Robinson Jeffers Biography and List of Works

American poet and playwright, whose works combined themes from ancient tragedies, Old Testament, and the legend of Christ with dark views and absurdities of modern life. Jeffers called for poetry of 'dangerous images', which would 'reclaim substance and sense, and psychological reality.' He believed that 'poetry is bound to concern itself chiefly with permanent aspects of life.'

"I have seen these ways of God: I know of no reason For fire and change and torture and the old returnings."

Robinson Jeffers was born in Pittsburgh. His father was a Presbyterian minister and professor of Old Testament literature, who travelled widely in Europe, where much of Jeffers's early education took place. As a boy, Jeffers had tried to fly with homemade wings and many of his poems describe birds or refer to the myth of Icarus. He attended private schools in Switzerland and Germany and continued his studies of English literature, medicine, and forestry in Los Angeles, Zürich, and Seattle. Jeffers learned several languages - French, German, Latin and Greek. After inheriting money, Jeffers was able to devote himself to writing poetry. His first book, FLAGONS AND APPLES (1912), was a collection of simple love poems. It was followed by CALIFORNIANS (1916), which described the coastal region and its people. These works attracted little attention.

In 1913 he married a divorcee, Una Call Kuster, and in 1914 moved to Carmel, on the Monterey cost of California. He built there a stone house and an observation tower, withdrawing into its shelter to the contemplation of the landscape of sea and mountains and to depict the costal scenery in narrative poems.

Jeffers's breakthrough collection was TAMAR AND OTHER POEMS, which appeared in 1924. It was praised by T.S. Eliot and established his reputation. The narrative title poem draws loosely on the biblical story of King David's daughter, and exhibited Jeffers's preoccupation with the themes of lust, incest and man's destructive self-obsession.

Many of Jeffers's poems were based on Greek and Roman myths, as are his plays. His narratives are often tales of violence, adultery, and incest, set in the Carmel Big- Sur Region of California. Jeffers's best-known work in this field, MEDEA, was an adaptation of Euripides' drama. It was staged in 1946 and 1965, gaining a great success. THE TOWER BEYOND TRAGEDY (1950) was based on two parts of Aeschylus's Oresteia, and THE CRETAN WOMAN (1951) was based on the Hippolytus of Euripides.

"I hate my verses, every line, every word.
Oh pale and brittle pencils ever to try
One grass-blade's curve, or the throat of one bird
That clings to twig, ruffled against white sky.
Oh cracked and twilight mirrors ever to catch
One colour, or the glinting flash, or the splendour of things."
(from 'Love of Wild Swan')

In his youth Jeffers was interested in Freud and Nietzsche. His early influences were the English writers William Wordsworth and Thomas Hardy. Jeffers apparently tested various principles of Nietzsche's philosophy and rejected those that proved untenable. Later he associated more with the works of Walt Whitman. He saw metropolitan life as vicious and corrupting and approved of World War II and the Korean War as methods of eliminating undeserving human beings. After a visit to London in 1928, Jeffers lived an increasingly isolated life. His misanthropic thinking manifested in 'Roan Stallion', wherein a woman allows a stallion to trample her husband to death and then shoots the animal. On the other hand, he believed that mankind can help overcome its suffering by looking beyond its misery to the beautiful universe. - Jeffers died on January 20, 1962.

For further reading: Robinson Jeffers by L.C. Powell (1940); The Loyalties of Robinson Jeffers by L. Squires (1956); Robinson Jeffers by F.I. Carpenter (1962); Robinson Jeffers: Poet of Inhumanism by A.B. Ciffin (1971); The Cliffs of Solitude by R. Zaller (1983); Critical Essays on Robinson Jeffers, ed. by J.Karman (1990); Robinson Jeffers: The Dimensions of a Poet, ed. by R. Brophy (1995); Robinson Jeffers by J. Karman (1995); Robinson Jeffers and a Galaxy of Writers by W.B. Thesing (1995) - OTHER GREAT CALIFORNIAN POETS: William Everson (1912-1994), Gary Snyder (1930-)

FLAGONS AND APPLES, (1912)
SONGS AND HEROES, (1988)
THE COLLECTED POETRY OF ROBINSON JEFFERS, (1988)