Robinson Jeffers and the American sublime

419 Pages·2012·2.062 MB·English

by  Jeffers, Robinson, Zaller, Robert

Robinson Jeffers and the
American Sublime

RobinSon JeffeRS and the
A meRicAn Sublime
RobeRt ZalleR
stanford university press
Stanford, California
this book has been published with the assistance of Drexel University.
Stanford University Press
Stanford, California
© 2012 by the board of trustees of the leland Stanford Junior University.
all rights reserved.
an earlier version of Chapter 1 of appeared under its present title in Jeffers Studies
(1999). Sections of Chapter 4 appeared as “Robinson Jeffers and the California
Sublime” and “landscape as Divination: Reading ‘apology for bad Dreams,’” in
Jeffers Studies (1997, 2004).
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system without the prior written permission of
Stanford University Press.
library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Zaller, Robert, author
Robinson Jeffers and the american sublime / Robert Zaller.
pages cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978-0-8047-7563-2 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Jeffers, Robinson, 1887–1962—Criticism and interpretation. 2. american
poetry—20th century—History and criticism. 3. Sublime, the, in literature.
I. title.
ps3519.e27z964 2012
811'.52—dc23 2011036727
Printed in the United States of america on acid-free, archival-quality paper.
typeset at Stanford University Press in 10/14 Minion.
For lili, kimon, theresa, and athena
and to the memory of philip

contents
Preface ix
Introduction: Framing the american Sublime 1
1 Heavenly Meditations 13
2 transcendental etudes 46
3 Darwinian Redemptions 96
4 Configuring the California Sublime 150
5 the Sacrificial Son 200
6 Democratic Vistas 273
7 the Cosmological Sublime 321
Post Mortem 359
Abbreviations 371
Notes 373
Index 397

Preface
one day while browsing in the american library in athens, an obscure impulse
moved my hand toward The Selected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers, a book, like most
of Jeffers’ work, then out of print. I opened the book, and fell right in.
at the time I knew no one conversant with Jeffers, and so no one with whom
to share my sense of him as a great poet and my puzzlement at his critical ne-
glect. I found a kindred spirit at last in William everson, to whom I reached out
when I began to write about Jeffers. His generosity and support—far beyond
the merits of my work—inducted me into the community of scholars, poets,
and lay readers being organized around the Robinson Jeffers tor House Foun-
dation and its resourceful president, George l. White. It is my privilege and
good fortune to have enjoyed that happy company, and that of the scholarly
society which grew out of it, the Robinson Jeffers association. Great writers
exert a tidal pull on their students, and that shared experience has made many
warm friendships for me. I am particularly indebted in the present work to
Robert brophy, tim Hunt, Rob Kafka, and James Karman, but also to the many
other colleagues who have shared their insights with me, and who will forgive
me if I do not mention them by name in what, to do them proper justice, would
be a list of unmanageable length. I again thank Dean Donna Murasko of the
College of arts and Sciences of Drexel University for the subvention that has
helped make this book possible, and my editor, Norris Pope, for his support of
a project quite different from my initial collaboration with the Stanford Press.
I am grateful to the readers of the Press for their attentive and thoughtful ap-
praisal of my manuscript. all remaining demerits are mine.
My previous study of Jeffers, The Cliffs of Solitude, examined his major nar-
ratives from a Freudian standpoint. this seemed a natural perspective, since
Jeffers was the first american writer to consciously utilize Freudian themes and
stratagems in his work. I believe this interpretive model remains fruitful, and
it informs the fifth chapter of the present book. Nonetheless, this book is, as its
ix