Robinson Jeffers: Poet and Prophet

by James Karman

Overview

The precipitous cliffs, rolling headlands, and rocky inlets of the California coast come alive in the poetry of John Robinson Jeffers, an icon of the environmental movement. In this concise and accessible biography, Jeffers scholar James Karman reveals deep insights into this passionate and complex figure and establishes Jeffers as a leading American poet of prophetic vision.

In a move that would define his life's work, Jeffers' family relocated to California from Pennsylvania in 1903 when he was sixteen. While a graduate student at the University of Southern California he met Una Call Kuster, a student who was the wife of a prominent Los Angeles attorney, and they began a scandalous affair that made the front page of the Los Angeles Times. They eventually married and escaped to Carmel, California to write poetry; there they would spend the rest of their lives.

At the height of his popularity in the 1920s and 1930s, Jeffers became one of the few poets ever featured on the cover of Time magazine, and posthumously put on a U.S. postage stamp. Writing by kerosene lamp in a granite tower that he had built himself, his vivid and descriptive poetry of the coast evoked the difficulty and beauty of the wild and inspired photographers such as Edward Weston and Ansel Adams. He was known for long narrative blank verse that shook up the national literary scene, but in the 1940s his interest in the Greek classics led to several adaptations which were staged on Broadway to great success.

Inspiring later artists from Charles Bukowski to Czesław Miłosz and even the Beach Boys, Robinson Jeffers' contribution to American letters is skillfully brought back out of the shadows of history in this compelling biography of a complex man of poetic genius who wrote so powerfully of the astonishing beauty of nature.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780804789639
Publisher:	Stanford University Press
Publication date:	08/05/2015
Pages:	264
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

James Karman, Emeritus Professor of English and Religious Studies at California State University, Chico, is the author of Robinson Jeffers: Poet of California (1987).

Table of Contents

Contents and Abstracts

Section 1: 1887–1905
chapter abstract

Parents William Hamilton Jeffers and Annie Tuttle Jeffers; birth; education in Europe; college graduation

Section 2: 1905–1910
chapter abstract

Graduate literary studies; medical school; affair with Una Kuster; forestry

Section 3: 1910–1915
chapter abstract

Marriage to Una; birth and death of daughter; move to Carmel, California; death of father; book: Flagons and Apples (1912)

Section 4: 1915–1920
chapter abstract

World War I; birth of twin sons; finding a poetic voice; The Alpine Christ; construction of Tor House; book: Californians (1916)

Section 5: 1920–1925
chapter abstract

Response to Modernism; building of Hawk Tower; The Tower Beyond Tragedy;

Section 6: 1925–1930
chapter abstract

Fast pace of American life; Carmel as tourist attraction; growing circle of visitors and friends; travel to British Isles; Great Depression; books: The Women at Point Sur (1927); Cawdor and Other Poems (1928); Dear Judas and Other Poems (1929)

Section 7: 1930–1935
chapter abstract

Friendship with Mabel Dodge Luhan; travel to Taos, New Mexico; premonitions; At the Birth of an Age; books: Descent to the Dead: Poems Written in Ireland and Great Britain (1931); Thurso's Landing and Other Poems (1932); Give Your Heart to the Hawks and Other Poems (1933); Solstice and Other Poems (1935); Roan Stallion, Tamar and Other Poems (Modern Library edition, 1935)

Section 8: 1935–1940
chapter abstract

Machine Age; Bixby Creek Bridge; New Deal; science and technology; Spanish Civil War; neutrality; travel to British Isles; marriage crisis; anxiety and premonitions; books: Such Counsels You Gave to Me and Other Poems (1937); The Selected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers (1938)

Section 9: 1940–1945
chapter abstract

Library of Congress lecture; college and university lecture tour; World War II; Mara; The Bowl of Blood; election to American Academy of Arts and Letters; named Chancellor of Academy of American Poets; book: Be Angry at the Sun and Other Poems (1941)

Section 10: 1945–1950
chapter abstract

End of World War II; Broadway production of Dear Judas; Broadway production of Medea; "Poetry, Góngorism, and a Thousand years;" sons' marriages; grandchildren; travel to British Isles; health crises; books: Medea (1946); The Double Axe and Other Poems (1948)

Section 11: 1950–1955
chapter abstract

Death of Una; Korean War; Broadway production of The Tower Beyond Tragedy; publication of Visits to Ireland: Travel Diaries of Una Jeffers; revivals of Medea; performances of The Cretan Woman; book: Hungerfield and Other Poems (1954)

Section 12: 1955–1962
chapter abstract

Travel to British Isles; community plan for Tor House; Not Man Apart; The Loving Shepherdess; attack by Kenneth Rexroth; international acclaim; death; book: The Beginning and the End and Other Poems (1963, posthumous publication)

Section 13: Afterword
chapter abstract

Modern poetry; Jeffers' achievement

Editorial Reviews

06/29/2015
Robinson Jeffers (1887–1962) arguably never achieved the stature of his contemporaries Edna St. Vincent Millay, Wallace Stevens, Marianne Moore, or William Carlos Williams, but he forged his own poetic path all the same. Jeffers scholar Karman, in this straightforward expansion of his introduction to The Collected Letters of Robinson Jeffers, recounts the poet’s life and work. Karman matter-of-factly chronicles Jeffers’s life from his childhood and education in Europe and his peripatetic college years to his adulterous affair with Una Kuster, whom he married in 1913 following her divorce from her first husband, after which the couple moved to Carmel-by-the-Sea, Calif. Karman also gives close readings of Jeffers’s poems, showing that their greatest theme was the relationship of Eros and Thanatos. While most of his contemporaries composed lyric poetry, Jeffers wrote narrative verse and drama, often recasting Greek tragedies such as Euripides’ Medea in modern settings. Karman’s analysis reveals a prophetic voice who often spoke of environmental destruction and overpopulation. While Jeffers warns that both religion and science are flawed, offering no salvation from human cruelty and inhumanity, he also shows that opening one’s heart and mind to the larger world of nature can offer moments of enlightenment. Although Karman’s colorless introduction lacks the vibrant energy of his subject’s work, it could very well lead a reader to pick up Jeffers’s poetry again or for the first time. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

"Only now, it seems, are we beginning to hear what Robinson Jeffers proclaimed decades ago—that to live an authentic life we must overcome self-centeredness and turn with compassion to the natural world. The wisdom of Jeffers' message is evident throughout his life and work, as James Karman convincingly demonstrates in this splendid book."

author of World as Lover, World as Self - Joanna Macy

"James Karman's new biography of Robinson Jeffers is an excellent introduction to one of America's greatest poets and a fine complement to Stanford UniversityPress' exemplary editions of Jeffers' collected poetry and correspondence, the latter edited by Karman himself. The course of Jeffers' biography is clearly and deftly laid out, with particular attention to the most crucial relationship of his life, that with his wife Una. Each of his published books is individually considered, with trenchant analyses and generous quotations from key texts. The book situates Jeffers both among his major Modernist contemporaries and among the other poets—not necessarily less important—who constituted his milieu. It carefully tracks Jeffers' engagement with the history of his times, and the stance he marked out as its tragic observer. Finally, it shows Jeffers as a figure who evolved a singularly holistic view of humanity's place in the cosmic order at a time of fragmentation and division, and whose relevance to today's world has only grown with time. Karman's book will be of equal value to the introductory reader and the advanced specialist. It is written in a clear and supple prose that rises to more than occasional eloquence, and is generously illustrated with images both of the poet and of the wild California coast he made so uniquely his own."

author of Robinson Jeffers and the American Sublime - Robert Zaller

"Perhaps now, with the publication of the third and final volume of his letters and a short biography by their editor, James Karman, the time has come to bring Jeffers back to a wide readership. The letters detail his life in its dailiness, as well as its surprising outbursts of drama, while Mr. Karman's biography places Jeffers in the context of the literature and events of his era. Taken together, they are very nearly the major, full-length study that Jeffers really deserves . . . [Karman's] biography humanizes the inhumanist and will help new readers understand Jeffers's importance, while leaving room for a full-length life in the future."

The Wall Street Journal - David Mason

"Jeffers sought a plausible and sustaining vision, sought it explicitly outside the human circle, but sought it with an unremittingly human yearning."

Poet Laureate, author of The Wild Iris - Louise Glück

"James Karman's deeply informative biography of Robinson Jeffers situates the poet in his time and place, tracing the effect of both contemporary history and wild nature on his work. In eloquent prose Karman evokes the grandeur of Jeffers's poetry and argues for its author's unique position amid the constellation of major poets of his day."

Harvard University - Edwin Cranston

"Karman discusses each of the poet's major books . . . and celebrates the poet's diverse output: meditative lyrics, long narratives, verse dramas. Karman also addresses issues that made Jeffers controversial . . . [and] urges a reevaluation of this 'anti-modern modernist,' emphasizing the ways in which Jeffers anticipated today's ecological concerns. Succinct, lucid, informative, evenhanded in its judgments, this is the best overview currently available of Jeffers's life and work."

Choice

"A deliberate outlier from his generation of American poets, Robinson Jeffers stood apart both literarily and literally . . . Karman discusses Jeffers' achievements in the context of his, his wife Una's and their twin sons' isolated yet everyday normal family life . . . This elegant review of a truly unique poet who has become a prophet of modern environmentalism belongs in all American literature collections."

Booklist - Ray Olson

"Karman chronicles Jeffers's life in measured prose, and his close readings of the poems draw out the prophetic, visionary voice of Jeffers's verse, most notably in his anticipation of current environmental concerns...Overall, this is an accessible and engaging biography that will be of use both to new readers of Jeffers's work and to advanced specialists."

Forum for Modern Language Studies

"Robinson Jeffers: Poet and Prophet gives us an occasion to get reacquainted with the poet's work. Karman economically tracks the development of the poetry in parallel with the events and trends of the times."

On the Seawall: A Literary Website by Ron Slate - Ron Slate

"Robinson Jeffers: Poet and Prophet gives us an occasion to get reacquainted with the poet's work. Karman economically tracks the development of the poetry in parallel with the events and trends of the times."—Ron Slate, On the Seawall: A Literary Website by Ron Slate


"A deliberate outlier from his generation of American poets, Robinson Jeffers stood apart both literarily and literally . . . Karman discusses Jeffers' achievements in the context of his, his wife Una's and their twin sons' isolated yet everyday normal family life . . . This elegant review of a truly unique poet who has become a prophet of modern environmentalism belongs in all American literature collections."—Ray Olson, Booklist


"Perhaps now, with the publication of the third and final volume of his letters and a short biography by their editor, James Karman, the time has come to bring Jeffers back to a wide readership. The letters detail his life in its dailiness, as well as its surprising outbursts of drama, while Mr. Karman's biography places Jeffers in the context of the literature and events of his era. Taken together, they are very nearly the major, full-length study that Jeffers really deserves . . . [Karman's] biography humanizes the inhumanist and will help new readers understand Jeffers's importance, while leaving room for a full-length life in the future."—David Mason, The Wall Street Journal


"Jeffers sought a plausible and sustaining vision, sought it explicitly outside the human circle, but sought it with an unremittingly human yearning."—Louise Glück, Poet Laureate, author of The Wild Iris


"James Karman's deeply informative biography of Robinson Jeffers situates the poet in his time and place, tracing the effect of both contemporary history and wild nature on his work. In eloquent prose Karman evokes the grandeur of Jeffers's poetry and argues for its author's unique position amid the constellation of major poets of his day."—Edwin Cranston, Harvard University
"James Karman's new biography of Robinson Jeffers is an excellent introduction to one of America's greatest poets and a fine complement to Stanford University Press' exemplary editions of Jeffers' collected poetry and correspondence, the latter edited by Karman himself. The course of Jeffers' biography is clearly and deftly laid out, with particular attention to the most crucial relationship of his life, that with his wife Una. Each of his published books is individually considered, with trenchant analyses and generous quotations from key texts. The book situates Jeffers both among his major Modernist contemporaries and among the other poets—not necessarily less important—who constituted his milieu. It carefully tracks Jeffers' engagement with the history of his times, and the stance he marked out as its tragic observer. Finally, it shows Jeffers as a figure who evolved a singularly holistic view of humanity's place in the cosmic order at a time of fragmentation and division, and whose relevance to today's world has only grown with time. Karman's book will be of equal value to the introductory reader and the advanced specialist. It is written in a clear and supple prose that rises to more than occasional eloquence, and is generously illustrated with images both of the poet and of the wild California coast he made so uniquely his own."—Robert Zaller, author of Robinson Jeffers and the American Sublime
"Only now, it seems, are we beginning to hear what Robinson Jeffers proclaimed decades ago—that to live an authentic life we must overcome self-centeredness and turn with compassion to the natural world. The wisdom of Jeffers' message is evident throughout his life and work, as James Karman convincingly demonstrates in this splendid book."—Joanna Macy, author of World as Lover, World as Self
"Karman discusses each of the poet's major books . . . and celebrates the poet's diverse output: meditative lyrics, long narratives, verse dramas. Karman also addresses issues that made Jeffers controversial . . . [and] urges a reevaluation of this 'anti-modern modernist,' emphasizing the ways in which Jeffers anticipated today's ecological concerns. Succinct, lucid, informative, evenhanded in its judgments, this is the best overview currently available of Jeffers's life and work."—Choice
"Karman chronicles Jeffers's life in measured prose, and his close readings of the poems draw out the prophetic, visionary voice of Jeffers's verse, most notably in his anticipation of current environmental concerns...Overall, this is an accessible and engaging biography that will be of use both to new readers of Jeffers's work and to advanced specialists."—Forum for Modern Language Studies

From the Publisher