Fire on the Hills (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Robinson Jeffers
- First Published: 1932
- Type of Work: Meditation
- Genres: Poetry, Meditation
- Subjects: North America or North Americans, United States or Americans, Nature, California, West, U.S., Beauty, Death or dying, Mountain life, Disasters, Natural disasters, Birds, Fire, Animals, Mountains, Eagles
The Poem
“Fire on the Hills” is a short description and meditation in a sonnetlike form—that is, it is in fourteen lines of free verse. It depicts a brushfire along the mountainous coast of the Monterey Peninsula, contemplates the animals caught up in it, and suggests the cosmic indifference of the context in which this takes place. Ultimately, Robinson Jeffers considers the intellectual attitude that humankind must cultivate to adapt to the universe.
The poem begins by establishing the scene of the brushfire, as observed by the speaker. Those animals that can...
[The entire page is 1485 words long]
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