Jeffers, Robinson (Vol. 2) | Jeffers, Robinson 1887–1962
Jeffers, Robinson 1887–1962
American poet, known for his individualism and admiration for the hero.
Today young people simply do not read [Jeffers]. Few young poets of my acquaintance have ever opened one of his books, and know only the anthology pieces which. I am afraid, they dislike….
In my opinion [Jeffers'] verse is shoddy and pretentious and the philosophizing is nothing but posturing. I say this with distaste. I do not like to put down a colleague and a fellow Californian. Many friends of mine of my own or a slightly older generation, leading poets and critics of poetry, still like Jeffers. Some even think he is great. I simply cannot see it. His reworkings of the plots of Greek tragedy make me shudder at their vulgarity, the coarsening of sensibility, the cheapening of the language and the tawdriness of the paltry insight into the great ancient meanings. His lyrics and reveries of the California landscape seem to me to suffer in...
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