The Loving Shepherdess (Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Robinson Jeffers
- First Published: 1929
- Type of Work: Poem
- Genres: Poetry, Narrative poetry
- Subjects: Love or romance, Sex or sexuality, Betrayal, Rural or country life, Farms, farmers, or farming, Women, Ranches, ranchers, or ranching, Sheep, Animals
Suggested by a character found in the work of Scottish writer Sir Walter Scott and transposed to the California coast, “The Loving Shepherdess” is the most straightforward and simplest in texture of Jeffers's narrative poems. It lacks both the mythic overtones and the thematic commentary of the others. Structurally, it traces the course of Clare Walker's last, doomed journey, during which she refuses to avert the suffering derived from her previous actions.
The poem opens with a ragged Clare leading her flock, reduced from fifty to ten, past a one-room schoolhouse at recess....
[The entire page is 1099 words long]
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