Robinson
Jeffers: A Bibliography of
Criticism,
1912–1949
Robert Brophy
INTRODUCTION
The annotated listing that follows complements Robinson Jeffers: A Bibli-ography of Half a Century of Criticism,
1950–1999 (Jeffers Studies 3.3);
to-gether they cover the 20th Century’s critical reflections on the poet.
Successive years will be documented in this journal and on the Jeffers web site.
This compilation selects from, uses, and builds on
Alex Vardamis’s The
Critical Reputation of Robinson
Jeffers (1972) with added help
from Jeanetta Boswell’s Robinson Jeffers
and the Critics (1986), James Karman’s Critical
Essays on Robinson Jeffers (1990), S. S. Alberts’s Bibliography (1933), the Index to the Robinson Jeffers Newsletter
(1996), various other bibliographic works, and personal research.
Jeffers’s comments on critical matters and on his own work are also
included. The listing does not intend to be exhaustive. For instance, many
entries that Vardamis judges “slight,” “trivial,” and the like are
passed over. A number of articles and book chapters from other, diverse sources
were excluded for the same reasons and, of course, some potential entries must
be presumed simply to have been missed. Reviews are entered when they bear
critical weight, carry useful information, or reveal something concerning the
critic or the publication. In essence, this gathering presents
a series of annual bibliographies, 1912–1949, recording significant
material published each year,
starting with the arrival of Jeffers’s first book. Reprints
are included, usually noted as such. Thus the number of items in no way
adds up to an exact count of critical materials retrievable from those
thirty-eight years. It seemed useful to attach short summaries, many of them
conden-sations of the abstracts provided by Vardamis, Boswell, others, and the
compiler’s own research. These brief annotations, usually one or two lines,
are certainly inadequate and could even be misleading; they are no more than in-dications
of article or book content. Since other bibliographies have been used as
sources, serious researchers are reminded that citations should be verified from
original sources lest inaccuracies be perpetuated. The compiler wel-comes
suggestions of substantial items missed and corrections of errors (write <brophy@csulb.edu>
or the editorial address). These will be integrated into the bibliography
as it appears at the World Wide Web Jeffers
Studies Online site <www.jeffers.org>.
Listing begins with 1912, the year of Jeffers’s
first book publication, with a review of Flagons
and Apples. Ostensibly by Los Angeles
Times staff reviewer William Huntington Wright, the review is by Jeffers
himself, submitted under his friend’s byline. For the full text see Robinson
Jeffers Newsletter 47: 8–10 or James Karman’s Critical
Essays on Robinson Jeffers (1990), 35.
Abbreviations: BA
= Be Angry at the Sun and Other Poems;
CA = Califor-nians;
C&OP = Cawdor and Other
Poems; DA = The Double Axe and Other Poems; D-D
= Descent to the Dead; DJ
= Dear Judas and Other Poems; GYH
= Give Your Heart to the Hawks and
Other Poems; M = Medea; RST = Roan
Stallion, Tamar, and Other Poems; Sol
= Solstice and Other Poems; SC = Such
Counsels You Gave to Me and Other Poems;
SP = Selected Poetry (1938); T = Tamar
and Other Poems; TL=Thurso’s Landing
and Other Poems; WPS = The Women at
Point Sur; SM = Bennett’s Stone Mason of Tor House (1966); SL = Ridgeway’s Selected
Letters (1968).
1912
Wright, Willard Huntington. “The Subtle Passion.” Los
Angeles Times: Holiday Book Number 8 December 1912, 17. “First Book.” Colophon
(26 May 1932): 1–8. RJN 47 (Dec.
1986): 8–9. [RJ’s review of his own Flagons
and Apples: he has come close to saying something new about love; poetry
shows traces of Yeats, Swinburne, and Heine; language fluent, some rhythms
forced.]
1916
Braithwaite, William S. Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1916 and Yearbook of American Poetry.
New York: Gomme, 1916. 238. [Californians
has “a distinctive value.”]
Comment on “He Has Fallen in Love with the Mountains.” Literary
Digest 53 (2 Dec. 1916): 1484. [Introduces reprint of the poem: RJ is rather
severe on humanity; misanthropy and misogyny meant to highlight his love of
nature.]
“In the Realm of Bookland.” Overland Monthly 68 (Dec. 1916): 570. [CA: RJ’s bent toward descriptive narrative, a harbinger.]
Jeffers, Robinson. “The Alpine Christ” (unpublished).
[It is worth noting that RJ wrote this, his first play, in 1916, at least
according to William Everson in the Cayucos Books edition, finally published in
1974 (Una put the date at 1918). Everson’s preface, introduction, afterword,
and notes point out RJ’s developing craft at this juncture, especially in the
realm of dialogue.]
____. “A Note About Places.” Californians. New York: Macmillan, 1916. 215–17. [RJ describes the
Monterey Peninsula historically and geologically, then the Santa Lucia
Mountains, forests, and skies; ends with a short glossary or gazetteer of name
places, attributing his plots to the nature of the country.]
Wilkinson, Marguerite. “Concerning Another California
Poet.” Los Angeles Graphic 49 (11
Nov. 1916): 4. [RJ is in the tradition of California poets.]
1917
“Californians in Poetry.” Republican [Springfield, MA] 18 Jan. 1917, 6. [Compares RJ’s
nature poetry with Frost’s.]
Firkins, O. W. “Chez Nous.” Nation 105 (11 Oct. 1917): 400–401. [RJ shows masculinity and
pungency of verse, symbolic value in localism, bravado.]
1920
Henderson, W. B. Drayton. Letter from Macmillan Company, 2
Apr. 1920, rejecting an early version of Tamar
and Other Poems; see Brides of the
South Wind, edited with preface, introduction, afterword, and notes by
William Everson. [Cayucos, CA]: Cayucos Books, 1974. [The rejection notes
“very unpleasant and fleshy incidents,” “ignoble aspects of life,”
“duty to the real and perfect,” and what Macmillan patrons ought not want to
read (page 134).]
1922
Bostick, Daisy F., “Carmel and the Creative Arts.” Carmel
Pine Cone 6 July 1922, 6. [RJ recognized as a local California poet of
note.]
Jeffers, Robinson. “Fragments of the Introduction to
‘Brides of the South Wind.’” Dated by author June 1922; see Alberts
(1933). [It is worth noting that “Brides of the South Wind” (unpublished
until 1974) gathered into a table of contents much of the poetry that appeared
in the 1924 Tamar and Other Poems;
commentary on their editorial challenge and value can be found in William
Everson’s 1974 Cayucos publication.]
Rede, Kenneth. “Seven Books of Verse.” Baltimore
Sun 9 Aug. 1924, 6. [Tamar:
“pain-fully crude throughout”; scarcely a redeeming line; abominably
printed.]
Rorty, James, and anon. “Across the Editor’s Desk.” Sunset
Magazine 53 (Oct. 1924): 51. [“Unique accomplishment in English poetry”;
editors call the book “loathesome.”]
1925
Benét, William Rose. “From Pieria to Mediocria.” Outlook
141 (30 Dec. 1925): 674–78. [Difficult to shock the age; “Tamar”
powerful.]
B[rickell], H[ershel]. “Books on Our Table.” New
York Post 8 Dec. 1925, 14. [“Soul-harrowing . . . a great symphony.”]
Daly, James. “Roots Under the Rocks.” Poetry 26 (Aug. 1925): 278–85. [Genuine passion, ruggedness of
imagery, magnificent rhythms.]
Deutsch, Babette. “Brains and Lyrics.” New
Republic 43 (27 May 1925): 23–24. [Reading “Tamar” is like Keats
looking into Chapman’s Homer; oriental philosophy.]
Jeffers, Robinson. Autobiographical note in “Prospectus:
for Roan Stallion, Tamar and Other Poems.”
[Facsimile in Alberts. 30. Early memories, education, marriage; Car-mel as
“inevitable place.”]
Moore, Virginia. “Two Books.” Voices 5 (Nov. 1925): 70–72. [“Tamar” weak in
characterization, lacks subtlety, but power incontrovertible; high voltage.]
“Pacific Headlands.” Time
5 (30 Mar. 1925): 12. [He sings by instinct like Whitman, hurls images, casts
spells, dreams beauty.]
Rorty, James. “In Major Mold.” New York Herald Tribune Books 1 Mar. 1925, 1–12. [Unequalled since
Robinson; “Tamar” a magnificent tour
de force.]
Sterling, George. “Rhymes and Reactions.” Overland
Monthly 83 (Nov. 1925): 411. [“Tamar” is strongest and most dreadful
poem he’s ever read; serpents around a jar of poison, horrors of life.]
Van Doren, Mark. “First Glance.” Nation 120 (11 Mar. 1925): 268. [Condemns critics and publishers who
ignored T; few volumes have such
force, genius.]
1926
Auslander, Joseph. “Dark Fire, Black Music.” Measure
61 (Mar. 1926): 14–15. [Vitality, affinity to Whitman, occasionally maudlin,
episodic in strategy.]
“Book Notes.” University
of Chicago English Journal 15 (Jan. 1926): 86. [“Terrible imaginings . . .
bright images.”]
Burgess, R. L. “One Hundred and Three Californians.” Poetry
27 (Jan. 1926): 217–21. [Reviews Continent’s
End. Reprinted in San Jose Evening
News 4 Feb. 1926, sec. 1: 6. “A very great Californian.”]
Dell, Floyd. “Shell-Shock and the Poetry of Robinson
Jeffers.” Modern Quarterly 3
(Sept.–Dec. 1926): 268–73. [Marxist rejects RJ’s philosophical pessimism.]
Deutsch, Babette. “Bitterness and Beauty.” New
Republic 45 (10 Feb. 1926): 338–39. [Compares RJ with Whitman in form,
timelessness, and power.]
Eldridge, Paul. “Literary Shots and Snapshots.” American
Monthly 17 (Feb. 1926): 373. [Freudian criticism and comparison with
Whitman.]
Farrar, John. “A Furious Poet from Pittsburgh.” Bookman
62 (Jan. 1926): 604. [Amazing powers of expression; lines of great strength and
beauty; an unforgettable and thoroughly unpleasant performance; readers will be
horrified by magnificent but perverse imagining, yet imparting the quality of
Greek myth.]
Fitch,W. T. “Is There Literary and Artistic Culture in
California?” Overland Monthly 84
(Dec. 1926): 391, 408. [Protests the Eastern Establishment, using RJ as a case
of its slighting.]
Ford, Lillian. “New Major Poet Emerges.” Los
Angeles Times 11 Apr. 1926, sec. 3: 34. [Major poet, greatest America has
produced; passion and intensity; recalls Christopher Marlowe.]
Humphries, Rolfe. “Hail Cal-i-forn-i-aye.” New
York Herald Tribune 7 Feb. 1926, 9. [Marxist critic reviews Continent’s
End: RJ is best when least like Whitman.]
Hutchison, Percy. “An Elder Poet and a Young One Greet
the New Year.” New York Times Book
Review 3 Jan. 1926, 14+. [RJ shows new freedom in use of theme and material,
many of his pages equaled only by the great.]
“Jeffers’ Poetry Vivid and Bold: Has Great Power.” Tennyssean
(27 Dec. 1925): N. pag. [Reaches grass roots, daring and astounding.]
Jeffers, Robinson. “A Great Poet on Sterling.” Carmel
Cymbal 2 (24 Nov. 1926): 8. [RJ as biographical and literary critic.
Alberts. 97, 135-36.]
____. “All the Corn in One Barn.” Lights and Shadows from the Lantern 1.7 (Nov. 1926): 1. [Powell.
Introduction (1932). 214–15. Alberts. 1933. 97, 133–35. Decision to write
only poetry; regrets poetry has lost scope and is inept to deal with real life.]
Lehman, Benjamin H. Review of RST. California Monthly
2.1 (27 Mar. 1926): 37. [Indubitable promise of greatness; rhythms hewn from
coast range granite.]
Leitch, Mary. “Books and Letters.” Virginian-Pilot (3 Mar. 1926): 6. [Salacious, a riot of lust;
lyricism exquisite.]
Mencken, Henry L. “Books of Verse.” American Mercury 8 (June 1926): 251–54. [Fine and stately dignity,
rare virtue of simplicity, promises to be enduring.]
Monroe, Harriet. “Pomp and Power.” Poetry 28 (June 1926): 160–64. [RST:
revolting material; lack of taste and restraint.]
“Pagan Horror from Carmel-by-the-Sea.” [San Francisco
Catholic] Monitor 67 (9 Jan. 1926): 8.
[RJ admired but called “intrinsically terrible” and scarring.]
Seaver, Edwin. “Robinson Jeffers’ Poetry.” Saturday
Review of Literature 2 (16 Jan. 1926): 492. [From New
Masses founder: RJ a primitive; opposite to Whitman.]
Shipley, Joseph. “Blending of Pity & Horror in Work
of Firm-Fisted Poet.” New York Post
17 Apr. 1926, 4. [Compares Whitman, Swinburne, Browning, and Greeks; pity and
horror purging the soul.]
Sterling, George. “A Tower by the Sea.” San
Francisco Review 1 (Feb.–Mar. 1926): 248–49. [Reprinted in Carmel
Cymbal 1 (15 June 1926): 9. Superior to Frost and Robinson; a nova new
star.]
____. Robinson
Jeffers: The Man and the Artist. New York: Boni and Liverigtht, 1926. [First
book-length study; poet friend; laudatory.]
Valentine, Uffington. “The Poetry of Robinson Jeffers.”
Argonaut 98 (13 Mar. 1926): 8.
[“Sheer horror and wild lubricity”; resembles decadent Ford, Middleton, and
Webster.]
1927
“Again Jeffers.” Time
10 (1 Aug. 1927): 31–32. [Gives plot summaries, compares RJ with Homer,
Sophocles.]
Auslander, Joseph, and Frank E. Hill. The Winged Horse. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page and Co., 1927.
411. [Brief mention in anthology for young readers.]
Bland, Henry Meade. “The Poetry of Today.” Overland
Monthly 85 (Dec. 1927): 373–75. [Criticizes RJ’s pessimism and
violence.]
“Book Notices.” University
of Chicago English Journal 16 (Nov. 1927): 749. [WPS “a tremendous and terrible novel in verse . . . the glowing
intensity of Oedipus.”]
Braithwaite, William Stanley. Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1927 and Yearbook of American Poetry.
Boston: Brimmer, 1927. xiv. [Notes WPS;
compares RJ with James Branch Cabell.]
Broun, Heywood. Rev. of Sterling’s Robinson Jeffers. Carmel
Cymbal 3 (23 Feb. 1929): 16. [Ironic put-down and inaccurate biographical
detail regarding RJ.]
Cestre, Charles. “Robinson Jeffers.” Revue Anglo-Americain 4 (Aug. 1927): 489–502. [RJ’s work has
mark of great poetry; influence of Whitman and Poe.]
DeCasseres, Benjamin. “Robinson Jeffers: Tragic
Terror.” Bookman 66 (Nov. 1927):
262–66. [Extreme adulation, exaggerated claims; Carmel is to Jeffers as Wessex
to Hardy.]
Deutsch, Babette. “Or What’s a Heaven For?” New
Republic 51 (17 Aug. 1927): 341. [Profundities too obscure; its drama moiled
with an irrelevant sordidness.]
Eisenberg, Emmanuel. “A Not So Celestial Choir.” Bookman
46 (Sept. 1927): 102. [RJ’s misanthropy equaled only by Jonathan Swift.]
“Eliot and Crane Give Poetry Grand Style.” Miami
[Fla.] News 7 Aug. 1927, 3. [RJ contrasted with them—part agony, part
ecstasy.]
Field, Sarah Bard. “Memories of George Sterling.” Overland
Monthly 85 (Nov. 1927): 334–35. [Sterling was John the Baptist to RJ’s
Christ.]
Gorman, Herbert. ”Jeffers, Metaphysician.” Saturday
Review of Literature 4 (17 Sept. 1927): 115–16. [“A core of willful
urges, sexual obsessions, fogginess of utterance, undisciplined ardors,
prophetic predilections.”]
Hansen, Harry. “The Dark Jeffers.” New York World 19 July 1927, 11. [RJ offers much that is unsavory
and uncalled for.]
Hutchison, Percy. “Robinson Jeffers Attempts a New
Beauty.” New York Times Book Review
11 Sept. 1927, 5. [WPS not equal to
earlier work; lacks restraint, honesty; the bald, reeking confession of a
psychopath.]
Jones, Howard Mumford. “Dull Naughtiness.” Chicago
News 3 Aug. 1927, 14. [Extraordinary passages but an excess of sex,
insanity, and perversity; Jones repudiates the article’s title following
Carpenter’s questioning it in American
Literature 12 (Mar. 1940): 108.]
Jeffers, Robinson. Answers to Questionnaire “Are Artists
People?” New Masses (Jan. 1927):
5–9. [Alberts, 1933. 98, 138–39. SL.
103–04. [RJ: culture is not yet decadent; artists cannot change society;
revolutionaries end up exploitative.]
____. “Poetry and Real Poetry.” The Advance 12 (1 Apr. 1927): 12. [Review of Rorty’s Children
of the Sun and Other Poems. Alberts. 140–43. [Here is intensity, sympathy,
and truth, but RJ rejects Rorty’s revolutionary poems as naïve.]
____. “Song of Triumph.” [Initially unpublished opera
libretto for mythic human
apocalypse: Attis dies of self-mutilation; Earth Mother Mara fails in
renewing life; stabbed by her father, she dies celebrating the evolution,
courage, discoveries, and endurance of humanity; George Antheil to do the music;
Otto Kahn to be producer. See SL. 108.
RJN 73: 4.]
McClure, John. “Literature and Less.” Times-Picayune [New Orleans] 20 Nov. 1927, 4. [RJ’s poetry lacks
the sanity found in excellent poetry.]
Markham, Edwin, ed. The
Book of Poetry. Vol. 1. New York: William Wise & Co. 705. [Introduces
Jeffers.]
Morrow, Walter. “Jeffers’s Sardonic Smile at Futility
of Life is Fanned with Mockery.” Daily
Oklahoman 9 Oct. 1927, 15c. [The masses will not care for it.]
Neidhardt, John G. “Hysterics.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch 9 July 1927, 5. [WPS jumbled and pointless, overwrought, incredible caterwauling.]
“Our Bookshelf.” Step
Ladder 13 (Nov. 1927): 273. [Calls WPS
“literature of putrescence”; contrasts with Hardy.]
“Our Thinking Work.” Chicago
Schools Journal 9 (Apr. 1927): 317–18. [Pantheism; compared with Matthew
Arnold; sustained excellence.]
Pollard, Lancaster. “Jeffers an Example of Modernism.” Seattle
Post-Intelligencer 14 Aug. 1927: 6d. [RS
and WPS reveal vivid imagination.]
Ramsay, Joan. Rev. of WPS.
Overland Monthly 85 (Nov. 1927):
340–41. [Bitter credo, powerful description, hideous subject matter, leaves
exhausted.]
Roedder, Karsten. “Prose Extracts to Test Lyrical
Qualities of Two Great Modern American Poets.” Brooklyn Citizen 3 July 1927, 7. [Comparison of RJ’s WPS
with E. A. Robinson’s Tristram.]
Rorty, James. “Satirist or Metaphysician?” New
Masses 3 (Sept. 1927): 26. [WPS
equals dry puppets dancing; RJ’s physical and moral isolation unfortunate and
dangerous.]
Traggard, Genieve. “The Deliberate Annihilation.” New
York Herald Tribune Books 28 Aug. 1927, 3. [Bothered by RJ’s preoccupation
with cruelty.]
Van Doren, Mark. “First Glance.” Nation 125 (27 July 1927): 88. [Wonders at the need to try further
in this direction; RJ is knocking his head against the night.]
Wilson, James Southall. “American Poetry—1927.” Virginia
Quarterly Review 3 (Oct. 1927): 611–14. [RJ offers sustained interest and
vigor but a stench of decadent art.]
Winters, Yvor. “Robinson Jeffers’ Rich but Violent
Narrative Poems.” Philadelphia Public
Ledger 2 July 1927. [Review of WPS.]
1928
Davis, H. L. “Jeffers Denies Us Twice.” Poetry
31 (Feb. 1928): 274–79. [“The Women at Point Sur” lacks humanity,
sympathy, pity, love, but every page is a triumph.]
DeCasseres, Benjamin. “Robinson Jeffers: Tragic
Terror.” An Artist. Ed. John S.
Mayfield. Austin: privately printed, 1928. [Admiration overflowing.]
Ellis, Havelock. Letter to Jeffers as crusader for sexual
freedom. An Artist. Ed. John S.
Mayfield. Austin: privately printed, 1928.
Flint, Frank Stewart. “Recent Verse.” Criterion [London] 8 (Dec. 1928): 345–46. [RST: A tragic poet; gripping; imagery, movement, pathos gives
intense pleasure.]
Graham, Bessie. The
Bookman’s Manual. New York: Bowker, 1928. 186. [“Tragic folk tales of
Northern California in epical verse.”]
Hutchison, Percy. “Mr. Robinson Jeffers Brings Hamlet to
California” [“Cawdor” brings Theseus and Hippolytus!]. New York Times Book Review 16 Dec. 1928, 2.
Jeffers, Robinson. “The Author Explains.” Cawdor
and Other Poems. New York: Horace Liveright, 1928. Dust jacket. [Alberts.
50–51. “Tamar” looks westward; “The Women at Point Sur” looks upward;
“Cawdor” looks eastward against the earth; races drizzle away; is the earth
amused or sorry; short poems: the common sense of our predicament.]
____. Comments on ‘The Women at Point Sur.” Letter to
Rorty, 5 Aug. 1927. Carmelite (12 Dec.
1928): 12. [Adamic (1929). 39. Alberts. 37–39. SL #122. RJ regrets seeming to romanticize immoral freedom in
“Tamar”; “The Women at Point Sur” warns of Barclay-like hatred disguised
as love, condemns introversion, and urges transvaluation of values; it is tragic
exhibition of essential elements, a psychological study of delusion, a study of
the origins of religion, and a judgment on a decadent civilization.]
____. “Is the Sky Broken?” New York Tribune Books 2 Dec. 1928, 4. [Review of Van Doren’s Now
the Sky and Other Poems. New York: Boni, 1928. Alberts. 99, 147–50. Van
Doren’s poetry is atonement between the American earth and its people.]
____. Letter excerpt to Witter Bynner on criticism of WPS.
Carmelite (12 Dec. 1928): 4. [Alberts.
39. RJ writes out of conflicts and stresses; is petulant at the broken balance
between people and the world.]
____. Note on title poem. An Artist. Austin: John S. Mayfield, 1928, [8]. [Facsimile of title
page in Alberts. 46. RJ was reading Wilde’s The
Soul of Man Under Socialism; it projected a desired independence to the
artist.]
____. “The Rhythm.” Carmelite
(12 Dec. 1928): 5. [Alberts. 150. Chooses rhythm, not rhyme, number of beats to
the line; sources are from physics, biology, pulse, and tides.]
____. “Tragic Themes.” Carmelite
(12 Dec. 1928): 5. [Alberts. 150. Every personal story ends in tragedy; comedy
is an unfinished story; the impersonal and universal story is never finished and
is neither merry nor sad; good and evil are balanced; we are not ill-used.]
Jolas, Eugene. Antholgie
de la Nouvelle Poesie Americaine. Paris: Simon Kra, 1928. 186. [Includes
translation of “Roan Stallion” with a brief biographical and critical note.]
Kantor, MacKinlay. “Plenty of Sex and Plenty of Bible.”
Voices 7 (Feb. 1928): 180–83.
[Review of A Miscellany of American
Poetry: 1927, in which RJ had key poems not reprinted until 1935.]
Lehman, Benjamin H. Foreword. Poems. San Francisco: Grabhorn, 1928. v–xii. [Su-periority of
RJ’s lyrics, authentic and beautiful, informed by neutral science.]
Morris, Lawrence. “Robinson Jeffers: The Tragedy of a
Modern Mystic.” New Republic 54 (16
May 1928): 386–90. [Reviews RJ’s books of intensity, passion, and scope of
thought; the public has not assimilated him; RJ asks the large questions but
ends seeking the peace and oblivion of death.]
O., Y. [A. E., George Russell]. Review of RST.
Irish Statesman 11 (24 Nov. 1928):
234, 236. [Primitive, barbaric, vitality of a Whitman.]
Rowntree, Lester. “Flora of the Jeffers Country.” Carmelite
1 (12 Dec. 1928): 10–11. [Botanical data regarding slopes and canyons.]
Salemson, H. J. “A Gallery of Americans.” Poetry
33 (Dec. 1928): 165–66. [Assessment of Eugene Jolas’s Anthology
of New American Poetry (above); wide panorama of verse from 126 poets of
every school and movement; no evaluation.]
Sandburg, Carl. “The Judgment of His Peers.” Carmelite
1 (12 Dec. 1928): 5. [RJ an equal to Balboa, discovering the Pacific as a
literary source.]
Singleton, Anne. “A Major Poet.” New York Herald Tribune Books 23 Dec. 1928, 5. [Most powerful, most
challenging poetry of this generation.]
Steffens, Lincoln. “Jeffers the Neighbor.” Carmelite
1 (12 Dec. 1928): 1–3. [RJ’s use of cement in building, life, family,
poetry.]
Untermeyer, Louis. Modern
American and British Poetry. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1928.
221–22. [Compares with Sophocles and Whitman; piles on catastrophes with
little humor and less restraint; elemental power.]
Wilson, Edmund. Rev. of 1927 Miscellany. New Republic
53 (8 Feb. 1928): 330. [Gran-diose, original, and distinguished lyrics.]
1929
Adamic, Louis. “Robinson and Una Jeffers: A Portrait of a
Great American Poet and His Wife.” San
Franciscan 3 (Mar. 1929): 6, 29. [Unquestionably has grown since publishing
third-rate story “Mirrors” in the Smart
Set in 1913.]
____. Robinson
Jeffers: A Portrait. Seattle: U of Washington Bookstore, 1929. [Admiring:
“strange verse of excessive intensity and terribleness.”]
Aiken, Conrad. “Unpacking Hearts with Words.” Bookman
68 (Jan. 1929): 576–77. [“Cawdor” a nightmare novel in loose prose-verse;
for all its monstrosities and absurdities and excessive use of symbolism, a very
interesting thing.]
Arvin, Newton. “The Paradox of Jeffers.” New
Freeman 1 (17 May 1930): 230–32. [Review of DJ:
poetry too aloof but capable of much.]
Brown, M. Webster. “A Poet Who Studied Medicine.” Medicine
Journal-Record 130 (6 Nov. 1929): 535–39. [RJ’s use of medical knowledge
in his poetry.]
DeCasseres, Benjamin. The
Superman in America. Seattle: U of Washington Bookstore, 1929, 22–25, 27.
[A Nietzschean gives high praise; finds in RJ Aeschylus, Shakespeare, Chopin,
Blake, Coleridge, De Quincy, Baudelaire, Dostoyevsky, D’Annunzio, Dante,
Wagner, Nietzsche’s Antichrist and Superman.]
Deutsch, Babette. “Brooding Eagle.” New Republic 57 (16 Jan. 1929): 253. [RJ has lost none of immense
power but fails to use it throughout “Cawdor.”]
____. “The Future of Poetry.” New Republic 60 (21 Aug. 1929): 12–15. [RJ, like Yeats, probes
theosophical thought, a vision of the universe large enough to inform a long
philosophical poem, though terrible.]
Drinkwater, John, William Rose Benét, and Henry Seidel
Canby, eds. Twentieth Century Poetry.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1929. 379. [RJ is poet of the greatest stature that
the Far West can claim; overshadows most writers.]
Ficke, Arthur Davidson. “A Note on the Poetry of Sex.” Sex
in Civilization. Eds. Victor Francis Calverton and Samuel Schmalhausen. New
York: Macaulay Co., 1929. 666– 67. [Freudian criticism: RJ’s nightmare sex
designs repel; his aim is to blast the human universe apart.]
Hale, William Harlen. “Jeffers Refines His Fury.” Yale
Daily News Literary Supplement 4 (21 Nov. 1929): 1, 6. [DJ
review: vastness, space-straining stature, qualities from Bible, the Greeks,
Blake, Whitman, and Milton.]
____. “Robinson Jeffers: A Lone Titan.” Yale
Literary Magazine 95 (Dec. 1929): 31–35. [From the Greeks, immutable
destiny; from Whitman, mysticism but based on de-spair “under a canopy of
endless orbits.”]
Hillyer, Robert. “Five American Poets.” New
Adelphi 2 (Mar.–May 1929): 280–82. [Review of RST:
his skill professional, his subjects revolting morbidity.]
“Hogarth Living Poets.” [London] Times Literary Supplement 21 Mar. 1929, 239. [Freudian Criticism: RJ
describing the unconscious mind; review of RST.]
Hutchison, Percy. “Robinson Jeffers Writes Two Passion
Plays.” New York Times Book Review 1
Dec. 1929, 12. [DJ amorphous and
muddy, surging line is strong.]
Jeffers, Robinson. Comment on incest as symbol. Adamic
(1929). 28. [Alberts. 9. Incest symbolizes racial introversion (in “Tamar,”
“The Tower Beyond Tragedy,” “The Women at Point Sur”), the founding of
values, desires, vision on one’s humanity; cities are incestuous; Barclay’s
desire of disciples.]
Johnson, Edward S. “Greece and California.” Yale
Daily News Literary Supplement 3 (23 Jan. 1929): 3. [Influence of Greek
Drama; does what Frost does for New England and Sandburg for Chicago.]
Kreymborg, Alfred. Our
Singing Strength. New York: Coward McCann, 1929. 173, 264, 284, 295,
624–30. [Brief discussion; RJ philosophical antithesis of Whitman.]
McWilliams, Carey. “Robinson Jeffers: An Anti-toxin.” L
A Saturday Night 9 (3 Aug. 1929): 5. [Provoking, death-oriented,
distasteful, powerful.]
Manly, J. M., and E. Rickert. Contemporary American Literature. New York: Harcourt, Brace &
Co., 1929. 204–05. [Most powerful recent poet; wide range.]
Munson, Graham. “The Young Critics of the Nineteen
Twenties.” Bookman 70 (Dec. 1929):
369–73. [Blossoming new critical talent differently dealing with poets like
Jeffers.]
Murphy, Donald. “Savage, Lovely.” Des Moines Register 21 July 1929, 8. [Hard reading, mystical
flights, like witnessing a great natural force at work.]
Nicholl, L. T. “New Poetry.” Outlook 152 (27 Nov. 1929): 509. [Review of “Dear Judas” as
lights and shadows, “The Loving Shepherdess” as sweet bush among rocks; love
and pity.]
O’Neill, George. “Poetry from Four Men.” Outlook
151 (16 Jan. 1929): 110–11. [Symbolism and imagery with the force and
irrationality of a dreaming mind.]
Schmalhausen, Samuel D. “Our Disillusioned Poets.” Our
Changing Human Nature. New York: Macauley Co., 1929. 165–68. [RJ neither
rejected nor accepted America; most audacious and creative of modern poets;
burning intelligence.]
Tate. Allen. “American Poetry Since 1920.” Bookman
68 (Jan. 1929): 503–08. [Much published in 1920s, many movements and circles;
in the far West RJ stands alone, his gift for narrative unequalled in England or
America, has invented a new narrative style; his symbols of inversion and
sterility threaten to make themselves America’s.]
Van Doren, Mark. “Bits of Earth and Water.” Nation
128 (9 Jan. 1929): 50. [Imitators of Euripides, Sophocles, Shakespeare usually
ridiculous, RJ is not.]
Vivas, Eliseo. “Robinson Jeffers.” New Student 8 (Apr. 1929): 13–14. [Rejects “hysterical claims”
for RJ, whose works lack sense of human dignity.]
“Walt Whitman Finds Hellas.” New Statesman 32 (9 Feb. 1929): 572, 574. [“Tamar” on heroic
scale; TBT is RJ’s best.]
Zabel, Morton. “The Problem of Tragedy.” Poetry
33 (Mar. 1929): 336–40. [“Cawdor” reveals magnificent nature, technically
skilled narrative, full diapason of great power.]
1930
Arvin, Newton. “The Paradox of Jeffers.” New
Freeman 1 (17 May 1930): 230–32. [“Dear Judas”: too aloof, lacks
affirmation, but promising.]
Conklin, G. Review of Kreymborg’s Our Singing Strength. Bookman
70 (Feb. 1930): 685–86. [Whitman and RJ America’s greatest and most
representative poets, most universal prophets.]
Deutsch, Babette. “Sweet Hemlock.” New York Herald Tribune Books 12 Jan. 1930, 4. [Restrained
appreciation; RJ offers truth and poetry.]
Dupee, F. W. Review of DJ.
Miscellany 1 (Mar. 1930): 34–36.
[Characters of “Dear Judas” and “The Loving Shepherdess” more symbolic
than real and are mad with disillusionment.]
Eisenberg, Emanuel. “Jeffers Lends Rich Violence to
Christ Legend.” New York Post 4 Jan.
1930, 65. [“Dear Judas” too much violence; “beautiful and moving.”]
Hillyer, Robert. “Nine Books of Verse.” New
Adelphi 3 (Mar.–May 1930): 232–36. [Re Cawdor:
RJ’s works not worth reading except the shorter poems.]
Hughes, Richard. “But This Is Poetry.” Forum
83 (Jan. 1930): vi, viii, x. [DJ:
RJ’s narrative imagination would make him a foremost novelist; the public has
no taste for narrative verse.]
Humphries, Rolfe. “More About Robinson Jeffers.” New
Republic 62 (9 Apr. 1930): 222. [Letter postscript to article: he finds
“Dear Judas” in George Moore’s The
Brook Kerith (1905) as also “The Loving Shepherdess” related to
post-resurrection Jesus in Moore’s book.]
____. “Poet or Prophet?” New Republic 61 (15 Jan. 1930): 228–29. [DJ: symbol, not sense; romanticism gone somewhat rank, unable to
project character.]
Johnson, Spud. “She Did It.” Carmelite 3 (29 May 1930): 1, 8–9. [How Mabel Luhan lured RJ to
Taos through Una and his sons.]
Jolas, Eugene. “Literature and the New Man.” Transition
19–20 (June 1930): 13–19. [Revised notions of beauty, including monstrous;
RJ’s step beyond Calvinism.]
Klein, Herbert Arthur. “A Study of the Prosody of
Robinson Jeffers.” Occidental College thesis, 1930. [RJ uses accentual
prosody; narrative poems 10 stress and 5 stress; run-on lines; stresses may
alternate 4 and 5, 5 and 3, 10 and 6; punctuation eccentric, allowing line to
make own rhythm over grammatical structure.]
Kresensky, Raymond. “Beloved Judas.” World Tomorrow 13 (Feb. 1930): 90. [DJ: RJ gives expression to a spiritual understanding of tragedy.]
____. “Fire-Burning Cross.” Christian Century 47 (11 June 1930): 757–58. [Irresistible appeal
of the Christ-theme for “apostle of negation.”]
Kreymborg, Alfred, ed. An
Anthology of American Poetry: Lyric America, 1630–1930. New York: Tudor
Publishing, 1930, 489–95. [Five poems; notes the difficulty of anthologizing
RJ since his best is in long poems.]
Lehman, Benjamin. “The Most Significant Tendency in
Modern Poetry.” Scripps College Papers
2 (Mar.–Apr. 1930): 1–12. [Reprinted in Saturday
Review of Literature 8 (5 Sept. 1931): 97–99. RJ coping with modern
science; too negative; needs to trace human proportions of the universe also.]
MacDonald, Dwight. “Robinson Jeffers: I and II.” Miscellany
1 (Aug. and Sept. 1930): 1–10 and 1–24. [Dignity and elevation of verse,
brilliant master.]
McWilliams, Carey. The
New Regionalism in American Literature. Seattle: U of Washington Book Store,
1930. 20, 27. [RJ not a true regional writer because he lacks antiquarianism,
locality of place, a detached viewpoint.]
____. Review of DJ.
Los Angeles Saturday Night 10 (25 Jan.
1930): 16. [Prefers “The Coast-Range Christ” and “The Tower Beyond
Tragedy.”]
____. “Writers of California.” Bookman 72 (Dec. 1930): 352–59. [RJ towers over California
predecessors.]
More, Paul Elmer. “A Revival of Humanism.” Bookman
71 (Mar. 1930): 1–11. [Literature of a universe without purpose degenerates
into depictions of sadism.]
Morrison, Theodore. “A Critic and Four Poets.” Atlantic
Monthly (Feb. 1930): 24, 26, 28. [“Terrible and harrowing, but full of
poetic beauty and power.”]
National Encyclopedia
of American Biography.
New York: James T. White Co., 1930. 829. [Biographical detail, career, critics.]
Quennell, Peter. “Recent Verse.” Criterion 9 (Jan. 1930): 362. [“Cawdor” disturbing: verse
consistently vigorous but its beauties belong to prose.]
Schindler, Duane. “Poet on a Tower.” Survey Geographic (Apr. 1930): 46. [Review of DJ: “The Loving Shepherdess” RJ’s best so far—in feeling,
simplicity of utterance.]
Tate, Allen. Rev. of Krymborg’s Our Singing Strength. New
Republic 62 (26 Feb. 1930): 511–52. [New Shakespeare must combine
Whitman’s love and RJ’s hate.]
Thompson, Alan Reynolds. “The Dilemma of Modern
Tragedy.” Humanism in America. Ed.
Norman Foerster. New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1930. 525–27. [No refuge in
il-lusions science shattered; man equals nature, no tragic exaltation.]
Untermeyer, Louis. “Uneasy Death.” Saturday Review of Literature 6 (19 Apr. 1930): 942. [For once RJ
allows himself to be kind, in “The Loving Shepherdess.”]
Van Doren, Mark. “Judas, Savior of Jesus.” Nation
130 (1 Jan. 1930): 20–21. [High level of rhetoric in “Dear Judas”; “The
Loving Shepherdess” some of RJ’s best work, pathetic, exciting, and
beautiful.]
Walton, Eda Lou. Rev. of DJ. Symposium 1 (Jan.
1930): 135–38. [“The Tower Beyond Tragedy” his greatest poem; RS
his best book; “The Loving Shepherdess” quality far higher than “Dear
Judas”; short poems prosaic and thematic if not dogmatic; yet best passages
are torches across a wilderness.]
Winters, Yvor. “Robinson Jeffers.” Poetry 35 (Feb. 1930): 279–86. [RJ has no structural principles;
Jesus revolting; no quotable lines; “The Loving Shepherdess” a very
Wordsworthian embodiment of a kind of maudlin humanitarianism.]
1931
Blankenship, Russell. American
Literature as an Expression of the National Mind. New York: Henry Holt,
1931. 627–32. [RJ a primitive, lacks compassion for suffering; breathtaking
vocabulary.]
Bushby, D. Maitland. “Poetry of Our Southern Frontier.”
Overland Monthly 89 (Feb. 1931):
41–42, 48. [How East ignores first-rate western poets; RJ a titan, apex found
in DJ; psychological approach like
Robinson and Masters, outsizes Frost.]
Calverton, Victor F. American
Literature at the Crossroads. Seattle: U of Washington Book Store, 1931. 21.
[Associated with free verse as are Lowell, Frost, Sandburg, Lindsay, and
Whitman; unequivocally American.]
____. “Pathology in Contemporary Literature.” Thinker
4 (Dec. 1931): 7–16. [Marxist sees RJ as symptom of dying civilization; his
tragedies pathological, the world as miscarriage of fate.]
Dilly Tante [Stanley Kunitz]. Living Authors. New York: Wilson, 1931. 196–97. [RJ “earned the
title of the poet of tragic terror.”]
Dobie, Charles Caldwell. “Literature on the Pacific
Coast.” American Writers on American
Literature. Ed. John Macy. New York: Liveright, 1931. 414–25. [RJ promises
a West Coast future in drama: narratives rely on exaggerated force, sing an
endless Dies Irae; his pessimism
deprives final force of greatness.]
Gregory, Horace. “Jeffers Writes His Testament in New
Poems.” New York Post 31 Dec. 1931,
9. [Marxist critic praises D-D.]
Hicks, Granville. “The Past and Future of William
Faulkner.” Bookman 74 (Sept. 1931):
17–24. [RJ is contemporary Faulkner most resembles, paralleling every offense
against human law; RJ writes poetry of annihilation, Faulkner the record of
thwarted lives and deaths; both seem men possessed.]
Jeffers, Robinson. Notes. Descent to the Dead. Random House, 1931. 29. [Identifies cairns,
dolmens, round towers, ridgeways, New Grange, Antrim, Avebury, Stonehenge,
Dozmare Pool.] GYH. 151–52. SP.
484.
____. “On Poetry” [letter to Professor McCole, May
1930]. Andrew Smithberger and Camille McCole. On
Poetry. New York: Garden City, 1931. 165–66. [RJ can’t define poetry; it
needs some verse form, appeal to aesthetic emotion.]
____. “The Stubborn Savior.” New Freeman (25 Mar. 1931): 42. [Review of Babette Deutsch. Epistle
to Prometheus. New York: J. Cape & M. Smith, 1931. Alberts. 151–53.
Nature of myth; Promethean myth archetype of human will seeking enlightenment
and liberation.]
Karo, Leila M. “Robinson Jeffers.” Present-Day American Literature 4 (Mar. 1931): 160–65.
Lanz, Henry. The
Physical Basis of Rime: An Essay on the Aesthetics of Sound. Stanford:
Stanford UP, 1931. 351. [RJ’s unusual consonanted environment, “n” and
“m,” and unaccented vowel in phrases like “humanity is needless.”]
Lawless, Ray M. “Robinson Jeffers: Poet.” Present-Day
American Literature 4 (Mar. 1931): 154–60. [Compares in pantheism to
Bryant, in horror to Poe, in probing dark secrets of mind to O’Neill, in free
verse to Whitman, in philosophy to Melville and Hardy; RJ’s arrival
“greatest poetic event in the 1920s.”]
Lehman, Benjamin H. Revision of “The Most Significant
Tendency of Modern Poetry” (1930). Saturday
Review of Literature 8 (5 Sept. 1931): 97–99.
Lewis, Sinclair. The
American Fear of Literature. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1931. 15. [In Nobel
speech, Lewis deplores RJ’s exclusion from American Academy of Arts and
Letters.]
Markham, Edwin, ed. Songs
and Stories. Los Angeles: Powell Publishing Co., 1931. 395. [RJ poet of
elemental imagination and strange psychological insights.]
Mencken, Henry L. “Market Report: Poetry.” American
Mercury 24 (Oct. 1931): 8–9. [America’s dearth of talent except for
Jeffers and Hart Crane.]
Powell, Lawrence Clark. “Leaves of Grass and Granite
Boulders.” Carmelite 4 (22 Oct.
1931): 8–9. [Compares RJ and Whitman, both nearly home again to Asia.]
Untermeyer, Louis. “Contemporary Poetry.” American
Writers on American Literature. Ed. John Macy. New York: Horace Liveright,
1931. 10. [RJ sings “endless Dies Irae”;
works miss deepest element of major poetry.]
1932
Alberts, Sidney S. “Jeffers’s Trip to Ireland.” Contempo
3 (25 Oct. 1932): 1, 8. [D-D: volume
on death; RJ’s poetry does not thrive on transplanting.]
Austin, Mary. Earth
Horizon. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1932. 354. [Expects to meet RJ in Taos.]
Belitt, Ben. “Cataclysmic Disaster and High Emotion.” Denver
Post 10 Apr. 1932, 6. [Shines with special brilliance in comparison with
Frost and Robinson.]
Benét, William Rose. “Jeffers’ Latest Work” [GYH].
Saturday Review of Literature 8 (2 Apr. 1932): 638. [Style loose and
prolix, certain qualities of greatness. Reprinted in Canby. Design
for Reading: An Anthology Drawn from the Saturday Review of Literature
1924–1937. New York: Macmillan, 1937. 234–38.
____. “Round About Parnassus.” Saturday Review of Literature 8 (16 Jan. 1932): 461. [D-D:
range if pondering and power of language.]
Brickell, Herschell. “The Literary Landscape.” North
American Review 233 (June 1932): 576. [RJ gazes into the abyss, discerns
things in blackness.]
Calverton, Victor F. The
Liberation of American Literature. New York: Charles Scrib-ner’s Sons,
1932. 472–74. [Marxist on Jeffers and O’Neill as in despair; never such
desperately dooming poetry, such mad, chaotic, crucifying verse.]
Canby, Henry Seidel. “The Pulitzer Prizes.” Saturday
Review of Literature 8 (23 Apr. 1932): 677. [The prize should have gone to DJ.]
Cantwell, Robert. “Robinson Jeffers Better Novelist Than
Poet.” New York World Telegram 29
Mar. 1932, 23. [Prefers RJ’s ideas to his poetry, as novelist is better than
D. H. Lawrence; Lawrence better poet.]
Cunningham, J. V. “Modern Poets.” Commonweal 16 (5 Oct. 1932): 540. [RJ is vendor of loose emotion;
expresses only undistinguished exasperation.]
DeCasseres, Benjamin. “Robinson Jeffers.” UNC
Daily Tarheel 24 Jan. 1932, 1. [Aes- chylus in Main Street(!) will be read
in fifty years with Cabell.]
Deutsch, Babette. “Comfort in Hell.” New York Herald Tribune Books 31 Jan. 1932, 6. [In D-D
he has looked on life and death and feared neither.]
____. “The Hunger of Pain.” New York Herald Tribune Books 27 Mar. 1932, 7. [TL:
urgency and power, comparable to Shakespeare and Homer, superior to O’Neill.]
Flint, F. S. “Verse Chronicle.” Criterion 11 (Jan. 1932): 276–81. [In the grand manner of the
prophets, RJ tells sad stories of the death of gods, kings, and shepherdesses .
. . a lonely figure changing the ancient heroic virtues and measures.]
Gibson, W. H., and Philip Horton. “Robinson Jeffers: Pro
. . . [and] Con.” Nassau Lit 91
(Nov. 1932): 284–96. [Una’s rebuttal on RJ’s psychoanalysis in Nassau Lit 91 (Jan. 1933): 41.]
Gregory, Horace. “Jeffers Again Hurls Indictment at
Civilization.” New York Post 31 Mar.
1932, 9. [Accomplished story-teller, but Spenglerian gloom and its philosophical
fallacies threaten to engulf Jeffers entirely on road to suicide.]
Grover, Beth. “Robinson Jeffers Suffers From Being
Lionized.” Carmel Pine Cone 15 July
1932, 7. [Danger from increase of visitors; will need a moat or a new island.]
“Harrowed Morrow.” Time
19 (4 Apr. 1932): 63–64 and cover. [TL:
some women, even his wife, protest his forbidden themes; but clear vision.]
Hicks, Granville. “A Transient Sickness.” Nation
134 (13 Apr. 1932): 433. [Marxist critic: “Thurso’s Landing” perhaps the
most human poem he has written.]
Horton, Philip. “Robinson Jeffers: Con.” Nassau
Lit 91 (Nov. 1932): 17–23. [Jungian analysis: RJ lags behind other poets:
muddy emotionalism, insularity, intellectual immaturity in light of the day’s
problems; deserves condemnation.]