Robinson Jeffers and the American sublime PDF
Preview Robinson Jeffers and the American sublime
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
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