machinery of the universe, a notion that dove-tailed nicely with an earlier influence on

Jeffers, Lucretius.

In De Rerum Natura, Lucretius seeks to free mankind from religious superstition by positing a universe based on natural causes. He relied upon Epicurean physics which asserted that the ultimate constituents of the universe are 11 atoms. For Lucretius ultimately the universe was one body 13 containing both atoms and space, or the void. According to Frederick Copleston, in order to account for the crea­ tion of the world and for human free will, the Ep.icureans postulated a spontaneous oblique movement of individual atoms, a capricious element that caused collisions and entanglements which led to the formation of innumerable 14 worlds.

This vision of the universe allows mankind a place in the natural body, but not a primary one. Lucretius.empha­ sizes this vision by refuting the Stoic's stand that the gods have established all things for the interests of man- kind: " ... they clearly have fallen far from the truth in every respect .... by no means was this world created for us by the gods ... 15 Instead, humanity is a part of the whole, subject to the 11 0blique movement" of atoms but free from the interference of gods.

Lucretius' emphasis on the unity of the universal body, coupled with the discoveries of Twentieth Century science, led Jeffers to minimize mankind's importance in the universe. This early step seems to anticipate aspects of Jeffers' Inhurnanism that urge man to achieve harmony with nature by looking past himself to a universe freed from the influence of anthropomorphic gods. Like Lucre­ tius, Jeffers felt that the divine force of the universe was concerned with 11 0rganic wholeness, the wholeness of 16 life and things, the divine /beauty of the universe." 12

Jeffers' vision of an organic universe seems to indi-

cate that Inhurnanism is derived, at least in part, from

ideas similar to those expressed by writers of the American

Renaissance. The influence of these writers on Jeffers'

thought, however, was limited. Thoreau's assertion of a

simple, natural life suggests that he was an important

influence, but Jeffers claimed as late as 1933: "I never

read anything of Thoreau's; I like to think of his life,

though it was rather specialist."17

Jeffers apparently didn't read Melville until about 18 1931, long after his philosophy of Inhumanism had begun

to take shape. Thus, the dark, brooding, and powerful

incarnation of nature in Moby Dick had no opportunity to

exert an influence on Inhumanism.

Jeffers' verse form has startling similarities to

Whitman's, but despite these similarities Jeffers claimed 19 that Whitman never interested him; Whitman's free, demo-

cratic, and optimistic verse contrasts sharply with

Jeffers' more pessimistic lines. Despite Radcliff Squires'

claim that

Jeffers ... has continued to celebrate certain of the values that Whitman celebrated--liberty and the love of nature--by attacking what he believes to be inharmonious with them: the great city, the great empire,20

clearly Whitman has had little philosophical influence on

Jeffers. Instead, their common love of liberty and nature

is derived, partly, from the same source: Emerson. 13

Jeffers wrote to Frederic I. Carpenter: "Emerson was

a youthful enthusiasm, if you like, but not outgrown by any 21 means." As early as 1912, Jeffers had declared that

Emerson was one of two great men of American Literature 22 (p oe b e1ng· th e other) . Thus, J e ff ers h a d rea d an d

admired one of the most influential of all the American

thinkers of the Nineteenth Century.

Jeffers' Inhumanism dictated that man must strive to

integrate with nature and know the "divine beauty" of the universe. Largely this attempt was designed to turn human-

ity outward away from itself and avoid inward-turning egotism. Emerson's 1836 essay, "Nature," asserts much the

same idea:

Standing on the bare ground,--my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space,--all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or parcel of God.23

Emerson achieves harmony with the "Universal Being" by divorcing "all mean egotism." To Jeffers, this means

looking past mankind, to apprehend nature. The two visions are similar, but not the same. Although both insist on transcendent natural values, Jeffers is far more skeptical of the ability of mankind to take this path; Emerson is more optimistic, "So shall we come to look at the world 24 with new eyes."

The combination of Nietzsche, Lucretius, and Emerson-- along with the constant affirmation of his beliefs through 14

science--eventually helped Jeffers clarify his vision of

Inhumanism and codify its components. On January 22, 1942,

Jack Wilson, a senior at Connecticut Teachers College, wrote to Jeffers for information to help him prepare a term paper on Jeffers' philosophy. Jeffers made these notes in preparation for a response:

First: Man also is a part of nature, not a miraculous intrusion. And he is a very small part of a very big universe, that was here before he appeared, and will be long after he has totally ceased to exist. Second: Man would be better, more sane and more happy, if he devoted less· attention and less passion (love, hate, etc.) to his own species, and more to non-human nature. Extreme introver­ sion in any single person is a kind of insanity; so it is in a race; and race has always and increasingly spent too much thought on itself and too little on the world outside. Third: It is easy to see a tree, a rock, a star are beautiful; it is hard to see that people are beautiful unless you consider them as part of the universe--the divine whole. You cannot judge or value any part except in relationship to the whole that it is part of.25

Thus, in what Coffin termed "the final phase" of

Jeffers' vision, Jeffers was able to codify the main tenets of Inhumanism. However, Jeffers added one more component to his philosophy, a natural deism, or pantheism as Jeffers himself reluctantly named it. Inhumanism, then, actually became a modification of the atomic universe of Lucretius.

In simplest terms, Inhumanism insisted that (1) man was an infinitesimal part of the universe and its cycles; (2) man must cease his subjective concern with himself; (3) man must integrate with nature and consider the whole; and 15

(4) man must express a religious feeling for a divine nature.

Jeffers was alarmed that the first tenet of his phil- osophy seemed largely to be ignored by mankind. According to James Shebl, Jeffers felt man was so unaware of his true nature that he " ... regarded himself as a warm compassionate and superior creature, immune to natural pressures." 26

Jeffers decided to attempt to jolt mankind loose from this soft assumption, and his poetry proclaimed the insignifi- cance of mankind.

To emphasize man's insignificance, Jeffers placed many of his stories and lyrics in the Big Sur Country of the

Central California Coastline. The wild power of the Big

Sur Coast dwarfed the power of mankind so that the influ­ 27 ence of the natural forces upon man was made clear. One of the striking examples of this method is California's crossing of the ford in "Roan Stallion":

... the water Beating over her shoes and stockings up to the bare thighs; and over them like a beast Lapping her belly; the wriggle and pitch of the mare swimming; the draft, the sucking water; the blinding Light above and behind with not a gleam before, in the throat of darkness.28

California is all but powerless as she is caught up in the

"sucking water" and the darkness that represent the wild powers of the Big Sur wilderness.

Jeffers' first tenet also insisted on mankind's aware- ness of nature's cycles--life and death, growth and decay-- 16 and their reflection, the culture cycles of mankind.

Jeffers wished to express that the idea of culture cycles,

" ... the patterned rise and decline of one civilization 29 after another," was an extension of the cycles of nature.

In "Shine, Perishing Republic," Jeffers wrote:

I sadly smiling remember that the flower fades to make fruit, the fruit rots to make earth. Out of the mother; and through the spring exult­ ances, ripeness and decadence; and horne to the mother. 30

The image of the perishing republic is the image of rotting fruit--both are parts of two greater cycles that themselves are similar, for each--the cycle of nature and the cycle of culture--leave values or truths that will persist after them. This vision suggests the permanence of the universal while insisting on the transcience of the particular.

Jeffers' insistence on the insignificance of man leads logically to his second component, his condemnation of man's insular, selfish nature. Clearly, if man is merely a part of nature rather than its master, then man's contem- plation of his own significance is merely solipsism.

Jeffers condemned this in his preface to The Double Axe and

Other Poems and called for " ... recognition of the trans- human magnificence." He added, "It seems time that our race began to think as an adult does, rather than like an 31 egocentric baby or insane person."

Jeffers' poetry is full of the Inhumanist condemnation of turning inward. In "Joy," a voice representative of 17 mankind speaks, "'I am neither mountain nor bird /Nor star; 32 and I seek joy.•" The representative man not only dis- tances himself from nature by asserting his difference from the earth and the beasts, but he declares himself to be a searcher for joy. This is a waste, for Jeffers declares that " ... joy is not great; /Peace is great, strength is 33 great." Joy is a purely human emotion and cannot inte- grate with nature as strength and peace might. Therefore, joy becomes, for man, "The weakness of your breed." 34

The "weakness" might be associated with the egocentric baby, cognizant only of its own comfort. However, Jeffers supplies an even more powerful metaphor for the turning inward--insanity. In his longest narrative, The Women at

Point Sur, Jeffers declared: " ... if the mind centers on humanity /And is not dulled, but remains powerful enough to 35 feel /its own and others, the mind will go mad." To

Jeffers, this madness is the result of not thinking "as an adult does." Th~ egocentric child must disappear.

At this point, a conflict must be resolved in Jeffers' philosophy. How can a human being not be interested in human things? Jeffers formulated an answer in Themes in My

Poems:

It seems to me ... that the whole human race spends too much emotion on itself. The happiest and freest man is the scientist investigating nature, or the artist admiring it; the person who is interested in things that are not human. Or if he is interested in human things, let him regard them objectively, as a small part of the great music. Certainly humanity has claims, on 18

all of us; we can best fulfill them by keeping our emotional sanity; and this by seeing beyond and around the human race.36

Thus, as Radcliffe Squires has discovered, Jeffers does not

intend to deny the humanity in any of us. Rather he would have us strive for objectivity by distancing ourselves from . 37 a pure1 y h uman perspectlve.

This leads to the third component of Jeffers' philos- ophy: realizing the integrity of nature and seeking to become part of it. According to Jeffers, this should be the outgrowth of the Inhumanist's desire to avoid human

solipsism. However, this also leads to the confrontation of nature's more violent side.

According to Tim Hunt, "The Inhumanist, especially the

Inhumanist poet, must reconcile the dichotomy of nature as a source of grace and nature as an experience of violent destruction."38 He must realize that becoming part of the natural universe means accepting its destructive power.

This power is beyond good or evil and man has no right to attach moral judgments to it. He does best to accept it, and even better to appreciate it as part of the divine whole.

This is expressed clearly in Jeffers' short lyric,

"Fire on the Hills." In this poem, Jeffers depicts a brush fire that forces small game down the side of a mountain where it is exposed to the hunting eye of a hungry eagle.

Jeffers the Inhumanist contemplates the eagle and the 19

destruction at the same time, and proclaims in the final

line of the poem, "The destruction that brings an eagle 39 from heaven is better than mercy." The vision admits

that the world of nature is filled with the perpetual

struggle of irreconcilable forces, and that pain and death

are no less important than pleasure and life.

The fourth component of Jeffers' vision is a type of

deism, or nature become God. Because Jeffers minimized the

role of man in nature while asserting nature's integrity

and its organic unity, he came to regard nature not only

with respect, but with a religious awe. The inherently

religious quality of nature became an important theme for

Jeffers:

Another theme that has much engaged my verses is the expression of a religious feeling, that perhaps must be called pantheism, though I hate to type it with a name. It is the feeling ... [sic] I will say the certitude ... that the world the universe, is one being, a single organism.4 6

This religious feeling permeates Jeffers' verse as a

simple, yet fervent, reverence. In earlier works, such as

"Roan Stallion," Jeffers' god walked, "lightning-naked on 41 the Pacific," a separate being from nature. But in later

poems the idea of God merged with the idea of nature to

form the living organism that was Jeffers' greatest vision.

This is expressed in the short lyric, "Nova," " ..• the enor- mous invulnerable beauty of things /Is the face of God, to

live gladly in its presence, and die without grief or fear

k now1ng. 1 . t surv1ves . us. "42 20

Jeffers' God was in reality the absolute against which 43 man was to be measured. As the cosmic order, and as a

diety, God was as indifferent to man as he was to a rock or

to a hawk. Jeffers did not see God as a benevolent being

constantly interested in the affairs of mankind. Rather,

he was the creative and the destructuve force of the uni-

verse, enveloping all and sustaining all.

Jeffers' vision of Inhumanism is perhaps the most

striking aspect of his poetry. However, the philosophy has

been dismissed by critics such as Yvor Winters, who sees 44 Inhumanism as "doctrinaire hysteria." Often, Jeffers'

philosophy suffered because the emphasis of critical atten-

tion was focused on Jeffers' dismissal of the human world,

ignoring Jeffers' assertion that mankind must turn toward

God. As Carpenter asserts, " ... in attacking idealistic

philosophy and anthropocentric religion, Jeffers has always

affirmed the existence of some kind of God, or cosmic 45 order."

It is hard, then, to understand how his philosophy

could be so vehemently condemned by critics who seemed to

ignore the positive assertions of his verse. Since the

philosophy of Inhumanism, as well as Jeffers' poetic power,

is such a strong attraction of the poetry, how is it that

some of its most important statements have been overlooked?

The answer lies partly in the social context in which

Jeffers wrote, and his own unflagging determination in 21 asserting his primary theme--regardless of events around him or popular opinion.

Jeffers' first volumes of verse, Flagons and Apples and Californians, drew little critical attention. But his third book, Tamar and Other Poems, drew critical praise from the established reviewers of the era. Babette Deutsch and James Rorty both saw the power of Jeffers' early work and did much to establish his reputation. Also important among Jeffers' early admirers was Mark Van Doren whose con- sistently favorable reviews in The Nation were also impor- tant to the poet.

However, as Jeffers' canon of verse grew, so did a more and more vocal group of dissenters, among them Yvor

Winters. Winters' remarks on Jeffers' work were some of the most caustic of modern literary criticism, " ... his 46 writing, line by line, is pretentious trash." Winters was joined by some of the New Critics of the late thirties and early forties, among them John Crowe Ransom and R. P.

Blackmur, and Jeffers' reputation never recovered from the attack. As late as 1957, Kenneth Rexroth used the publica- tion of Radcliffe Squires' book, The Loyalties of Robinson

Jeffers, as an excuse to attack Jeffers' verse,

His reworking of Greek tragic plots makes me shudder at their vulgarity, the coarsening of sensibility, the cheapening of the language, and the tawdriness of the paltry insight into the great ancient meanings.47 22

Thus, despite his high critical standing early in his

career, today Jeffers is only infrequently taught in

university English courses and his work remains largely

ignored.

To better understand Jeffers' critical decline, it is necessary to examine some representative reviews of Jeffers' work. These will document Jeffers' critical decline and perhaps reveal that Jeffers suffered not so much because of an alleged lack of poetic talent, as from an aversion, on the part of many critics, to his philosophy.

After Tamar, the next important narrative poem of

Jeffers' first period was "Roan Stallion," later to be issued in a single volume with Tamar. Jeffers was just starting to work out his ideas on Inhumanism, and it was evident in his verse. Babette Deutsch noticed the consist- ency of thought in the volume and remarked in an early review, "Interestingly enough, the short lyric poems bear the same impress as the large narrative poems, are grounded 48 ln. th e same p h"ll osoph y, asser t th e same convlc. t"lon. n And

H. L. Mencken, in the American Mercury wrote, "There is a fine stately dignity in him, and the rare virtue of sim­ plicity."49 Mark Van Doren agreed,

"Roan Stallion, Tamar, and Other Poems" ... not only contains those poems which, given an opportunity to strike the critical world, struck them so hard; it marches forth with several impor­ tant new ~oems, one of which I am sure is a mas­ terpiece. 0 23

However, not all of the critical notices were so posi- tive. Harriet Monroe predicted Jeffers' later critical problems in a review for Poetry,

Mr. Jeffers cannot quite persuade us to swallow his modern tales of abnormal passion with the simple inherited faith of a more primitive time. The danger is that such a preoccupation may make his majestic art an anachronism, without vitality enough to endure.Sl

Monroe's concern with Jeffers' "preoccupation" was an almost prescient observation of Jeffers' critical dilemma, first apparent in the reception of The Women at Point Sur.

James Rorty liked the book and said it was written,

" ... if anything more magnificently than his other books.

Jeffers is sane, and a poet whom it is possible to call 52 great." Rorty also acknowledged that Jeffers had also . 53 created one o f t h e strangest wor ld s o f roo d ern t 1rnes, a reference to Jeffers' as yet embryonic vision of Inhuman- ism.

But H. L. Davis expressed it differently in Poet~,

"I can not feel any human passion back of this book's con­ 54 ception. It is a design working out a truth." And Van

Doren, friendly to Jeffers' work, also had problems with

The Women at Point sur. He pointed out the problem of attempting to consider humanity outside of itself and the fact that Jeffers had not yet come to grips with its reso­ lution. 55

Jeffers felt he had been badly misunderstood, and wrote a letter to Rorty explaining that the poem was an 24

attempt to show the danger of the idea expressed in "Roan

Stallion11 of breaking from hwnanity misinterpreted by a 56 fool or lunatic. Inhwnanism had not yet taken its final hold upon Jeffers' vision, yet he was already being con- demned for its concept.

After The Women at Point Sur, Jeffers' next book was the transitional volume Dear Judas and Other Poems. In

Jeffers' retelling of the Christ story, he applied aspects of his philosophy to Christian dogma, and the result was a reaffirmation of his principles. After Dear Judas, Jeffers returned to the California coastline in Thurso's Landing and Other Poems, a volume that contains some of Jeffers' most fully drawn characters.

Despite Winters' condemnation, "The book is composed almost wholly of trash," 57 Thurso's Landing did well with critics. Babette Deutsch made one of the most significant observations on Jeffers' philosophy,

Here in his latest narrative poem one finds him again leaning hard on his cruel theme, as though the hurt itself gave him an obscure sat­ isfaction. But in this poem, more clearly than its predecessors, he endows the suffering with significance.58

Deutsch's review marks a shift, and Jeffers criticism increasingly becomes the criticism of his philosophy. / Other reviews of the book also began to take greater notice of Jeffers' Inhumanism. Writing for The Nation,

Granville Hicks asked if Jeffers' passion " .•. had been, at the outset, directed into other channels, what might it not 25

have accomplished?" 59 The question carries with it the

implication that Jeffers' poetry suffers greatly for its

theme, despite Hicks' observation that Jeffers' power and 60 vision " ... was not born of self deceit."

The reviews of another volume from Jeffers' second

period, Solstice and Other Poems, began an even harsher

criticism of the philosophy. Appearing in 1935, Solstice

entered an age increasingly aware of German sword rattlings

in Europe and marked by a criticism reflecting fashionable

social values. Jeffers' philosophy took no notice of these

things and Solstice suffered for it.

Philip Blair Rice, writing for The Nation saw the book

as a reworking of the Medea story, but charged, "The poet

could have taken his plot from a tabloid just as easily as 61 from a Greek play." Rice also accused Jeffers of failing

to detect the stirrings of new cultures after the decline 62 of old ones, seemingly a complete misreading of Jeffers'

ideas of culture cycles.

William Rose Benet worried that " ... environment has well nigh devoured this poet, until it has become exces­

sively difficult for him to hear the desperate but daunt-

less voice of average humanity." He·went on to say,

"Jeffers will never get away from the rock and the hawk and

the cruel trap of life and the uncaring face of nature. 63 His themes have become rather redundant." However,

Deutsch found that Solstice " ... restates his familiar 26

themes, with no loss of power, and with the additional 64 interest of a greater technical variety."

The difference between the views of Benet and Deutsch

is interesting, for it illustrates the profound gap between

Jeffers' earlier reviewers and the later, more socially

aware critics. Deutsch, an early admirer, saw growth in

Jeffers' work as well as in his philosophy. Benet saw only

redundance and deplored Jeffers' supposed lack of compas­

sion for "average humanity." Unfortunately for Jeffers'

reputation, the critical tide was with Benet.

But Jeffers took little notice of literary fashion and he continued to write as he wished. In his third stage his

philosophy crystallized and he showed no more love for man­ kind than he was accustomed to. In this period he produced

two strong examples of his philosophy, The Double Axe and

Other Poems and Hungerfield and Other Poems. Jeffers'

final belief in the truth of his philosophy produced a new didacticism in his poetry and this, added to his almost rabid anti-war stance, clearly apparent in "The Double

Axe," made Jeffers even more unpalatable to his critics.

Rolfe Humphries particularly objected to the phil­ osophy in a review of The Double Axe and Other Poems. He charged that Jeffers' Inhumanism "--seems a late adolescent sort of wisdom, sentimental as the other California brand, with different trademark, the Saroyan-Steinbeck affectation 65 that all humanity is 'sumpin wunnerful.'" Robert 27

Fitzgerald agreed, and called the volume, "outcroppings

sunk into a quagmire of appalling primitivism from which 66 not even a pterodactyl could take wing."

One of the most interesting critiques of the volume

was offered by Selden Rodman. Rodman violently disagreed

with Jeffers' philosophy as well as his politics, claiming

that Jeffers felt Germany should have been permitted to 67 impose slavery on the rest of the world. But despite his

distaste for Inhumanism, Rodman offered a refreshing obser-

vation., "Jeffers 1 whatever one may think of his philosophy 1 68 remains as close to a major poet as we have." This

opinion may, of course, be due to a distaste for Jeffers'

contemporaries as any feeling for Jeffers' verse. However,

it does mark an almost unique attempt to appreciate the

poetry despite the distaste for the theme.

Hungerfield and Other Poems is Jeffers' last major work and his lamentation for the death of his wife Una.

The main narrative is framed by an elegy, creating, for

Jeffers, a unique structure. Reception of the volume was mixed as critics could not decide whether to concentrate

on the narrative piece or the short lyrics that were pub-

lished with it.

Dudley Fitts panned the narrative in a review

appearing in the New York Times Book Review,

... the exquisitely modulated meditatives on the death of a loved one in "Hungerfield" are jeopar­ dized by the brutal horror--so horrible, indeed, as to verge on the comic--of the story itself.69 28

However, Fitts had praise for the short pieces in the book

and called them the best poems in the volume. 70

Writing this time for Poetry, Selden Rodman disagreed,

" ... few of his short poems come off~" 71 Turning toward the narrative, Rodman deplored Jeffers' directness and implied

it was due to a lack of artistic skill, and not because of

Jeffers' thematic needs. Because of the intense personal

nature of the poem, few reviewers attacked it as strongly

as they had previous works. However, this seemed a peace

forged too late for Jeffers' reputation and "Hungerfield" was not able to salvage it.

Thus Robinson Jeffers' early fame and high reputation

slowly dwindled so " ... he went almost unhonored among 72 poets." However, there has been a slow and steady climb

in past years as readers, led by the efforts of Robert

Brophy, editor of The Robinson Jeffers Newsletter, and

William Everson, rediscover the power of Jeffers' verse.

According to Everson,

Among contemporary poets, European or American, Jeffers is unique in that he has been the only one to project and sustain a truly cosmic vision of man, induct a whole cosmology, as Homer and Dante and Milton did before him. I am speaking here in terms of conception, what is called vision, rather than presuming to anticipate the judgment of history as to the aesthetic achievement.73

Jeffers' vision, then, is the chief element of his poetry. But his verse gains its power from something far more basic to poetry: Jeffers' symbolism and imagery are the twin pillars upon which he communicates his philosophy. Chapter III

THE LYRICAL VISION

I have watched hawks in updraft effortlessly lifting wings wide: seen redwoods' strength and cypresses' warped endurance sea-carved granite headlands plumbing sheer down bicep-curved to sea; half-seen deer; seen but never freshly, all this having been claimed by him who staked out this land, these permanences, unalienable for his. Tim Reynolds1

In his book, Robinson Jeffers, Frederic I. Carpenter quarrels with critics who call Robinson Jeffers' short, auxiliary poems "lyrics." Carpenter asserts,

Very few are lyrics in the strict sense, although many give expression to a single emotion, and a few actually sing. Perhaps the phrase "meditative lyric" best describes the largest number.2

Carpenter is right. Lyric is an inadequate term to describe the short poems that range from the presentation of single images to complex image structures, that range from didactic rhetoric to miniature narratives, and that range from simple natural truths to tenets of Jeffers' own

Inhumanism. At the same time the short poetry is access- ible as an expression of emotion, as a meditative inter- pretation of experience.

In place of the term "meditative lyric" which Car- penter suggests, it might be better to create. a finer

29 30 distinction and call Jeffers' short pieces "philosophical

lyrics, .. for as Carpenter himself has observed, " ... all of these poems .•. emphasize and attempt to define their author's criticism of life. 113 Jeffers' lyrics individually reflect fragments of his philosophy, and integrated together, they express very nearly the whole of it. In practically every short poem, Jeffers creates a persona, 4 " ... his own demi-god," that watches and records the strug­ gles of man and nature, and then presents those struggles largely through images and symbols. The persona is very much like the Inhumanist of 11 The Double Axe," interpreting experience in terms of a central philosophy, and then selecting the proper mode in which to express the inter­ pretation. Thus the short lyrics are more than the simple meditative responses to experience that they seem; they are a complex expression of Jeffers' philosophy of Inhumanism.

Although the lyrics are derived from this central philosophy, the tone of individual poems varies a great deal, encompassing harsh didacticism, mild reproof, and simple admiration. For example, in "Joy," the initial tone is mildly philosophical and only slightly didactic. But when the representative voice of mankind intrudes ( 11 I am neither mountain nor bird /Nor star; and I seek joy"), the tone shifts. As the poem focusses on mankind, the tone is much harsher and joy becomes "The weakness of your breed." 5

In poems .such as 11 Shine, Perishing Republic, .. the didactic 31 tone is almost constant: " .•. be in nothing so moderate as in love of man" (SP. 168). In poems such as "The Cruel

Falcon," the didacticism is mixed with admiration for a part of the natural universe: "He shall look up above the stalled oxen /Envying the cruel Falcon" (SP. 562}. Here the tone softens.

The poetic tone is controlled essentially by the phil­ osophic purpose of the lyric. When the persona feels a need for direct discourse with the reader, the tone becomes more didactic; but when the persona presents an image of nature, the tone becomes less strident and many times the admiration for, or at the very least acceptance of, the image is deemed enough to achieve the philpsophic intent.

It is this latter type of poem that Jeffers.writes best.

According to Mercedes Cunningham Monjian, "His philosophy in these poems becomes secondary to the language and the imagery which uses nature as a mirror to reflect more 6 intensely our own blemishes." The effect is more subtle and certainly less objectionable than the didactic approach and allows the reader to depend more upon Jeffers' images and symbols than upon his rhetoric for an understanding of

Inhumanism.

Although the combination of the rhetoric, the symbol­ ism, and the imagery are sometimes very effective, what

Everson calls " ..• that sense of revealment and almost 7 inexpressable mystery of natural being" is expressed 32

r ,

primarily through the imagery. Jeffers achieves his con-

siderable poetic power from the same source. Thus, it is

through the imagery, and the poetic symbols it contains,

that Jeffers most effectively communicates his lyrical vision. This can be shown by an analysis of the imagery

·and symbolism in a selection of Jeffers' short verse.

In Themes in My Poems, Jeffers obliquely referred to his poem "Hurt Hawks,"

... it occured to me that those birds of prey fly so often through my verses that hawk and falcon might be called a characteristic theme in them. This is partly because there are so many in our mountains, and so many kinds,--marshhawk and red­ tail, Cooper's hawk and sparrow hawk and duck­ hawk--that is the American Peregrine falcon--but I won't continue the list. And partly because the hawk has symbolic values that are all the better for being diverse and multi-form. And partly because I nursed a broken-winged hawk once and its savage individualism caught my fancy.S

The "~6~ken-winged hawk" is, of course, the hawk which appears as the central symbol in "Hurt Hawks," a poem that has been called, " ... one of the great poems of modern lit­ erature."9 Jeffers' obvious regard for the hawk as a

."diverse and multi-form 11 symbol means that its use indi- cates diverse and multi-form levels in the poetry. This is apparent by the explication of both the symbolic hawk and the imagery that attaches to it in "Hurt Hawks."

"Hurt Hawks" essentially has a problem-solution type of structure. It is broken into two parts, the first con- taining the presentation and development of the symbolic hawk that is barely clinging to life because of a serious 33 injury. The second part presents the denouement, the solu­ tion to the pain and suffering of the grounded hunter. The images in both parts are unsentimental and even disturbing in their graphic depiction of an animal's pain, but they are also consistent with Jeffers' vision of nature that includes both suffering and harmony.

The opening lines of the first part present immedi­ ately the hawk, a victim of some unnamed, but serious, calamity, "The broken pillar of the wing jags from the clotted shoulder /The wing trails like a banner in defeat"

(SP. 198). To reinforce the seriousness of the injury, the hawk, " ... stands under the oak-bush and waits /The lame feet of salvation," and " •.. cat nor coyote /Will shorten the week of waiting for death" (SP. 198). Thus the hawk's injuries are certainly mortal, and only time separates the bird from death. Further, since neither cat nor coyote will shorten the time that the hawk must wait for death, then there must be an as yet unknown element that protects the vulnerable hawk from predators.

However, despite his need for protection, the hawk changes little in essence. At night " ... he remembers free­ dom /And flies in a dream" (SP. 198). Thus, through his animal consciousness, he reamins allied to his native ele­ ment. He is " ... strong, and pain is worse to the strong, incapacity is worse, .. and he is arrogant, as well as intem­ perate, and savage (SP. 198). 34

Thus, Jeffers' image of the hawk is decidedly inhuman.

Broken and in pain, it remains indifferent, strong, and

savage; poised readiness is reflected in terrible eyes.

But, despite its savagry and arrogance, the hawk remembers

"The wild God of the world" something only " ... men that are dying" (SP. 198) can perceive.

In the second part of the poem, the view point shifts away from the hawk to the poet who declares,

I'd sooner, except the penalties, kill a man than a hawk; but the great redtail Had nothing left but unable misery From the bone too shattered for mending, the wing that trailed under his talons when he moved.

Then the startling words, "We had fed him six weeks"

(SP. 198). Thus, it is revealed that the merciless hawk has received the protection of the merciful poet even while the hawk's end is apparent in the poet's regret at the inevitability of a mercy killing.

The second part also reinforces the image-symbol of the hawk, for after the poet has given him freedom, "He wandered over the foreland hill and returned in the evening asking for death" (SP. 198). Despite this seeming resolve for death on the part of the hawk, he still retains

"Implacable arrogance" (SP. 198). Despite his earth- binding wound, the broken hawk retains his identity as a creature of the air. At the end of the poem, after the poet gives him " ... the lead gift in the twilight" (SP. 198), the hawk is reunited with the sky. As he is released from 35

the pain-wracked prison that was his body, the hawk once

again achieves the freedom of flight,

What fell was relaxed, Owl-downey, soft feminine feathers; but what Soared: the fierce rush: the night herons by the flooded river cried fear at its rising Before it was quite unsheathed from reality (SP. 198).

The hawk receives death as a gift, a reward for its

unflagging sameness in the face of pain and unnatural

restriction. Its death is an eager "fierce rush" for a

re-integration with nature.

When this re-integration is finally achieved, the poem's second section ends and the denouement is complete.

But the question of the hawk's function as symbol remains.

What tenets of Jeffers' philosophy, if any, does the hawk and the imagery that supports it reflect? And, what is the

image of "The wild God of the world" that Jeffers presents and how does it integrate with his philosophy?

To answer the first question, a listing of the attri- butes of the hawk is necessary. Jeffers makes it clear that the most important features of the hawk are those of character and so words such as freedo~, strength, arrogance, intemperate, and savage are attached to modify the symbol.

These characteristics remain constant, and the images of his physical state do nothing to lessen his implacable attitudes. Despite being broken in life, with a wing trailing "like a banner in defeat," he still retains the essential life force that releases "the fierce rush" when he is gratefully liberated by death. 36

Thus the hawk's symbolic value lies in its indepen-

dence and its strength. It accepts the savage world of

nature and asks for no pity. It longs to regain its

natural state as a creature of the air and be reintegrated

with the natural universe. And it accepts death as a

release from life--the completion of the cycle. Thus the

hawk represents those aspects of Inhumanism that ask for an

apprehension of the natural world, an integration with it,

and an acceptance of natural cycles. Further, the hawk's arrogance, directed at the poet, reflects the poet's own

seeming arrogance of detachment from human things. In the end, the poet and the hawk are identified with the same attitudes toward humanity, and the poet emphasizes this,

"I'd sooner, except the penalties, kill a man than a hawk."

The poet's identification with the inhuman part of nature

is heightened even more by the use of the word "except," conjuring the sound of its homophone, "accept."

With the closing of the second part, the hawk becomes the projection of the poet's own values of Inhumanism. But what of the wild God of the world? This is a reflection of

Jeffers' pantheistic feeling and is the incarnation of his religious awe. The image has always been remembered by the inhuman hawk, but among mankind only "men that are dying" remember him. Thus, the implication is that mankind must look past himself to see God, and unfortunately only dying men have the detachment of the hawk necessary to achieve this. 37

Jeffers' lyric "Rock and Hawk" is a much different type of poem than "Hurt Hawks." Instead of a miniature narrative, "Rock and Hawk" is more of a pure meditation.

It incorporates two central symbols, " ... grey rock, standing tall /On the headland" (SP. 563), and the falcon which is perched upon it. The presentation of the two symbols, the accompanying imagery, and the meditation upon their meanings is the extent of the poem.

The first stanza of the poem is didactic in tone,

"Here is a symbol in which /Many high tragic thoughts

/Watch their own eyes" (SP. 563). The poet has informed the reader of the coming presentation of a symbol, and that the symbol is to have unusual qualities. The poet is seeking to teach, and he relies upon his choice of symbols to accomplish his task; however, he must also rely on the intuitive powers of the reader to interpret the symbol cor­ rectly. Hence the warning of the coming presentation.

The second stanza is the presentation of the initial symbol, "This gray rock, standing tall /On the headland, where the seawind /Lets no tree grow" (SP. 563). The imagery that accompanies the symbol, the rock, is colorless gray. And the feeling is one of cold from the seawind that plows across the promontory scraping it clear of struggling vegetation. Thus the rock is naked of vegetation, and it is cold in the seawind. But it nevertheless stands tall against it. 38

The third stanza's imagery develops the symbol still further: "Earthquake-proved, and signatured /By ages of storm" (SP. 563). Thus the rock has stood through the cycles of time and withstood the crackings of earth as well as the ocean storms that must frequently roll across it.

It is, as we know, still tall. But the second stanza also introduces a new symbol to consider: that of the hawk,

" ... on its peak /A falcon has perched" (SP. 563).

No more is added to the description of the falcon or the rock. Two symbols have blended into one striking image--the tall rock under the eager talons of the indif­ ferent hawk. To readers of Jeffers' other poems, poems such as "Hurt Hawks," the falcon needs no further descrip­ tion; it is familiar. But readers not familiar with the other birds of prey that fly through Jeffers' work, will soon learn more.

The fourth stanza returns to the didactic tone of the first. The presentation of symbols is complete and the meditative interpretation will begin, "I think, here is your emblem /To hang in the future sky; /Not the cross, not the hive" (SP. 563). Thus, Jeffers has offered the rock­ hawk image as a symbol to supplant the symbols of the cross--perhaps representative of all organized religion and not only traditional Christianity--and of the hive--a symbol that conjures visions of drone-like insects working blindly in a great structure, analogous perhaps to the workers that toil in office buildings. 39

Instead, Jeffers prefers our minds to break away from these symbols and supplant them with " ... bright power, dark peace; Fierce consciousness joined with final /Disinterest­ edness" (SP. 563). These attributes contrast the falcon with the rock and their functions as symbols become much clearer; they begin to take on attributes associated with

Inhumanist doctrine. By integrating together into a single image they represent the integration of natural units into the universe. The power and consciousness of the falcon become associated with the peace and disinterestedness of the rock, preventing an unhealthy turning inward and a decay.

The sixth and seventh stanzas of the poem complete the integration of hawk and rock: "Life with calm death; the falcon's /Realist eyes and act /Married to the massive

/Mysticism of stone, /Which failure cannot cast down /Nor success make proud" (SP. 563). Thus the life power of the falcon and the sleeping mysticism of stone are in fact two aspects of the same existence. The realist eyes of the hawk are the eyes of a predator at home in nature. The mysticism of stone is its implacableness, and its, " ... co­ hesion and harmonious reconciliation with self."10

Thus the poem "Rock and Hawk" is ultimately a presen­ tation of two symbols joined into a single image. The pre­ sentation is framed by the poet's didactic voice which is designed to prod the reader into a specific interpretation 40 of the symbols. Like "Hurt Hawks," this poem presents symbols that are reflective of some of the aspects of

Inhumanism, and the didactic voice guides us in estab­ lishing what those aspects are.

Structurally closer to. "Hurt Hawks" than 11 Rock and

Hawk," "Fire on the Hills" uses a very short narrative opening to record the devastation of a brush.fire as it sweeps across a coastal hillside. The destruction recorded, the poem shifts and becomes a meditation on the event that presents more of Jeffers' powerful symbolism.

The rock and hawk are still present, though in modified form; however a new symbol augments the structure. This pattern of symbols and imagery presents a much fuller incarnation of Inhumanism than the previous lyrics.

The poem begins with an image, "The deer were bounding like blown leaves /Under the smoke in front of the roaring wave of the brush-fire" (SP. 359). The image accomplishes two things at once. It records the flight of animal life before the fire, conjuring sympathetic reactions on the part of the reader. It also introduces one of the primary symbols of the poem, fire, and we understand that it is a very powerful natural force, a roaring wave that disrupts the lives of the animals on the hillside.

After this short section of narrative, the poem shifts to 1a meditation, "I thought of the smaller lives that were caught" (SP. 359). Thus, the poet seems to be about to 41 introduce some sympathetic thoughts upon the fate of the smaller lives caught in a tragic and violent death. But

Jeffers surprises us with, "Beauty is not always lovely; the fire was beautiful, the terror of the deer was beauti- ful" ( SP. 3 59) •

The destructive force of fire is equated with beauty,· as is the terror of the deer. Not only do these thoughts seem unsentimental to the violence suffered by the animals, but they also seem to be contrary to human responses. But this is precisely Jeffers' point. Fire is a natural, savagely beautiful, force that must be regarded as a part of the universe just as the deer and the smaller lives.

Further, fire is traditionally regarded as an agent of transmutation, a symbol not only of change, but of cycles, since all things derive from and return to fire. 11

Thus, in terms of Inhumanism, fire is beautiful because it comes from nature and is a part of it. It makes possible the natural cycles, returning energy to the soil causing the natural plant growth that the animal life depends upon. The terror is beautiful because it is a part of the natural cycle as well, a response to the agent of purification that will save some of the wildlife to start the cycle anew.

The meditation continues, and the poet introduces the remaining two symbols that figure in the poem, " ... and when

I returned /Down the black slopes after the fire had gone 42 by, an eagle /Was perched on the jag of a burnt pine"

(SP. 359). The mountain slopes are a modified version of the rock symbol. They have endured the fire, scarred but intact, much as the rock of "Rock and Hawk" endured the seawinds and earthquakes. Thus the landscape reveals the constant presence of forces greater than man and greater than the animals that perished. And it reminds us of the implacable strength found in inhuman things.

The eagle is a modified version of the hawk that

Jeffers loves so well. It has many of the same attributes of the hawks of "Hurt Hawks" and "Rock and Hawk," and these become apparent as the meditation continues: "Insolent and gorged, cloaked in the folded storms of his shoulders /He had come from far off for the good hunting" (SP. 359). The imagery modifies the symbol--the eagle is insolent and he is cloaked in the folded storms of his shoulders, identi­ fying the eagle not only with nature, but with the winds and storms that are also borne upon the atmosphere. He is a free spirit, and, like his counterparts, is rr-Beautiful and wild" ( SP . 19 8 ) .

Also like his counterparts, the eagle is a predator and the brush-fire has drawn him for the good hunting,

"With fire for his beater to drive the game" (SP. 359).

Thus the fire reappears and is modified into a force of nature that integrates with the needs of the eagle. This is especially important, for not only does this create a 43 dynamic tension in the poem that elevates the eagle-fire

image to a position of dominance over the hillside image, but it repeats the traditional association of fire and eagle as symbols, 12 cementing their mutual integration as interdependent forces of nature.

The joining of these two symbols into a single imagis- tic unit, beater and hunter, is similar to the method of integration of the rock and hawk in the previous poem.

Separately considered, they are fragments of nature that represent important aspects of the universal whole. But their impact together as an integrated complex makes them less fragmented and allows them to stand more completely for the integration of units into nature as well as the natural cycles of the universe.

But the integration in this poem is as yet uncom- pleted. The poet allies bird and fire even more closely in the next few lines: " ... the hills merciless black, /The somber-feathered great bird sleepily merciless between them" (SP. 359). The imagery describing the hills is dark, the colorless result of the destruction of the brush-fire, and the hills are merciless, as is the eagle. Thus, they are joined in dark colors and their common lack of compas- sion links them all into an Inhumanist triad. For like joy, mercy is uniquely human in quality, and nature has no place for it. 44

The poet continues with this theme in the final lines

of the poem, "I thought, painfully, but the whole mind,

/The destruction that brings an eagle from heaven is better

than mercy" (SP. 359). Thus is the meditation complete,

for the poet has made the Inhumanist choice between mercy

and destruction, rejecting mercy, a human quality, for the natural but violent destruction that brings terror to the

smaller lives.

The choice is a terrible one on the surface, but a completely natural, even a necessary, one for the Inhuman­ ist. The destruction represented by the eagle and the fire, as well as the implacable endurance of the hillside, must be chosen. Their rejection, represented by the human quality of mercy, would also be the rejection of a large portion of nature, the force, which for Jeffers, is much more important than mankind. This rejection would leave a vacuum which could only be filled by the assertion of insignificant human concerns, inflating the importance of humanity, and leading to the loss of transcendant natural values.

"Fire on the Hills" represents the most integrated and complete of the lyrics examined so far. The triad of sym­ bols, the eagle, the fire, and the hillside, supports a much more balanced presentation of Jeffers' Inhumanism than the previous two poems examined. The imagery that modifies the symbols--filling them out with a dark presence and an 45

inhuman, yet natural, menace--further emphasizes their role

as reflections of specific aspects of the philosophy. How­

ever, another lyric achieves nearly the same degree of

expression with an almost entirely different combination of

images and symbols. That poem is "Gray vV'eather."

"Gray Weather" is one of the most meditative of

Jeffers' philosophical lyrics. The_symbols and attached

imagery incorporated in the poem contribute to a feeling of

stasis, which in turn invites the poet into a philosophical observation upon nature. However, the initial opening

lines of the poem are ones of action, "It is true that, older than man and ages to outlast him the Pacific surf

/Still cheerfully pounds the worn granite drum" (SP. 572).

The image is one of rhythmic, constant motion; but the

image also contains two of the primary symbols of the poem.

One is the now familiar rock, or in this case the granite drum, enduring the constant ravages of nature in the form of a new symbol, the sea.

Like the hawk or the rock, the sea is another of

Jeffers' frequent poetic symbols. Regarded traditionally 13 as the mother of life, in Jeffers' poetry the sea is also representative of power, inhuman indifference, and violence.

Thus, like the rock, it is a fitting badge for the inhuman forces of nature, and with the rock, it forms another symbol that integrates together major aspects of Jeffers' philosophy. The total image of granite rock besieged by 46

hungry ocean waves brings to mind nature's constant asser­

tion of power, dwarfing human significance, and leading

away from mankind's self-emphasis.

In the next few lines, however, the emphasis changes.

Instead of developing the constant action of wave upon

stone, Jeffers puts everything else in nature into a

stasis, "But there's no storm; and the birds are still, no

song; no kind of excess; /Nothing that shines, nothing is

dark" (SP. 572). This throws into relief the actions of

the tides with the static balance of suspended nature. The

stillness is accompanied with dark images and a sense of

foreboding steals into the poem--for nature is not often so

quiet.

The next lines launch into a more clearly meditative

observation, seemingly both pensive and melancholy in the

tradition of Milton's "Il Penseroso," "There is neither joy

nor grief nor a person, the sun's tooth sheathed in cloud,

/And life has no more desires than a stone" (SP. 572).

Thus, the seeming stillness is not only due to the still­

ness of nature, it is also due to the absence of "a person," and the absences of joy and grief are extensions of the

same idea, for these are not part of nature but of man.

But at the same time, the reason for the apparent stillness of nature is given, as we learn that the sun is obscured by cloud, also indicated by the title of the poem. Thus the gray stillness is the partial result of the coastal over­ cast, and the throb of the tide is the only apparent motion. 47

The stillness of the scene is further emphasized in

the next few lines, "The stormy conditions of time and

change are all abrogated, the essential /Violences of sur­

vival, pleasure /Love, wrath and pain, and the curious

desire of knowing, all perfectly suspended .. (SP. 572). The

lines emphasize words such as 11 abrogated 11 and 11 suspended 11

so that even the initial image of the ocean pounding the

granite drum seems to fade and all action stills. The

poet's meditation extends to all time and change so that,

except for the constant motion of the waves upon the rocks,

the rest of nature appears"asleep, so much so that even

nature's violence, wrath, and pain are tamed. But so is

man, for this seeming peace has ceased even the desire for

knowing, except, of course, upon the part of the poet who

continues the meditation to the end of the poem.

The last lines of the poem continue the meditation

with reinforcing dark imagery and the presentation of a new

symbol, 11 In the cloudy light, in the timeless quietness,

/One explores deeper than the nerves or heart of nature,

the womb or soul, /To the bone, the careless white bone,

/The excellence" (SP. 572). Thus, the stillness, the

unnatural abrogation of all motion, both natural and human,

encourages the poet to attempt to pierce through the heart

and nerves of nature. This thought is especially important

for Jeffers, for his philosophy·has nature integrated into

a universal whole, and the image of the bone seems to

\ 48 indicate that the outward aspects of nature are dependent upon an inner structure, "the careless white bone, /The excellence."

This attempt to apprehend the excellence is very close to Jeffers' idea of integrating with the whole while looking past mankind. According to Jeffers, "It is easy to see a tree, a rock, a star is beautiful,"14 and thus it is easy to see the beauty of the heart and nerves of nature.

But it is less easy to understand the underlying excellence of nature, the white bone that is the inner structure.

Thus, the final result of the meditation is to uncover the skeleton of the universe, the hidden structure that man must attempt to understand and integrate with.

The bone image also integrates very well with the ocean-rock image of the beginning of the poem. The ocean and the rock are outward manifestations of nature, working both with and against each other in constant flux. But the image of the bone that exists beneath these supports the idea of a universal force upon which the other manifesta- tions ultimately rely. It is this inner force upon which the ocean draws its power and its endurance; and it is upon this same force that the rock draws its implacable dis­ interest and its silent endurance. Jeffers once wrote that nature was the face of God. If natural components such as rock and sea make up that face, then it is the careless white bone that must support its outward features while 49

containing its inner essence. Perhaps the white bone, the

excellence, is as close as Jeffers felt humanity could come

to understanding God.

The symbols and images that have been most apparent in

the lyrics--the rock, the hawk, the ocean, the fire--have

all been manifestations of natural phenomena. Especially

in the narrative poems, however, Jeffers occasionally uses

an artificial symbol, usually with significant negative

imagery attaching. But this technique is used in some of

the lyric poetry as well. In his later period especially,

Jeffers' short poems use the mechanisms of war as symbols

for mankind's solipsism and insignificance. But an earlier

poem uses the technique to great advantage while avoiding

the caustic rhetoric found in Jeffers' war-time verses.

This poem is "What Are Cities For? 11

This lyric opens with an observation upon the death of

cities, 11 The earth has covered Sicilian Syracuse, there

asphodel grows, /As golden-rod will over New York~' (SP.

566) . The image of both cities is united by their common

fate--the ancient city of Syracuse is now a ruin covered over by earth and vegetation, and the modern city of New

York someday will be the same. Both the ancient world and the modern world are linked and the implication is that despite mankind's growth in science, engineering, architec­ ture, and technology, he still cannot accomplish the feat of creation that can withstand the timeless assault of 50 natural reclamation. Man's attempts to build a lasting monument are doomed to ignoble failure.

The next few lines emphasize the importance of the vision, "What tragic labors, passions, oppressions,.cruel­ ties and courage /Reared the great city. /Nothing remains

/But stones and a memory haunting the fields of returning asphodel" (SP. 566). The fallen city is even more closely allied to human efforts through the words tragic labors, oppressions, cruelties and courage. These activities and the quality of courage are descriptive of mankind's most intense characteristics, yet they remain unable to hold back the cyclic tide of returning natural claims. Thus the city becomes a symbol for man's puny efforts against time and nature.

In the concluding lines of the poem, the tone shifts and becomes more didactic. The initial symbol of the ruined city has been presented, and now the poet wishes to aid in its explication, "You have seen through the trick to the beauty; /If we all saw through it, the trick would hardly entice us and the earth /Be the poorer by many beau­ tiful agonies" (SP. 566). The poet emphasizes the "you," the link to the reader who has been given the special priv­ ilege of seeing through the trick of mankind. The specific vision is disturbing in its significance since it so belittles the efforts of humanity. But the view is not totally negative, for linked with the symbolic image of the 51 ruined city, is the observation that the world would be poorer but for the effort.

In Inhumanist terms, the final observation seems at first to be puzzling. If indeed the efforts of mankind were insignificant compared with those of nature, the meaning of the symbolic Syracuse, then why would the world be better for them? The answer is that man must build. He must accept his nature along with the nature of the world.

The danger of mankind's self-emphasis only occurs when man turns so far inward that by his own accomplishments he becomes blinded to the power and beauty of nature. This poem is a safeguard against that, for the poet has forced the reader, the emphasized "you," to look at nature's power and man's insignificance. The implication is that the reader will reject the city, symbolic of man's impotence, and embrace nature, the beauty.

"What Are Cities For?" is the reverse of Jeffers' other short poems in its symbolic intent. It does not attempt to provide symbols of nature that contain qualities to aspire to. Instead, it provides a symbol of mankind that contains qualities to be afraid of.- The substitution of these qualities--security, false strength, self­ emphasis--do not provide mankind with the opportunity to take his place among the other components of nature, thus robbing humanity of its true significance and nature of one of her most important parts. 52

The five short poems examined have borne out Carpen­

ter's assertion that the lyrics are largely meditative.

But more than that, they have been philosophical; the sym­

bols and images in the totality of the poems have been over­

whelmingly effective in representing the totality of

Jeffers' philosophy. The basic four tenets of Inhurnanism-­

the belief in man's insignificance, the call for man to

cease human self-emphasis, the desire for man to integrate with nature, and the belief in a pantheistic god--have all

been supported by the imagery and symbolism of the short

poems. The lyrics individually vary in scope, power, and

vision. But there can be no question that the totality of

the short pieces provides a complete and decidedly lyrical vision of Jeffers' rugged philosophy. Chapter IV

THE NARRATIVE VISION

The race of man flies far in dread; his work and dwelling Vanish, like smoke before the tempest's stream, And their place is not known. --Shelley1

Robinson Jeffers' philosophic lyrics heavily depend upon the use of imagery and symbolism to convey meaning.

The hawk, the rock, the ocean, and the bone carry with them a symbolic weight that many times is the essence of the poem. But Jeffers' narrative poems depend as much upon character and plot as images and symbols, for they are fre- quently stories adapted from old myths--classical, Norse, biblical--that, according to Robert Brophy, bespeak the death-resurrection pattern central to ancient cultures.

Thus, Jeffers' narratives become "rituals of mutability," 2 that depict a conflict between the natural world and the human world, eventually solved in some tragic manner by a strong-willed character.

This tragic pattern is so ingrained in Jeffers' narra- tive poems that they are often predictable. The characters are often stereotypes that are not meant to be representa- tions of realistic human beings and the plots tend to end in some form of ritual purging that emphasizes the place of

53 54 the human world within the natural world. This sameness of tragic pattern is often a source of complaint for critics who charge that Jeffers is too narrow in theme and that his preoccupation with the inhuman world is too limited. Fur­ ther, they charge that Jeffers' plots are not really tragic for the characters are never sufficiently admirable, making their decline seem almost justified.

However, despite Jeffers' admittedly repetitious plots, the narratives individually achieve a power that is beyond most of his lyrics. Partly because of sheer length, which allows the development of image structures, and par­ tially because of the ritual-mythic nature of the stories, which are familiar, the imagery supporting the narratives is superlative in scope and power. The natural symbols found in the lyrics are combined into images of the inhuman world that almost eclipse the characters. As Robert Brophy points out, "Jeffers tells us that the protagonists of his poems are not really men but in fact the landscape, which 3 in turn interprets the cosmos." This landscape-protagon­ ist is the natural world against which the human world is in conflict; it is necessarily powerful, and it is neces- sarily triumphant in its struggles.

The images and symbols that Jeffers attaches to the landscape also attach to the characters, giving them less of a one-dimensional appeal, while at the same time linking them to specific traits. These images are sometimes ones 55

of the natural world that closely ally a specific character

with a trait from an animal, or they are sometimes suppor­

tive of descriptions of a character's physical power,

setting that character apart from others and sometimes

pointing to an inner strength of will. Jeffers' male characters many times have this physical strength--like

Lance Fraser in "Give Your Heart to the Hawks," or Reave

Thurso in "Thurso's Landing." But it is usually the female characters that have both the physical stature and the indomitable will, like Madrone Bothwell of "Solstice." In

Jeffers' verse, it is usually these female characters that 4 are, " ... the agents of change, violence, and death."

Thus, the imagery and symbolism take on a larger role than the one they played in the lyrics. Besides conveying the philosophic-meaning, in the narratives they also sup­ port the larger structure--the myths and rituals that them­ selves become vehicles expressing Jeffers' philosophic intent. At the same time, they contribute to the delinea­ tion of Jeffers' characters, giving them attributes that determine how well they fit into the human or inhuman worlds.

Despite the fact that the imagery and symbolism is less responsible for the philosophic weight of the narra­ tives, they still must remain consistent with Jeffers' philosophical views. As a result, many of the images and symbols found in the narratives work in the same way as 56 those found in the lyrics; they stand for specific aspects of Inhumanism that integrate together to express very nearly the whqle of Jeffers• philosophy. The difference is that in the narratives the expression of the whole can be achieved almost entirely within the structure of a single poem. This expression will be explored in a selection of

Jeffers• narrative poetry that includes a poem from each of

Jeffers• three periods.

"Roan Stallion" is one of the most striking examples of Jeffers• narrative vision. Composed during Jeffers• first period--when he was considering different aspects of his philosophy without much concern for their practical 5 possibilities --this short, compact narrative was a quick follow-up to his first mature work, "Tamar." The poem is

Jeffers• first suggestion of his major philosophic code, later called Inhumanism, as well as an explication of a mystic experience.

The poem opens in winter during a light rain to reveal

California, the mistress of a coastal California ranch,

The dog barked; then the woman stood in the doorway, and hearing iron strike stone down the steep road Covered her head with a black shawl and entered the light rain; She stood at the turn of the road. A nobly formed woman; erect and strong as a new tower; the features solid and dark But sculptured into a strong grace; straight nose with a high bridge, firm wide eyes, full chin Red lips; she was only a fourth part Indian; a Scottish sailor had planted her in young native earth, Spanish and Indian, twenty-one years before, he had named her California when she was born.6 57

The imagery describing California during this opening

section is typical of imagery Jeffers uses for women.

Heroic in stature, she is identified with a "new tower,"

which emphasizes the preceding "erect and strong." But

besides the physical strength this implies, California is

also identified with the earth, which combined with the

tower image, itself rooted in earth, seems to suggest an

ambivalent sexual nature. Her name itself is also symbolic,

for California is the end of the continent, the symbolic

end to ages of western migration by civilized man; it is

the coast where mankind must meet the ocean, suggesting a

constant struggle between the oceanic rhythms and the

rhythms of humanity.

Thus, California, the character, would seem to be a

mass of conflict, containing both male strength and female

earth-nurtured roots, as well as the tension of California

the land, containing the forces of civilization and the

rhythmic tides at the continent's end. This early imagery

points to the eventual denouement of the poem, for "Roan

Stallion" is largely the working out of these conflicting

forces contained inside California.

The "iron striking stone" that California hears

heralds the approach of her husband, Johnny. Returning

drunk from an all-night card game, he is coming home

leading a roan stallion that represents part of his winnings. Unlike California, Johnny is not strong, "The 58

pale face of the driver [Johnny] followed; the burnt-out

eyes; they had fortune in them. He sat twisted /On the

seat of the old buggy" (SP. 141). Johnny's "burnt-out eyes"

and "twisted" posture are outward manifestations of a burnt-

out and twisted nature, which Jeffers later expands, "He was

an outcast Hollander; not old but shriveled with bad living"

(SP. 142).

Johnny's lack of inner strength points to a moral lack

as well. He perceives the world in terms of trade, so that

his social obligations always take the form of a transac-

tion, especially his marriage. In return for money that

California needs to purchase Christmas gifts for their

child Christine, Johnny expects sexual favors, "I give you money, I take back the money" (SP. 143). To this Calif-

ornia submits out of necessity, but her strength of will

rebels against it, and she no longer feels desire for her husband.

Against the tension set up by his human characters,

Jeffers places images of nature that throw into relief the human conflict of Johnny and California. After Johnny's

return, comes,

Storm in the night; the rain on the thin shakes of the roof like the ocean on rock streamed battering, once thunder Walked down the narrow canyon into Carmel valley and wore away westward; Christine was wakeful With fears and wonders; her father lay too deep for. storm to touch him (SP. 142). 59

The storm emphasizes the strength of nature and shows that

Johnny is untouched by this strength; drunk from his own excesses of luck and drink, he is incapable of being touched by the natural universe.

But not so California, whose determination to purchase gifts for her daughter's Christmas drives her out into the storm to hitch the mare to the buggy, "Into the dark of the rain; the big black drops were cold through the thin shift, but the wet earth /Pleasant under her naked feet" (SP. 142).

Thus, California, unlike Johnny, is touched by nature in the form of the "wet earth," suggesting a nurturing effect upon her.

These image patterns early in the poem suggest that the triad of Johnny, California, and nature constitute a complex

Inhumanist relationship. Nature is the powerful force of the universe, capable of storms that transcend humanity;

Johnny is the symbol of humanity turned inward, capable only of human concerns; and California is the bridge between, humanity nurtured by nature and comfortable within nature's power.

After California has bartered for Johnny's money, she leaves for Monterey to buy Christmas gifts for her child.

Her return is marked by the first mystical experience of the poem. As she approaches a ford in a stream, cursing

Johnny for wasting precious daylight earlier that morning, the mare pulling her buggy balks. Darkness comes, the 60

rains increase, and California, her gifts, and her mare are

halted before the ford. California reassures the mare with

a touch, but this, "Had wakened a dream obscured real

danger with a dream of danger~ 'What for? For the water-

stallion /To break out of the stream'" (SP. 145). The

image of the water-stallion is California's suppressed

dream of the roan stallion that Johnny won in the card

game. California identifies the power of the stallion with

the power of the water. When the mare refuses to go on,

California leaves the buggy to ride the mare through the

swollen stream, suggesting says Frederic I. Carpenter,

California's psychological identification with the mare and her baptism into the religion of nature. 7

However, this baptism is accompanied by Christian

prayer as California appeals to the child Jesus for help.

As if in response, "Light streamed: rose, gold, rich pur­ ple ... The child afloat on radiance had a baby face, but the

angels had birds' heads, hawks' heads" (SP. 146). The

imagery obscures the true source of California's mystical experience, for the image of the water-stallion and the

images of angels with birds' heads suggest the source is-a wild mystical nature. The prayer to Jesus and the appear­ ance of the child floating on the streaming light suggest a more Christian source. Thus, California still hangs some­ where between the human world, represented by traditional

Christian images, and the natural world, represented by the animal images. 61

At this point in the poem, the triad of Johnny, Calif­ ornia, and nature shifts slightly; the stallion begins to take the symbolic place of nature. After the mystic exper­ ience at the ford on Christmas Eve, California's thoughts begin to dwell increasingly on the stallion, "She hated

(she thought) the proud-necked stallion. /He'd lean the big twin masses of his breast on the rail, his red-brown eyes flash the white crescents, /She admired him then, she hated him for his uselessness" (SP. 147). The imagery attached to the roan, "proud-necked" and the "big twi.n masses of his breast," seems to indicate power and indif­ ference. The symbolic function seems close to that of the hawk in the lyric poetry--a powerful, inhuman force of nature, a force that California increasingly desires to know.

With the arrival of spring, Johnny decides to use the stallion for stud, charging a fee to his neighbors for the service. California cannot watch the roan submit to this degradation, so instead she tells Christine the story of the ford crossing. Her rendition includes telling the story of Mary and Jesus to Christine, but California makes a significant error in the telling. Of Mary, California says, " ... she was the stallion's wife--what did I say-­

God's wife" (SP. 148). By equating God and the stallion,

California has emphasized her drift toward the religion of nature. But the telling of the story also points to the 62 growing parallel between the Christian myth and the stal-

lion myth. Essentially, the stallion has come to symbolize

God, California to symbolize Mary, and Christine, the daughter of California, becomes the symbol of Jesus, hence the feminine form of Christ for her name.

But rather than allow the parallel to become simply a retelling of a Christian tale with new characters,

Jeffers uses the stallion symbol and imagery to reinforce the natural power of God, and minimize anthropomorphic visions of him, "'He lives /Up high, over the stars~ he ranges on the bare blue hill of the sky,' In her mind a picture /Flashed of the red-roan mane shaken out for a flag on the bare hills" (SP. 148). The imagery makes it clear that this God is not the Christian god, but the wild god of nature, and the parallel between them becomes a mirror image of a myth rooted deeply in human consciousness.

At the close of California's tale of the ford, there is what Robert Brophy calls a "choric interlude," a com­ mentary on the story at the mystic leve1, 8 as well as what may be Jeffers' first suggestion of the philosophic idea that would later be called Inhumanism,

Humanity is the start of the race; I say Humanity is the mould to break away from, the crust to break through, the coal to break into fire, The atom to be split (SP. 149).

This interlude emphasizes the importance of the non-human universe, as well as California's own non-human qualities. 63

It suggests through the images of the coal and of the atom the essential energy of humanity that can be released only by turning away from human things and avoiding the,

" ... vision that fools him /Out of his limits, desire that fools him out of his limits" (SP. 149). The interlude is also a gloss upon the meaning of California's second, and most vivid, mystical experience.

Her experience at the ford still vivid, California longs for another mystical vision,

She had seeri Christ in the night at Christmas. The hills were shining open to the enormous night of the April rnoon ... If one should ride up so high might not the Father himself Be seen brooding ... More likely Leaping the hills, shaking the red-roan mane for a flag on the bare hills (SP. 150).

Again California confuses the stallion for God, but her desire for union with God blinds her to her error and she hastens to the stallion's corral. The roan senses her approach and the imagery again blurs the distinction between the Christian God and the god of nature, " ... She leaned on the fence; /He drew away from it, the hooves making soft thunder in the trodden soil" (SP. 151).

Finally, California's identification with Mary becomes so strong that she wishes a fulfillment nearly as great as

Mary's, '"Oh if I could bear you! /If I had the strength.

Oh great God that carne down to Mary, gently you carne'"

(SP. 151), but, "No way, no help, a gulf in nature" (SP.

152). The gulf between humanity and the inhuman world 64 makes the physical mating impossible, but California per- sists, and rides the great stallion into the hills, feeling the great body awakening a desire that is both physical, spiritual, and fully mystic. As California rides into the hills, she leaves behind the human world to attempt inte- gration with the god of nature.

California wishes to break the mold of humanity by submitting to the stallion which to her is God. They reach,

" ... the great arch and pride of the hill, the silent cal- vary" (SP. 152), where California will halt the roan in an effort to re-create the mythic uniting of woman and god.

The setting, "the silent calvary," cements the Christian parallel by suggesting the place of crucifixion of Jesus.

But beyond the Christian myth parallel, the setting is also wildly vast, suggesting the power of nature,

Enormous films of moonlight Trailed down from the height. Space, anxious whiteness, vastness. Distant beyond concep­ tion the shining ocean Lay light like a haze along the ledge and doubt­ ful world's end (SP. 152).

California is ready to accept the nature god and become the atom to be split, "'0 God, I am not good enough ... O clean power! Here am I'" (SP. 153). Here, above the world of humanity, is only the inhuman world of nature where the roan is god and California can attempt to look past her own humanity and transcend it by bridging a

"gulf in nature." 65

But the roan is not quick to bridge this gulf,

He backed at first; but later plucked the grass that grew by her shoulder. The small dark head under his nostrils: a small round stone, that smelt human, black hair growing from it: The skull shut the light in (SP. 153).

The wild god of nature is indifferent to the needs of humanity; it sees the skull of California, full of energy, as only a stone.

At this point in the poem the action shifts so that the inner, psychological action is magnified in intensity and significance, 9 " ... it was not possible for any eyes /To know what throbbed and shone under the sutures of the

skull, or a shell full of lightning" . (SP. 153). California

sees mythic images and symbols thrown up in relief against her imagined violation by the roan. Her psychological uniting with the stallion is identified symbolically with energy, with lightning, and with fire; the roan becomes,

" ... a huge beast in whose mane the stars were netted, sun and moon were his eyeballs" (SP. 154). California has, indeed, broken away from humanity.

But only temporarily, for the next night California is forced to face Johnny's drunken lust. He has brought to the ranch red wine, partial payment for the stud services of the roan. Johnny wishes California to drink with him.

"One glass yet then I show you what the red fellow did"

(SP. 155). But when he fills her glass, it overflows, forming a red pool under the table which Johnny, fascinated, 66 links to blood, "'Who Stuck the pig?'" (SP. 155). His fascination with the wine diverts his attention from Calif- ornia, allowing her to escape outside.

The blood imagery of the red wine becomes a symbol for

Johnny's mortality, for as he follows California outside, he enters the stallion's corral with his dog. The stallion, goaded by the dog, becomes wild, striking out with his hooves. California, who by this time has been given a rifle by Christine, purposely kills the dog, but lets the roan alone, "The stallion wheele-d, freed from his torment, the man /Lurched up to his knees, wailing a thin and bitter bird's cry, and the roan thunder /Struck" (SP. 157). Thus

Johnny's red wine has become his spilt blood.

But California, now free of Johnny, is not totally free of human fidelity. She shoots the roan in spite of the crying in her mind,

And the beautiful strength settled to earth: She turned then on her little daughter the mask of a woman Who has killed God. The night-wind veering, the smell of the spilt wine drifted down from the house (SP. 157).

So ends "Roan Stallion." The poem is an almost corn- plete expression of Jeffers' philosophy, for its entire movement calls for the human integration with nature, the deploring of human excess, and the appreciation of a pan- theistic god. The imagery and symbolism throughout support these, as well as the mythic structure of the story. And the imagery and symbolism have provided another dimension 67 to the poetry, linking with the philosophy of Inhurnanism to form an extremely powerful vision.

"Roan Stallion," like "The Women at Point Sur" and

"Tamar," is largely concerned with the individual's attempt to live within the context of an Inhumanist creed. But, according to Arthur B. Coffin, Jeffers' second period marks a departure from this; increasingly family relationships and social concerns play a more important role in the nar­ 1 rative poetry. ° Family conflicts are set in a more social context, rev~aling these social ties to sometimes be bar­ riers to the Inhumanist experience. Incest often becomes a symbol of extreme social concern, pointing to a turning inward upon humanity and away from nature.

The poems of the second period, then, rely less on the reaction of an individual to a mystic experience--although this may still be included in the poem--and instead become increasingly concerned with the difficulty of maintaining meaningful social relationships while attempting to remain faithful to Inhumanist concepts. One such poem is "Sol­ stice," the story of the Bothwell family's final phase of decay. Like "Roan Stallion," this poem is dependent on myth for its structure; but instead of the Christian myth of Jesus' birth, "Solstice" is modeled on the Classic myth of Medea, so much so as to be an almost faithful modern version of the Greek tale. 68

Jeffers introduces the poem with a storm, recalling the now familiar California coastline,

Under this rain-wind the somber magnificence of the coast Remembers virtues older than Christ; I see the blood brown wound of the river in the black hay, The shark-tooth waves, the white gulls beaten on the black cloud, the streaming black rocks. Ah be strong storm.ll

The image of the storm along the coast is again an image of the power of nature reinforced by the presence of the rocks and the "shark-tooth 11 waves. Besides power, the image also represents the coming tragedy; the rain, the dark colors--

"the black cloud," the 11 black bay," and "the black rocks"-- combine to give a feeling of foreboding, soon to be rein- forced by the imposition of the figure of Madrone Bothwell, the modern day Medea of this contemporary myth.

Like California, Madrone Bothwell is an astounding representation of the female sex,

Long-legged, deep-ribbed, great-shouldered, nothing soft, not even the dark eyed breasts; but like a great engine Built for hard passions and violent labor, and in the bone girdle of the hips to breed warriors (S. 100).

Madrone's physical stature suggests great strength while at the same time emphasizing her sex in much less ambiguous terms than those used in conjunction with California. The image of the engine suggests a repetitive constant asser- tion of her sexuality, which is reinforced later in the poem when it is revealed that she has taken many lovers. 69

But her physical stature is only a part of Madrone; she, like California, is also a headstrong, willful woman.

Early in the poem she learns of her estranged husband's plans to take their two children from the coastal ranch where they live with their mother, "'The court has given him the children, It seems I am a woman of bad reputa- tion' ... She moved in the room like a lioness and said: 'He will not have the children'" (S. 96). Through the lioness image, Madrone is not only allied to the natural world, but her strength. of will, her pride, her power, and her natural protective instincts for her children are revealed. She begins to take on an inhuman dimension that will be rein- forced by imagery throughout the poem.

The news of Bothwell's plans disturbs Madrone, who, careless of the storm, leaves the ranch house to wander in the rain,

Madrone walked on the round Wake of the hill above the house-roof as if she were Herself the rain-wind; the cold fingers trickled through her thick hair and flowed on the great arch Of her breast-bone, down the high plain between the far parted hills that had fed children (S. 97).

The identification of Madrone and the storm, as well as the images of the plain of her breast-bone and the hills of her breast suggest a closer link with the earth and its female nature. It also suggests an inhuman quality, a dimension that suggests Madrone is more than human. 70

But her troubles are distinctly of human origin;

social laws are converging upon her to force her to give up her children to an all too human world, a world Madrone herself feels ashamed to be part of. During her journey into the storm, Madrone descends into a pit filled with brambles and thorns. There she purposely rolls into the

sharp vegetation, cutting and scraping her bare skin. The descent into the earth is a familiar archetypal myth pat- tern, usually representing a symbolic death followed by rebirth. In this case, Madrone emerges scarred and bleeding to proclaim her newly-awakened hatred of her kind.

Asked by her servants why she tortures herself, Madrone replies, "Because I am human" (S. 99). Madrone, ultimately, has the same human bonds that forced California to shoot the roan, but unlike California, Madrone has a re-birth of a passionate hatred of these bonds.

Madrone's self-revulsion envelopes her in a black mood which is more than the result of the imminent loss of her children; it is also the result of the loss of the ranch which Bothwell has sold. This means the loss of a wild place where she has many memories, and the next morning she rides forth to visit, for the last time, the landscape that harbors them,

The whirl wind-shaped laurel where the buck bled; the madrone tree where she met and enjoyed that tall white Lance Fraser in his youth ... the flood spoiled trout pool; the rock where she had cursed God and lived Rose suddenly between two rain-veils (S. 101). 71

This catalogue of locations is especially important in the

poem. It performs a double-symbolic function, for the

images of the madrone tree--an evergreen composed of a hard,

dark wood--the rock, and the buck form a very complex set

of images that are individually symbolic while at the same

time acting as catalysts to recall previous Jeffers narra­

tives. The madrone tree is obviously symbolic of Madrone's

own hardness as well as cementing her identification with

nature. Its association with a lover, Lance Fraser--a

character in "Give Your Heart to the Hawks"--suggests an

alliance with another of Jeffers' tragic figures attempting

to look past humanity. The bleeding buck suggests death as

well as an association with Reave Thurso--the protagonist

of "Thurso's Landing"--who retrieves a wounded and dying

deer while on a hunting trip. The rock is associated with

a past blasphemy of Madrone's, pointing to an indifferent

God unconcerned with humanity. This mass of images forms

an alliance, associating Madrone with other characters who

have tried to work out social conflicts in Inhuman terms,

· while at the same time showing her relationship with the

coastal, inhuman landscape.

But this relationship is about to be disrupted by the

human world that encircles Madrone. Returning to the ranch

house, she finds a former lover, Nelson, who relates the

story of the divorce trial where he was called as a witness

of Madrone's inconstancy. He is quickly followed by the 72 arrival of Bothwell and Bothwell's entourage, consisting of a lawyer, a private detective, and the man who has bought the ranch. Bothwell is the Jason of this myth, and unlike

Johnny·, he is not a "twisted" figure; " ... he was tallest, his chest and belly bulged his big overcoat; but lean-faced, strong blue eyes and a stiff mouth" (S. 104). Thus Both­ well is physically powerful and the "strong blue eyes" and

"stiff mouth" suggest an equally strong inner resolve. He is a more complex character than Johnny, for Bothwell represents the accepted, well-intentioned, normal human concerns. These concerns are transmitted to his children, to his property, .and to his new wife. But not to the inhu­ man world of nature; he loves human things too much, espe­ cially his children, unlike Madrone, who says, "'I do not love them /Extremely'" (S. 107).

Thus, an inhuman complex is formed again, but with a difference. The landscape of the coastal ranch represents one element, the power and inhuman force of nature. Madrone is another element, the character struggling to maintain an essentially Inhumanist stance despite social pressures.

Bothwell is the third element, concerned with the human world.

The confrontation of Bothwell and Madrone forces them even further apart, deepening the chasm of their disaffec­ tion. Bothwell increasingly allies himself with the human world, claiming t·his is the proper environment for the 73 children, Gloria and Ronnie. But Madrone sees it differ- ently,

What can now save them From lives much worse than death, decaying to an average, growing to be like All the other insects that fill the cities and defile the country ... Better the babies dead than such lives for them (S. 112).

The image of the insects recalls the hive image of "Rock and Hawk," emphasizing Madrone's hatred of humanity. This hatred drives her to solve her dilemma in the only way possible--save her children as Medea saved hers.

But at first, Madrone merely wants to prevent the children from leaving. To this end, she sabotages Both- well's car, "She opened the hood of the engine and pried and broke loose a bomb shaped thing from its bearings /And flung it to the trees below. The gas-line dripped stinking blood and the car died" (S. 110). The personification of the car seems to enable it to die an almost human death.

It is a humanized thing that becomes an image for the cul- ture that Madrone would also like to kill, but for now, it merely becomes the butt of her wrath.

But it seems that Madrone's victory over the car is soon to turn to defeat. Bothwell discovers her sabotage, but he remembers an old car that is hidden in a nearby shed.

He demands it from Madrone, who resists, it seems, in vain.

Increasingly it appears that Bothwell will make good his intention of leaving with the children, and the imagery reflects Madrone's despair, "Madrone leaned on the wind 74

like a falling tower her strong body, saying stilly, 'That

worn-out car /Is mine'" (S. 113-114). The falling tower of

Madrone's body seems to indicate her own fall from victory.

But the falling tower is yet propped up by the wind, sug­

gesting an interdependence between inhuman forces and

Madrone. She is leaning on nature as her only support, but

even this support may be inadequate to help her.

Madrone leads Bothwell, wary of another possible sabo­

tage attempt, to the shed housing the old car. Throwing

back the shed doors, she retrieves the ignition key from

the car and offers to hand it over to Bothwell. But

instead, she goes to the steep of the nearby cliff and

flings away the key, "Caught by the wind it made a strange

far flight, compounded of two impredictable /Curves and

three forces" (S. 115). Seemingly, Madrone has snatched

back her victory, effectively cutting off Bothwell from any

hope of leaving with the children. The "three forces" are

the combination of Madrone's arm, the power of gravity, and

the force of the wind, suggesting another image of Madrone

allied with nature, but this time in a much less passive

relationship than the leaning tower image. But once again,

Madrone is about to experience a reversal.

As the key settles among the briars, the men, led by

Bothwell, scramble down the steep face in what would seem a useless attempt to find the tiny key. But, 75

That moment the magnificence and fire of the sun at setting Found the one single flaw in the planetary cloud, for which it had been sounding with golden plummets All day in vain. A fountain of intense light Poured on the ocean and sprayed and scattered

(s 0 115) 0

The intense imagery of sunlight seems to reinforce Madrone's victory. The source of the light is nature, Madrone's inhuman ally, that seemingly is engaging in a splendid celebration of Madrone's triumph. The entire coast is awash in light, but the "golden plummets" soon turn "redder than blood" (S. 115), itaining the sea in a blood-colored light that, like the red-wine pool in "Roan Stallion:," con- tains portents of mortality.

The sunlight continues to bathe the landscape in a red pool of light so that every rock, leaf, and stone are awash in the red glow. And so is, "The ignition key, that toothed slip /Of tarnished metal ... Shined like a star, a red one ... Not blind could fail" (S. 116). Thus, Madrone stands defeated once more as the hiding place of the key is revealed. This experience seems contradictory, for the close relationship that the symbols and images in the poem have established between Madrone and nature would seem to preclude help for Bothwell from this source. But there can be no doubt that the simultaneous appearance of the light with the disappearance of the key are related, perhaps sug- gesting the notion that the human and inhuman worlds are related in ways that defy human understanding, while also 76 suggesting that nature is indifferent even to the strong.

But most likely is that Madrone is being punished for her earlier blasphemy, 11 she had cursed God and lived 11 sug­ gesting that even the arrogance of the strong has a price.

In the mind of Madrone the question is moot. She accepts the loss, recognizing that a power greater than hers is responsible, 11 'He has given it to you' 11 (S. 117).

This recognition serves almost as atonement and strengthens

Madrone's resolve to keep Bothwell from his purpose. Even more clearly, she can see how little is his power, backed by the encircling culture of humanity, next to the greater power of Jeffers' pantheistic god.

Her resolve strengthened, Madrone finally settles on a course of action that will deny Bothwell the children.

Ronnie and Gloria are waiting near the old car for their father to finish his business and take them away. Madrone, feigning a desire to see her children one last time, approaches and asks them if they're glad to leave. Ropnie answers, 11 'No mama. Father says that it's better. /He'll give us things. And he says that it's wrong to hide here, we have to learn how to help people'" (S. 117-118). The

"things" the children are to receive as gifts emphasize

Bothwell's plan to have them increasingly turn from a wild existence with Madrone to a human existence with Bothwell, a turning inward, ostensibly to "help people." 77

However, Madrone has other plans for Ronnie and

Gloria. Uncovering an amulet that she wears around her

neck, Madrone reveals it to be a sheathed knife she has

used to skin game. The knife is offered to Gloria seem­

ingly as a parting gift. But Ronnie sees Madrone's true

intention; he lets loose a scream as Madrone plunges the knife into her daughter's throat, slashing her lifeless.

The noise is drowned by Bothwell starting the car as well as by, "the solstice wind" (S. 119). A solstice is a shift of the earth's rotation that causes a shift in season. The

"solstice wind" indicates a shift here as well, a shift from life to death that increasingly becomes a shift from the human to the inhuman. This shift is especially sym­ bolized by Ronnie, who is soon murdered like his sister, but continues to appear in the poem as spirit.

Madrone quickly enlists the aid of her servant, Mary, to lift the children into the car. But Bothwell, disturbed by the expression on Mary's face, suspects Madrone of another trick. Taking Ronnie from Mary, Bothwell sees,

"The head slipped over, the great wound in the slender neck opened its lips" (S. 121). The grisly image is particu­ larly poignant; Madrone's revealed deed has set a new path, a transition, a solstice.

It has also devastated Bothwell who pleads for God to give life back to the children, "Dear God. For the sake of your son" (S. 121). But Madrone answers for God, saying 78 that he cannot. Her answer becomes a refrain that echoes her victory; she has put the children past the reach of

Bothwell and of his God. Gloria and Ronnie can never again be alive; they will never be a part of Bothwell's human society.

Taking advantage of the temporary grief induced paral­ ysis that grips the others, Madrone slides into the old car and leaves the ranch, " ... with the wounded flowers /That her womb formed" (S. 125). Blood images are woven into the narrative--"red hands" (S. 124) and "Blood on the hocks of horses" (S. 126)--recalling the image of the car that

"dripped stinking blood." The blood imagery ties the children to the car; both become symbols of human manipula­ tion and death. Yet both are, now, in a sense inhuman.

Madrone's victory over Bothwell has been won at the price of the children's humanity. They were fought over like property and became, "poor pawns" (S. 130).

Finally free of Bothwell, Madrone heads for the snow country, giving her time to reflect upon the magnitude of the things she has done. She begins to question her own victory, concluding, "I was too senseless confident /Until the degradation had you in its hands, I did what a sense­ less caged beast killing her cubs .•. " (S .. 128). Madrone has come full circle. The earlier lioness imagery is transformed into the "caged beast" image. The cage is the culture in which she is caught, for which she is not 79

responsible; but it is also her own arrogant hatred of her kind, for which she is responsible. Her hatred of her own humanity has blinded her to the fact that integration with nature can only take place after integration with self.

Madrone is trapped in her own self loathing.

Madrone is left one last task in "Solstice"; she must bury her children. When she reaches the snow country, she believes she hears Ronnie's voice, "Leave us here, mother"

(S. 128). Madrone listens without amazement. It is thus left ambiguous in the poem if Ronnie's voice is actually speaking, his spirit willing itself awake after death, like

Hoult Gore in "The Double Axe," or whether the voice is a phantasm of Madrone's grief-striken mind. But in either case, it seems that Ronnie is broken past human bounds and now wishes to rest at peace in the earth, a symbolic as well as a real integration with nature,

It snowed again and the bodies were never found. Gopher and ground-squirrel And the rooting boar break up the sod in so many places on the high hills .... You almost think you hear them crying in the earth because the thirsty roots have drunk their blue eyes (S. 130-131).

Thus, their bodies and their essence is merged with the earth in an atomic, spiritual, and timeless union.

Aesthetically, "Solstice" seems a much less effective poem than "Roan Stallion," occasionally bordering too close to the grotesque. But in Inhumanist terms, it may be just as successful. The imagery is very effective in 80 emphasizing how social and cultural ties--represented by

Bothwell and his attendants--can prevent the fulfillment of the Inhumanist quest. But at the same time, "Solstice" has a message for those who become too wild in their fanatic desire to be un-hurnan; that message is that this desire too 12 is negative, for, "Man also is a part of nature." And while one may look past inward turning culture, one must not revile one's essential nature. To do so is monstrous.

Jeffers' third period marks the final phase of his developme-nt. Having expressed the problems of a hurnani ty bound too closely by social ties, Jeffers turned somewhat from this theme to consider the individual once more. This time, more convinced of the soundness of his philosophy,

Jeffers became, according to Carpenter, more clearly the 13 philosopher-poet, and less the modern mythmaker. His final long narrative, "Hungerfield," reflects this shift; it is less rooted in myth, yet clearly supernatural in design.

"Hungerfield" also marks a structural deviation for

Jeffers' narrative poems. The core of the narrative, con- cerning the struggles of Hawl Hungerfield and Death, is framed by an elegy, recalling Jeffers' grief-filled year since Una's death. Robert Brophy sees the poem as a par- able by which Jeffers means to exorcise his desire to have 14 his wife back from the dead, a view supported by the opening section of the poem. 81

The poem begins with the observation, "If time is only another dimension, then all that dies /Remains alive; not 15 annulled but removed /Out of our sight." Jeffers is about to challenge that observation in the elegaic section of the poem, for what follows is a meditation upon his memories of his dead wife. In a sense, Jeffers conquers time, as Hungerfield will conquer death, because his poem, containing memories of Una, will make her deathless.

The imagery in this opening section recalls more the imagery of the lyrics than of the narratives. Una is asso­ ciated with the hawk ("Hawk at sea: her great blue eyes are brimmed /With the wild beauty" H. 3), which Jeffers cements to the image of the rock ("Only the homecoming /To our loved rock over the gray and ageless Pacific /Makes her such joy" H. 4). The close association of these two sym­ bols recalls the short lyric "Rock and Hawk," as well as the other Jeffers poems in which the two symbols figure either together or separately. Also important is the image of "the gray and ageless Pacific," recalling again the

Inhumanist fascination with the ocean as well as serving as a stark reminder of Una's own mortality.

Returning to the image of fourth-dimensional time,

Jeffers, almost hopefully, asserts, "It is possible that all these conditions of us /Are fixed points on the returning orbit of time and exist eternally ... [sic]" (H. 4).

But Jeffers realizes that even if this is true, at this 82

point in his conscious awareness, Una is nevertheless dead.

And of himself, "I /Am left waiting for death /Like a leaf-

less tree /Waiting for the roots to rot and. the trunk to

fall" (H. 4). The image of the leafless tree is a symbol

for natural death and decay, a symbol that recalls the life

cycles that are a part of all living things. And, natur-

ally, nothing to be regretted or feared.

The presentation of the next image further emphasizes the death and decay cycle:

... we are cheap as dust, And death is cheap ... and our dear lovers Fulfill themselves with sorrow and drunkeness, the quart at midnight And the cups in the morning--or they go seeking A second lover; but you and I are at least Not ridiculous (H. 4).

The assertion that human life is cheap as dust is a double- analogy. Cheap as dust implies that human life is worth- less, a thing to be spent without regret; but it also implies that it is as costly as the dust that covers the earth, common perhaps, but no less dear in the over-all scheme of things than the earth itself. The drunkeness implies the turning inward upon itself of which Jeffers sees humanity already too guilty. His answer is the story of Hungerfield, the parable that in the telling will be

Jeffers' salvation from such a fate.

The transition to the narrative begins in the final third of the opening section, "In this black year /I have thought often of Hungerfield, the man at Horse Creek /Who 83

fought with Death" (H. 5). Jeffers associates himself with

Hungerfield; they have the same desire to conquer death for

the benefit of a loved one. But Jeffers knows he has

neither the strength nor stamina to do so, for he also-

knows that the result would be monstrous. The story thus becomes a parable designed to ease Jeffers' feelings of

loss by emphasizing the natural and proper role of death in

the world.

The transition is completed by the lines, " ... you can- not hear me, you do not exist. /Dearest •.• " (H. 6). Thus there can be no doubt that the following narrative is for

Jeffers' sake, and not for the dead Una's. As is usual, the opening of the story presents the power of nature,

Horse Creek drives blithely down its rock bed High on the thin-turfed mountain, as we have seen it, but at the sea-mouth Turns dark and fierce; black lava cliffs oppress it and it bites through them, the redwood trees in the gorge-throat Are tortured dwarfs deformed by centuries of storm, broad trunks ancient as Caesar, and tattered heads Hardly higher than the house. There is an angry concentration of power here, rock, storm and ocean (H. 6) .

Nature is ominous, the colors are dark, "black lava cliffs," and power is reinforced by the tight interdepen- dence in the natural world of "rock, storm and ocean." The passage is indicative of coming tragedy; and against this ominous background is the human world of Hawl Hungerfield.

Hungerfield's mother is dying. But like the other

Jeffers' women, she possesses a heroic will and physical 84 stature. She was, "A tall woman, big-boned and aquiline- faced, with thin gray hair /And thin gray lips. She had been on her bed helpless for half a year /Like a ship on a reef" (H. 6) . The final simile, linking Alcmena Hunger­ field to a ship on a reef emphasizes the final powerless- ness of the human condition. Her once vigorous, healthy body is still subject to the decay of disease. She is dying, and like the ship, her power is useless to preserve her.

In contrast to Alcmena's dying body is Hungerfield, a powerful man,

... his great shoulders hunched like a vulture's. There was nothing to do, and he felt his strength Turn sour, unused. He had been a man of violence, and formed for violence, but what could violence do here (H. 7) .

Thus, human Hungerfield is also powerless to stop the disease, cancer, that ravages his mother's frame. He is associated with a vulture, an image that suggests a patient scavenger, waiting for death to come to its victim. Two strong figures are impotent, unable to stop the decay of living, human flesh. But one of them is wai~ing to play a different game with death.

The narrative halts at this point and Jeffers inserts an interlude similar to the ones found in "Roan Stallion."

Here, it serves as an aside to the narrative that links it more closely to the opening lyric, "Here is my wound ... To have watched the bladed throat-muscles lifting the 85 breast-bone, frail strands of exhausted flesh, laboring, laboring /Only for a little air" (H. 7). Thus, Alcmena becomes linked with the hawk-like Una, and both become sym­ bols of final pain and suffering. This, too, is part of the natural world that must be accepted. According to

Jeffers, "The poets who sing of life without remembering its agony /Are fools or liars" (H. 7).

After the interlude is a return to the narrative.

Hungerfield recalls in his mind his service in two world wars. He focuses on the first battle he fought, remembering lying in the hospital afterwards with a wounded belly.

Then, "Death walked in human form, handsome and arrogant ....

It was nothing horrible; it was only absolute power" (H. 7).

The image of an anthropomorphic death, a personified power, is linked to arrogance; but it is also linked to the word,

"handsome," thus suggesting that the terrible power has an unrealized beauty. This is further emphasized by the asser­ tion that Death's absolute power is not horrible, a seeming contradiction in terms. But the contradiction is clearly only a human one, for it is human values, not the values of

God or nature, that brand the power horrible, the same human values that cease to have lasting meaning in the wild universe of nature.

Hungerfield and Death meet, but it is Hungerfield who is the victor, "The blue eyes and the black ones fought in the air; it was Death's that failed" (H. 8). Death's black 86 eyes recall the earlier image of "black lava cliffs," linking two dark indifferent powers together. But this time, Death is not indifferent to Hungerfield's challenge, but prefers to pass him by to avoid the struggle. Thus

Hungerfield has defied the natural order and lived past his time. But he will pay a price for this defiance later, much as Madrone Bothwell paid the same price for her blas- phemy.

His reminiscence over, Hungerfield is again aware of his surroundings, including his dying mother. The door to

Alcmena's room opens revealing Hungerfield's wife, Arab, who enters and offers to watch in Hungerfield's place. But

Arab's entrance has disturbed Alcmena, " ... the gentle touch of the door latch ... had touched the ears of the old woman dying; and slowly, from nerve-complex to nerve-complex,

/Through the oxygen starved brain crawled her mind" (H. 9).

The image of nerve-complexes suggests a purely chemical function of mind, but at the same time indicates a force of will that is equalled only by Hungerfield's.

The poem again turns to nature as night closes about the house and about the dying Alcmena,

Night deepened around the house; the sea-waves came up into the stream, And the stream fought them; the cliffs and standing rocks black and bone still •.. The vast phantasmagoria of night Proceeded around that central throat begging for breath (H. 10). 87

The dark imagery again seems to suggest evil portents. The

struggles of the waves and the stream seem to suggest wild

conflict, and the image of the "phantasmagoria" of night

implies a strong supernatural power is alive in the dark.

The supernatural power is Death who stalks into

Alcmena's room to claim her life. But Hungerfield's vul­ ture presence is armed with memories of a previous strug­ gle. Death assures Hungerfield that, once again, he is to be passed by, but this time, Hungerfield springs at Death,

"But he was like a man swimm·ing a lake of corpses, the newly harvested souls from earth's fields 11 (H. 10). The image of Hungerfield swimming a "lake of corpses" sounds much like the image of Satan swimming through Chaos in

Paradise Lost. His physical strength, moved by a too human loyalty to his mother, is equal to the task and he hugs

Death in his own death-like grip. Finally, "He had wounded

Death. What? The iron force and frame of nature with his naked hands" (H. 11).

Thus Hungerfield temporarily vanquishes Death, dis­ torting the "iron force and frame of nature" so that the world itself must suffer. But in so doing, Hungerfield himself changes. No longer is Death a monster, but instead, it is Hungerfield, "Neither man nor beast died, though they might cry for him. Death whom we hate and love, had met a worse monster" (H. 11). 88

Hungerfield's transformation is recognized by Arab who initially is terrified of him, so much so that her terror is transmitted to their child. But most of all, the trans­ formation is recognized by Alcmena who begins to hate him.

She accuses Hungerfield of drunkeness, but even more impor­ tantly, she taunts him with tales about a secret love affair between Arab and Hungerfield's brother, Ross, "'Take a little more,' she said, 'and go blind--/While Ross goes in to Arab and Death to me'" (H. 13). But Hungerfield shrugs this off, attributing his mother's hate to her sick­ ness, even though she is slowly recovering her strength.

Alcmena's accusations remain unsubstantiated and

Hungerfield never gives them credence. But Arab is tor­ tured by them, forcing her to lash out at Alcmena, "'Quit lying Mother ... It is a dream from hell'" (H. 13). But, symbolically, the accusation is enough. The ambiguous tale of a liaison between Ross and Arab recalls similar inces­ tuous triangles in other Jeffers' narratives. In Jeffers' poetry, the incest symbol always points to humanity turning inward upo~ itself; here it serves the same purpose.

Whether real or imagined by Alcmena, the suggestion of incest is enough to point to the human concerns of the

Hungerfield family. These are the concerns that led Hawl

Hungerfield to wound Death, upset the balance of nature, and will eventually bring down his entire house. 89

Now recovered, Alcmena's hate for her son intensifies.

At the same time, she divorces herself more and more from

humanity in an attempt to embrace the inhuman world that

her son has robbed her of,

She stared at the sea a great deal; She watched the sunsets burn tierce and low, or the cormorants Roosting on the offshore rock, their sharp black wings half spread, and black snaky throats; and the restless gulls Riding the air streams. She watched coldly the great south storms, the tiger striped, mud yellow or purple black Rage in the offing. She seemed to find consola­ tion in them. There is no consolation in humanity (H. 16).

Thus, Alcmena becomes the symbol of the Inhumanist, looking

past herself to the inhuman world, as ever, strong, beauti-

ful, and indifferent. Compared with the world she has been

forced to stay in, nature holds fascination and promise, the promise of eventual death which is the reward for

living one part of the natural life cycle.

As if in response to Alcmena's longing, men and beasts again begin to die; Death has returned to the Monterey coast. This is kept secret from Alcmena, but soon she

learns of the death of a friend through the newspaper. She asks, "'Why did you lie to me, Hawl? People still die!'"

His reply, "'So do the calves ... three or four every night, and no reason known'" (H. 17). The reason, though Hunger-

field may not admit it, is that Death is once again stalking the ranch, looking to reform the balance lost during his last visit. 90

Alcmena is impatient to go to the funeral for her dead

friend thinking that the dead face will hold some consola­ tion for her own condition. Hawl agrees to drive her, but during the return journey, Alcmena attempts to meet Death herself by trying to force Hawl to drive over the brink of the cliff road. Hungerfield resists her oniy to find that

Death has another idea.

At the ranch, Hungerfield finds his wife and child are drowned. According to Ross, "'I was at the stable, you know, unsaddling. I ran down and saw her /Running out on the rocks carrying the baby, crying and running. /She thought someone was after her'" (H. 21). Angry, Hunger­ field strikes his brother, breaking his neck. Death enters the room to claim Ross, but Hungerfield again puts him off.

Driven crazy with grief, he sets the ranch on fire, with the final realization, "'Hell, he gets three for one, and now the whole game. He has tricked me witless'" (H. 22).

Hawl Hungerfield perishes in the fire that ensues, but

Alcmena flees the flames when her resolve to die is con­ quered by the intense pain. The fire, symbolic of change and energy, becomes an agent of Death, restoring the bal­ ance of nature as well as destroying the monster Hunger­ field. Then, once again, Jeffers shifts to the lyrical voice. Addressing the dead Una, he writes, " ... the flame has gone up; nothing human remains. You are earth and air; 91

you are the beauty of the ocean /And the great streaming

triumphs of sundown" (H. 23).

Thus "Hungerfield" ends with the assertion of trans­

cendant natural values over the short, limited values of

humanity. The philosophic vision is complete, man cannot

conquer death for it is an extension of the natural order

upon which all of life is ultimately dependent. To disrupt

death is to disrupt life; thus, Jeffers must swallow his

own bitter pill and accept the death of his own Una. In the end, his only consolation is his Inhumanist vision. Chapter V

CONCLUSION

The poetry of Robinson Jeffers is written to express a philosophy that in its timelessness would appeal to future generations. Jeffers cared little for literary fashion;

" ... the self-consciousness and naive learnedness, the under-graduate irony, unnatural metaphors, hiatuses and labored obscurity" 1 that he saw as too prevalent in the poetry of his time. Jeffers, instead, wished to remain direct; he chose images and symbols familiar to anyone who has ever taken a moment to study a sunset, sit upon a rock, or admire the savage arrogance of a falcon.

However, Jeffers 1 success in his quest was mixed.

Especially suspect was his narrative vision which contains some of the most striking imagery of his entire poetic catalogue, as well as some of the most grotesque. There is no doubt that the re-awakened flesh that is Hoult Gore in

"The Double Axe" is such an image. Designed to shock the reader into an awareness of the consequences of warfare, 2 instead the "nerves and flesh decomposing," invite a dis­ taste that only the strongest stomachs can handle. In addition, Jeffers 1 repetitious plo·ts and unwavering themes

92 93 frustrate readers and critics looking for a new phase in

Jeffers' poetry.

When Jeffers' narratives succeed, they succeed splen­ didly, packed with some of the most striking imagery in modern poetry. Jeffers' nature-god in "Roan Stallion" is one example: "He approves the praise, he that walks lightning-naked on the Pacific, that laces the suns with planets, /The heart of the atom with electrons." 3 This sunset from "Thurso's Landing" is another: "Toward evening the seas thundered on the rock, and rain fell heavily /Like a curtain, with one red coal of sundown glowing in its dark." 4 When Jeffers' imagery is this successful, it mat­ ters less that his themes are so similar; the powerful por­ traits of his Pacific coast are reward enough.

Less suspect is Jeffers' lyrical vision. Jeffers' lyrical expressions are independent of the complexities of myth and ritual and the constraints of plot and character.

They become, on occasion, Jeffers' best poetic expressions, rooted in a complex philosophy, yet seemingly simple in their symbolic representations.

It is this seeming simplicity of expression that has accounted for the surprisingly small amount of critical attention paid the shorter poems. Usually they are regarded as ancillary expressions of Jeffers' peculiar philosophical mood, in themselves of little importance.

However, they comprise many hundreds of verses that in 94

total express the vast complex of Inhumanism as well as

any combination of the narrative poems.

However, the quality of Jeffers' lyrical vision is

again dependent upon the imagery that is woven throughout the poems. Unframed by distracting narrative, these images

are freer to stand alone, becoming symbols of philosophic meaning. Especially powerful is Jeffers' use of natural

symbols like the ocean, the rock, and the hawk that indi- vidually or together are made to stand for the indifference of god, the plea for human integration with nature, the insignificance of mankind, and the powerlessness of human-

ity. These symbols comprise perhaps Jeffers' greatest achievement, the expression of inhuman nature that becomes

Jeffers' inhuman god:

The storm dances of gulls, the barking game of seals, Over and under the ocean ... Divinely superfluous beauty Rules the games, presides over destinies, makes trees grow And hills tower, waves fall. 5

The philosophy that Robinson Jeffers created was cer- tainly much too demanding, and much too disturbing, to be embraced by most of mankind. But Jeffers, mostly, remained faithful to it, living a life of indifferent solitude. His belief in his own philosophy enabled him to develop truly powerful symbols and images; these could only be supplied by a poet of truly powerful vision. NOTES

Chapter I

1Lawrence Clark Powell, Robinson Jeffers: The Man and His Work (Los Angeles: The Primavera Press, 1934), p. 7.

2Lionel Rolfe, "Robinson Jeffers: The Lost L. A. Years," Los Angeles Herald Examiner, 9 March 1980, Calif­ ornia Living, p. 15.

3 Powell, p. 8.

4Powell, pp. 9-10.

5Rolfe, p. 16.

6Rolfe, p. 14. Rolfe quotes John Harris, proprietor of Papa Bach bookstore and a poet and publisher, "He [Jeffers] acquired his love of nature in the nearby San Gabriel Mountains, and he first fell in love with the Paci­ fic not at Carmel but in Hermosa and Manhattan beaches."

7Powell, p. 12. 8 Alex A. Vardamis, The Critical Reputation of Robin- son Jeffers (Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1972), p. 4.

9see James Shebl, In This Wild Water: The Suppressed Poems of Robinson Jeffers (Pasadena: Ward Ritchie Press, 1976), pp. 5-10, for a complete discussion of Jeffers' correspondence with the War Department and his draftboard. Jeffers waffled on his participation in the war, first wanting to be a pilot, then preferring to remain a civil­ ian, then applying for the Balloon Corps.

10Arthur B. Coffin, Robinson Jeffers: Poet of Inhumanism (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 197l),p.8. llv d . ar am~s, p. 5. 12 d . Var am~s, p. 7.

95 96

13Robinson Jeffers as cited by Howard Lachtman, "Sunlight and Mists: The California Odyssey of Robinson Jeffers," Los Angeles Times, 9 Sept. 1979, Westview, p. 4.

Chapter II

1charles Bukowski, "He Wrote in Lonely Blood," Robinson Jeffers Newsletter, No. 46 (1976), p. 40. 2 Frederic I. Carpenter, "The Values of Robinson Jeffers," American Literature, No. 11 (1940), p. 358.

3coffin, p. 15. 4 Robert Brophy, rev. of Robinson Jeffers: Poet of Inhumanism, by Arthur B. Coffin, Robinson Jeffers News­ letter, No. 29 (1971), p. 4.

5coffin, p. 258.

6Robinson Jeffers, The Selected Letters of Robinson Jeffers, ed. Ann N. Ridgeway (Baltimore~ The Johns Hopkins Press , 19 6 8 ) , p . 2 4 6 .

7Friedrich Nietzsche, The Portable Nietzsche, trans. Walter Kaufman (New York: Viking, 1954), p. 124.

8Robinson Jeffers, The Selected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers (New York: Random House, 1959), p. 168.

9Jeffers, Selected Poetry, p. 149.

10Nietzsche, p. 399.

11Jeffers, Selected Poetry, p. 149. 12 william Everson, Foreward, ~T~h~e~D~o~u~b~l~e~A~x~e~a~n~d~O~t~h~e~r Poems, by Robinson Jeffers (New York: Liveright, 1977), p. viii.

13Frederick Copleston, A History of Philosophy, I (New York: Doubleday, 1962), p. 148.

14copleston, p. 149.

15Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, trans. Russell M. Geer (New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1965), p. 594.

16 Jeffers, Selected Poetry, p. 594.

17Jeffers, Selected Letters, p. 209. 97

18Jeffers, Selected Letters, p. 209.

19Jeffers, Selected Letters, p. 201. 20 Radcliffe Squires, The Loyalties of Robinson Jeffers (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1956), p. 175.

21 Jeffers, Selected Letters, p. 209. 22 Jeffers, Selected Letters, p. 7.

23 Ralph Waldo Emerson, Selected Prose and Poetry, Introd. Reginald L. Cook, 2d ed. (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1969), p. 36.

24 Emerson, p. 38.

25Jeffers, Selected Letters, p. 291.

2 6shebl, p. 2 2.

27Andrew K. Mauthe, "Jeffers' Inhumanism and Its Poetic Significance," Robinson Jeffers Newsletter, No. 26 (1970), p. 9. 28 Jeffers, Selected Poetry, p. 147. 29 Robinson Jeffers, Themes in My Poems (San Francisco: Book Club of California, 1956), p~ 18.

30Jeffers, Selected Poetry, p. 168.

31Robinson Jeffers, The Double Axe and Other Poems, Forward William Everson (New York: Liveright, 1977), p. xxi.

32 Jeffers, Selected Poetry, p. 170.

33 Jeffers, Selected Poetry, p. 170.

34 Jeffers, Selected Poetry, p. 170.

35Robinson Jeffers, The Women at Point Sur, Afterward Tim Hunt (New York: Liveright, 1977), p. 97. The poem is indeed about an insane person, Rev. Barclay, who attempts to subvert some of the ideas of Inhumanism.

36 Jeffers, Themes, p. 28.

37s qu1.res,· p. 127 . 98

38 Tim Hunt, Afterward, The Women at Point Sur, by Robinson Jeffers (New York: Liveright, 1977), p. 192. 39 Jeffers, Selected Poems, p. 359. 40 Jeffers, Themes, pp. 23-24. 41 Jeffers, Selected Poems, p. 149. 42 JefferE?, Selected Poems, p. 598. 43 Brother Anoninus (William Everson) , "A Tribute to Robinson Jeffers," Critic, No. 20 (1962), p. 15. 44 Yvor Winters, rev. of Thurso's Landing and Other Poems, by Robinson Jeffers, Hound & Horn, No. 5 (1932), p. 684. 45Frederic I. Carpenter, Robinson Jeffe~s (New York: Twayn Publishers, Inc., 1962), p. 110. 46 Yvor W'~n t ers, Pr~m~ . . t.~v~sm . and Deca d ence (N ew Y or k : Arrow Editions, 1937), p. 34.

47Kenneth Rexroth, "In Defense of Jeffers," rev. of The Loyalties of Robinson Jeffers, by Radcliffe Squires, Saturday Review of Literature, No. 40 (1957), p. 30. 48 Babette Deutsch, "Bitterness and Beauty," rev. of Roan Stallion Tamar and Other Poems, by Robinson Jeffers, New Republic, No. 45 (1926), p. 338.

49 H. L. Mencken, "Books of Verse," American Mercury, No . 8 ( 19 2 6) , p. 2 53 .

50 Mark Van Doren, "First Glance," rev. of Roan Stallion Tamar and Other Poems, by Robinson Jeffers, Nation, No. 121 ~~~~~~~~----~~(1925), p. 599.

51Harriet Monroe, "Power and Pomp," rev. of Roan Stallion Tamar and Other Poems, by Robinson Jeffe~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~--~~~~Poetry, No. 18 (1926), p. 161. 52 James Rorty, "Satirist or Metaphysician," rev. of The Women at Point Sur, by Robinson Jeffers, New Masses, No. 3 (1927), p. 26.

53Rorty, "Satirist," p. 26.

54H. L. Davis, "Jeffers Denies Us Twice," rev. of The Women at Point Sur, by Robinson Jeffers, Poetry, No. 31--­ ( 19 2 8 ) , pp . 2 7 8-9 . 99

55Mark Van Doren, "First Glance," rev. of The Women at Point Sur, by Robinson Jeffers, Nation, No. 125 (1927), p. 88. 56 Jeffers, Selected Letters, p. 116. 57 Yvor Winters, rev. of Thurso's Landing and Other Poems, by Robinson Jeffers, Hound & Horn, No. 5 (1932), p. 684. 58 . Babette Deutsch, "The Hunger for Pain," rev. of Thurso's Landing and Other Poems, by Robinson Jeffers, New York Herald Tribune Books, 27 March 1932, p. 7. 59 Granville Hicks, "A Transient Sickness," rev. of Thurso's Landing and Other Poems, by Robinson Jeffers, Nation, No. 134 (1932), p. 433.

60 H1C. k s, "Sickness," p. 433. 61 Philip Blair Rice, "Jeffers and the Tragic Sense," rev. of Solstice and Other Poems, by Robinson Jeffers, Nation, No. 141 (1935), p. 481. 62 Rice, "Tragic Sense," p. 482. 63 william Rose Benet, rev. of Solstice and Other Poems, by Robinson Jeffers, Saturday Review of Literature, No. 13 (1935), p. 20. 64 Babette Deutsch, "In Love With the Universe," rev. of Solstice and Other Poems, by Robinson Jeffers, New York Herald Tribune Books, 27 Oct. 1935, p. 8.

65Rolfe Humphries, "Jeffers and Pound," Nation, No. 167 (1948)' p. 349. 66 Robert Fitzgerald, "Oracles and Things," rev. of The Double Axe and Other Poems, by Robinson Jeffers, New Republic, No. 119 (1948), p. 22.

67selden Rodman, "Transhuman Magnificence," rev. of The Double Axe and Other Poems, by Robinson Jeffers, Satur­ day Review of Literature, No. 31 (1948), pp. 13-14. 68 Rodman, "Magnificence," p. 14.

69nudley Fitts, "Gigantic Bad Dreams," rev. of Hunger­ field and Other Poems, by Robinson Jeffers, New York Times Book Review, 10 Jan. 1954, p. 18.

7°Fitts, p. 18. 100

71 selden Rodman, "Knife in the Flowers," rev. of Hungerfield and Other Poems, by Robinson Jeffers, Poetry, No. 84 (1954), p. 230. 72 Everson, "Tribute," p. 16. 73 Everson, "Tribute," p. 15.

Chapter III

1Tim Reynolds, "The Stone Mason," Robinson Jeffers Newsletter, No. 20 (1962), p. 16. 2 carpenter, Robinson Jeffers, pp. 96-7. 3 carpenter, Robinson Jeffers, p. 98. 4 Carpenter, Robinson Jeffers, p. 98.

5Robinson Jeffers, Selected Poetry, p. 170. All sub­ sequent page references in the text will refer to this specific edition unless otherwise noted. 6 Mercedes Cunningham Monjian, Robinson Jeffers: A Study in Inhumanism (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1958), p. 90. 7 Brother Antoninus (William Oliver Everson) Robinson Jeffers: Fragments of an Older Fury (Berkeley: Oyez, 1968), p. 64. 8 Robinson Jeffers, Themes, p. 37. 9 william H. Nolte, Rock and Hawk: Robinson Jeffers and the Romantic Agony (Athens, GA: The University of Georgia Press, 1978), p. 25. 10 J. E. Cirlot, A Dictionary of Symbols (New York: Philosophical Library, 1962), p. 299. 11 cirlot, pp. 100-101. 12 cirlot, p. 87. 13 c~r. 1 ot, p. 268 . 14 Jeffers, Selected Letters, p. 291. 101

Chapter IV

1Percy Bysshe Shelley, "Mount Blanc," rpt. in The Oxford Anthology of English Literature, ed. Frank Kermode, et al. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973), p. 413. ' 2 Robert Brophy, Robinson Jeffers (Boise: Boise State University Press, 1975), pp. 16-17. 3 Brophy, Robinson Jeffers, p. 17. 4 Brophy, Robinson Jeffers, p. 17. 5 coffin, p. 8. 6 Robinson Jeffers, Selected Poetry, p. 141. All sub­ sequent page references in the text will refer to this specific edition unless otherwise indicated.

7carpenter, Robinson Jeffers, p. 68. 8 Brophy, Robinson Jeffers, p. 17.

9carpenter, Robinson Jeffers, p. 68.

10 Co ff'1n, pp. 10-11. 11 Robinson Jeffers, Solstice and Other Poems (New York: Random House, 1935), p. 94. All subsequent page references in the text will refer to this specific edition unless otherwise indicated. 12 Jeffers, Selected Letters, p. 291. 13 carpenter, Robinson Jeffers, p. 59. 14 Brophy, Robinson Jeffers, pp. 41-42. 15 Robinson Jeffers, Hungerfield and Other Poems (New York: Random House, 1951), p. 3. All subsequent page references in the text will refer to this specific edition unless otherwise indicated.

Chapter V

1 Robinson Jeffers, "Poetry, Gongorism, and a Thousand Years," The New·York Times, 18 Jan. 1948, Sec. 6, p. 16.

2Jeffers, Double Axe, p. 49. 102

3 Jeffers, Selected Poetry, pp. 149-150. 4 Jeffers, Selected Poetry, p. 357. 5 Jeffers, Selected Poetry, p. 65. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Alberts, S. S. A Bibliography of the Works of Robinson Jeffers. New York, 1933; rpt. New York: Burt Franklin, 1968.

Antoninus, Brother (William Oliver Everson). "A Tribute to Robinson Jeffers." Critic, 20 (1962), 14-16.

Robinson Jeffers: Fragments of an Older Fury. Berkeley: Oyez, 1968.

Benet, William Rose. Rev. of Solstice and Other Poems, by Robinson Jeffers. Saturday Review of Literature, 13 (1935), 20.

"Jeffers' Latest Work." Rev. of Thurso's Landing and Other Poems, by Robinson Jeffers. Satur­ day Review of Literature, 8 (1932), 638.

Bennett, Melba Berry. Robinson Jeffers and the Sea. Folcroft, PA: Folcroft Press, 1969.

Brophy, Robert. Rev. of Robinson Jeffers: Poet of Inhu­ manism, by Arthur B. Coffin. Robinson Jeffers News­ letter, 29 (1971), 4-5.

Robinson Jeffers. Boise: Boise State Univer­ sity, 1975.

Robinson Jeffers: Myth, Ritual and Symbol in His Narrative Poems. Cleveland: The Press of Case Western Reserve University, 1973.

" 'Tamar, ' 'The Cenci, ' and Incest." American Literature, 42 (1970), 241-244.

Bukowski, Charles. "He Wrote in Lonely Blood." Robinson Jeffers Newsletter, 46 (1976), 40.

Carpenter, Frederic I. Robinson Jeffers. New York: Twayne Publishers, Inc., 1962.

"The Values of Robinson Jeffers." American Literature, 11 (1940), 356-366.

103 104

Cirlot, J. E. A Dictionary of Symbols. New York: Philo­ sophical Library, 1962.

Coffin, Arthur B. "Robinson Jeffers: Inhumanism and the Apocalypse." Robinson Jeffers Newsletter, 30 (1972), 6.

Robinson Jeffers: Poet of Inhumanism. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1971.

Copelston, Frederick. A History of Philosophy. Vol. I. New York: Doubleday, 1962.

Davis, H. L. "Jeffers Denies Us Twice." Rev. of The Women at Point Sur, by Robinson Jeffers. Poetry, 31 (1928) , 274-279.

Deutsch, Babette. "Bitterness and Beauty." Rev. of Roan Stallion, Tamar and Other Poems, by Robinson Jeffers. New Republic, 45 (1926), 338-339.

"The Hunger for Pain." Rev. of Thurso's Landing and Other Poems, by Robinson Jeffers. New York Herald Tribune Books, 27 March, 1932, p. 7.

"In Love With the Universe." Rev. of Solstice and Other Poems, by Robinson Jeffers. New York Herald Tribune Books, 21 Oct., 1935, p. 8.

"Or What's a Heaven For?" Rev. of The Women at Point Sur, by Robinson Jeffers. New Republic, 51 (1927) 1 341.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Selected Prose and Poetry. Introd. Reginald L. Cook. 2nd Ed. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1969.

Fitts, Dudley. "Gigantic Bad Dreams." Rev. of Hungerfield and Other Poems, by Robins~n Jeffers. New York Times Book Review, 10 Jan., 1954, 18.

Fitzgerald, Robert. "Oracles arid Things." Rev. of The Double Axe and Other Poems, by Robinson Jeffers-.-New Republic, 119 (1948), 22.

Gilbert, Rudolph. Shine, Perishing Republic: Robinson Jeffers and the Tragic Sense in Modern Poetry. New York: Haskell House, 1965.

Hicks, Granville. "A Transient Sickness." Rev. of Thurso's Landing and Other Poems, by Robinson Jeffers. Nation, 134 (1932) 1 433. 105

Humphries, Rolfe. "Jeffers and Pound." Nation, 167 (1948), 349.

Hunt, Tim. "The Interactive Voice of Jeffers' 'Hunger­ field.'" Robinson Jeffers Newsletter, 43 (1975), 12-17.

Jeffers, Robinson. Dear Judas and Other Poems. Afterward Robert Brophy. New York: Liveright, 1977.

The Double Axe and Other Poems. Forward William Everson. Afterward Bill Hotchkiss. New York: Live­ right, 1977.

Hungerfield and Other Poems. New York: Random House, 1954.

"Poetry, Gongorism, and a Thousand Years," The New York Times, Jan. 18, 1948, Sec. 6, 16 & 26.

The Selected Letters of Robinson Jeffers. Ed. Ann N. Ridgeway. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1968.

The Selected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers. New York: Random House, 1959.

Solstice and Other Poems. New York: Random House, 1935.

Themes in My Poems. San Francisco: Book Club of California, 1956.

The Women at Point Sur. Afterward Tim Hunt. New York: Liveright, 1977.

Lachtman, Howard. "Sunlight and Mists: The California Odyssey of Robinson Jeffers." Los Angeles Times, 9 Sept., 1979, Westview, p. 3, cols. 1-4.

Lucretius. De Rerum Natura. Trans. Russell M. Geer. New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Co., Inc., 1965.

Mauthe, Andrew K. "Jeffers' Inhumanism and Its Poetic Significance." Robinson Jeffers Newsletter, 26 (1970), 8-10.

Mencken, Henry Louis. "Books of Verse." American Mercury, 8 (1926)' 251-254. 106

Monjian, Mercedes Cunningham. Robinson Jeffers: A Study in Inhumanism. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 958.

Monroe, Harriet. "Power and Pomp." Rev. of Roan Stallion, Tamar and Other Poems, by Robinson Jeffers. Poetry, 28 (1926), 160-164'.

Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Portable Nietzsche. Trans. Walter Kaufmann. New York: Viking, 1954.

Nolte, William H. Rock and Hawk: Robinson Jeffers and the Romantic Agony.--~~~-----=~--~~~~~--~~~~------~ Athens, GA: The University of Georgia Press, 1978.

Powell, Lawrence Clark. Robinson Jeffers: The Man and His Work. Los Angeles: The Primavera Press, 1934.

Ransom, John Crowe. The New Criticism. Norfolk, Conn. : New Directions, 1941.

Rexroth, Kenneth. "In Defense of Jeffers," Saturday Review of Literature, 40 (1957), 30.

Reynolds, Tim. "The Stone Mason." Critic, 20 (1962), 16.

Rice, Philip Blair. "Jeffers and the Tragic Sense." Rev. of Solstice and Other Poems, by Robinson Jeffers. Nation, 141 (1935), 480-482.

Rodman, Seldon. "Knife in the Flowers." Rev. of Hunger­ field and Other Poems, by Robinson Jeffers. Poetry, 84 (1954), 226-231.

"Transhuman Magnificence." "Rev. of The Double Axe and Other Poems, by Robinson Jeffers. Saturday Review of Literature, 31 (1948), 13-14.

Rolfe, Lionel. "Robinson Jeffers: The Lost L. A. Years." Los Angeles Herald Examiner, 9 March, 1980, California Living, pp. 14-17, cols. 1-3.

Rorty, James. "Satirist or Metaphysician?" Rev. of The Women at Point Sur, by Robinson Jeffers, New Masses, 3 (1927), 26.

"Symbolic Melodrama." Rev. of Thurso's Landing and Other Poems, by Robinson Jeffers. New Republic 71 (1932) , 24-25. 107

Shebl, James. In This Wild Water: The Suppressed Poems of Robinson Jeffers. Pasadena: Ward Ritchie Press, 1976.

Shelley, Percy Bysshe. "Mount Blanc," rpt. in The Oxford Anthology of English Literature, Ed. Frank Kermode, et al. New York: Oxford University Press, 1973, 410-414.

Squires, James Radcliffe. The Loyalties of Robinson Jeffers. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1956.

Sterling, George. Robinson Jeffers: The Man and the Artist. New York: Boni and Liveright, 1926.

Untermeyer, Louis. "Grim and Bitter Dose." Rev. of Hungerfield and Other Poems, by Robinson Jeffers. Saturday Review, 37 (1954), 17.

Van Doren, Mark. "First Glance." Rev. of Roan Stallion, Tamar and Other Poems, by Robinson Jeffers. Nation 121 (1925)' 599.

"First Glance." Rev. of The Women at Point Sur by Robinson Jeffers. Nation;. 125 (1927), 88.

Vardamis, Alex A. The Critical Reputation of Robinson Jeffers. Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1972.

Warren, Robert Penn. "Jeffers on the Age." Rev. of Sol­ stice and Other Poems, by Robinson Jeffers, 46 (1937), 279-282.

Winters, Yvor. "The Experimental School in American Poetry." In llis: Primitivism and Decadence. New York: Arrow Editions, 1937, 15-63.

"Robinson Jeffers." Poetry, 35 (1930), 279-286.

Rev. of Thurso's Landing and Other Poems, by Robinson Jeffers. Hound and Horn, 5 (1932), 681, 684- 685. APPENDIX

Below is reproduced the complete text of the short poems examined in Chapter III.

Hurt Hawks

I

The broken pillar of the wing jags from the clotted shoulder, The wing trails like a banner in defeat, No more to use the sky forever but live with famine And pain a few days: cat nor coyote Will shorten the week of waiting for death, there is game without talons. He stands under the oak-bush and waits The lame feet of salvation; at night he remembers freedom And flies in a dream, the dawns ruin it. He is strong and pain is worse to the strong, incapacity is worse. The curs of the day come and torment him At distance, no one but death the redeemer will humble that head, The intrepid readiness, the terrible eyes, The wild God of the world is sometimes merciful to those That ask for mercy, not often to the arrogant. You do not know him, you communal people, or you have forgotten him; Intemperate and savage, the hawk remembers him; Beautiful and wild, the hawks, and men that are dying, remember him.

II

I'd sooner, except the penalties, kill a man than a hawk; but the great redtail Had nothing left but unable misery From the bone too shattered for mending, the wing that trailed under his talons when he moved. We had fed him sex weeks, I gave him freedom, He wandered over the foreland hill and returned in the evening, asking for death, Not like a beggar still eyed with the old

108 109

Implacable arrogance. I gave him the lead gift in the twilight. What fell was rela~~d, Owl-downey, soft feminine feathers; but what Soared: the fierce rush: the night-herons by the flooded river cried fear at its rising Before it was quite unsheathed from reality (SP. 198).

Rock and Hawk

Here is a symbol in which Many high tragic thoughts Watch their own eyes.

This gray rock, standing tall On the headland, where the seawind Lets no tree grow,

Earthquake proved, and signatured By ages of storms: on its peak A falcon has perched.

I think, here is your emblem To hang in the future sky; Not the cross, not the hive,

But this, bright power, dark peace; Fierce consciousness joined with final Disinterestedness;

Life with calm death; the falcon's Realist eyes and act Married to the massive

Mysticism of stone, Which failure cannot cast down Nor success make proud (SP. 563).

Fire On the Hills

The deer were bounding like blown leaves Under the smoke in front of the roaring wave of the brush­ fire; I thought of the smaller lives that were caught. Beauty is not always lovely; the fire was beautiful, the terror Of the deer was beautiful; and when I returned Down the black slopes after the fire had gone by, an eagle Was perched on the jag of a burnt pine, Insolent and gorged, cloaked in the folded storms of his shoulders. 110

He had come from far off for the good hunting With fire for his beater to drive the game; the sky was merciless Blue, and the hills merciless black, The sombre-feathered great bird sleepily merciless between · them. I thought, painfully, but the whole mind, The destruction that brings an eagle from heaven is better than mercy (SP. 359).

Gray Weather

It is true that, older than man and ages to outlast him, the Pacific surf Still cheerfully pounds the worn granite drum; But there's no storm; and the birds are still, no song; no kind of excess; Nothin~ that shines, nothing is dark; There is neither joy nor grief nor a person, the sun's tooth sheathed in cloud, And life has no more desires than a stone. The stormy conditions of time and change are all abrogated, the essential Violences of survival, pleasure, Love, wrath and pain, and the curious desire of knowing, all perfectly suspended. In the cloudy light, in the timeless quietness, One explores deeper than the nerves or heart of nature, the womb or soul, To the bone, the careless white bone, the excellence (SP. 572).

What Are Cities For?

The earth has covered Sicilian Syracuse, there asphodel grows, As golden-rod will over New York. What tragic labors, passions, oppressions, cruelties and courage Reared the great city. Nothing remains But stones and a memory haunting the fields of returning asphodel. You have seen through the trick to the beauty; If we all saw through it, the trick would hardly entice us and the earth Be the poorer by many beautiful agonies (SP. 566).