Robinson Jeffers

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Robinson Jeffers 1937.
(photography by Carl van Vechten )

John Robinson Jeffers (born January 10, 1887 in Allegheny, now Pittsburgh , Pennsylvania , † January 20, 1962 in Carmel-by-the-Sea , California) was an American poet , playwright and natural philosopher . The author, who remained largely unknown in German-speaking countries, was considered the “most important poet of the 20th century” in the United States during his lifetime, but his polarizing attitude turned away from humanism increasingly came under public criticism.

Live and act

Childhood, adolescence and academic years

John Robinson Jeffers was the son of Presbyterian theologian Dr. William Hamilton Jeffers and the Annie Robinson Tuttle. He had a brother, Hamilton Jeffers, who became a noted astronomer at Lick Observatory . As a child, Robinson Jeffers was interested in the written word. The family encouraged his literary ambitions: he received lessons in Greek , Hebrew and Latin and was taught in private schools in Germany and Switzerland, where he also learned German and French and was influenced by Nietzsche and Freud's writings. At the age of 15 he went to the University of Pennsylvania , but moved to Occidental College the following year when the family moved to Los Angeles . He changed universities several times, studying astronomy , geology , philology , philosophy and theology . In 1906 he started studying medicine . In the same year he met Una Call Kuster, who was already married, in a literature seminar. The two fell in love. 1910 Jeffers abandoned his studies and went to Washington to forestry study. Without a degree, he returned to Los Angeles the following year and continued the love affair with Una Call Kuster. When her husband, a lawyer, found out about it, it turned into a serious scandal that made a front page cover for the Los Angeles Times ; eventually the marriage ended in divorce. Robinson and Una married in 1913 and moved to Carmel-by-the-Sea that same year. The two had a daughter in 1914, who died just one day after she was born, and twin sons, who were born in 1916.

Tor House and Hawk Tower

Tor House and Hawk Tower

Robinson Jeffers was fascinated by the original, at the time still untouched landscape of the American west coast , which he compared with Ithaca , Homer's homeland and its legendary world, the Iliad . With the help of an inheritance, he acquired a piece of land in the then sparsely populated area of Monterey County , just south of Carmel. Jeffers built his house himself with the help of a master builder who trained him to be a mason and mason. In 1919 it was ready to move into. Jeffers called the house built from granite rocks Tor House in reference to the Cornish term "gate" , which describes eroded rock formations. In the following years Jeffers reforested the barren coastal strip with eucalyptus trees and cypresses and also began to build a four-story tower, also made of granite rocks, which he called the Hawk Tower , next to the house. Robinson Jeffers worked on the rustic property all his life. The Tor House and Hawk Tower were completed by Jeffers' eldest son in the 1950s and 1960s and later listed as the Tor House Foundation on the initiative of photographer friend Ansel Adams .

Literary successes

Although Jeffers had already published his first volume of poetry Flagons and Apples in 1912, there was no success as a writer over the following years. His second volume of poetry, Californians , was published in 1916. It was not until 1924 that his short story Tamar received attention. The book was a commercial success and marked the beginning of a productive period for Jeffers. In the following years the poems Roan Stallion (1925), The Tower Beyond Tragedy (1926), The Woman at Point Sur (1927), Cawdor (1928) and Dear Judas (1929) were written. By the mid-1920s at the latest, Jeffers was regarded as a renowned author and enjoyed great popularity as a “poet nature boy”. He was quickly referred to by his compatriots as "the most important American poet of the 20th century", which also quickly provoked hostility from the established writers and critics, who proclaimed the style of refined lyric poetry, while Jeffers defied contemporary tastes with his realistic poetry. He polarized: Some worshiped him as a poet god of natural philosophy, while his opponents attacked him fiercely. Jeffers, however, was unaffected. His subsequent publications cemented his reputation; it appeared Thurso's Landing (1932), Web Counsels You Gave to Me (1937), Be Angry at the Sun (1941) and other works. In 1937 he was elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters .

Jeffers' "Inhumanism"

Jeffers achieved success on Broadway in 1948 with the adaptation of Euripides ' Medea . He had written the role for the actress Judith Anderson on the body. In the same year his work The Double Ax appeared , in which he introduced a mindset that he called "inhumanism". Contrary to established humanism , Jeffers presented people not as a measure , but only as part of things and called in the foreword of the book to “finally grow up and no longer act like a self-conscious toddler or a mentally ill person” American public who saw their humanistic mission confirmed by the victory in World War II and strengthened in patriotism , this statement was an affront. Jeffers' own long-standing publisher already distanced itself from the author in the work and should no longer mention him in future anthologies .

In 1950 Jeffers' wife Una died of cancer. Badly hit by the loss, the writer subsequently grappled with death; a subject that was to determine his last work Hungerfield from 1954, published during his lifetime . Robinson Jeffers died ten days after his 75th birthday. The unfinished work The Beginning and the End from his estate was published posthumously a year later .

bibliography

Publications (selection)

  • Flagons and Apples . Grafton, Los Angeles 1912.
  • Californians . Macmillan, New York 1916.
  • Tamar and Other Poems . Peter G. Boyle, New York 1924.
  • Roan Stallion, Tamar and Other Poems . Boni & Liveright, London 1925; Hogarth, London 1928; Modern Library, New York 1935.
  • The Woman at Point Sur . Boni & Liveright, New York 1927.
  • Cawdor and Other Poems . H. Liveright, New York 1928; Hogarth, London 1930.
  • Dear Judas and Other Poems . H. Liveright, New York 1929; Hogarth, London 1930.
  • Thurso's Landing and Other Poems . Liveright, New York 1932.
  • Give Your Heart to the Hawks and Other Poems . Random House, New York 1933.
  • Solstice and Other Poems . Random House, New York 1935.
  • Such Counsels You Gave to Me and Other Poems . Random House, New York 1937.
  • The Selected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers . Random House, New York 1938.
  • Be angry at the sun . Random House, New York 1941.
  • Medea: Freely Adapted from the 'Medea' of Euripides . Random House, New York 1946.
  • The Double Ax and Other Poems . Random House, New York 1948.
  • Hungerfield and Other Poems . Random House, New York 1954.

posthumously

  • The Beginning and the End and Other Poems . Random House, New York 1963.
  • The Selected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers . 5-volume collection ed. by Tim Hunt, Stanford University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8047-3890-4

The largest collections of Robinson Jeffers' manuscripts, letters, and records are in the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin and in the libraries of Occidental College, the University of California, and Yale University .

German translations

  • So was your advice and other poems , 2009, translated and with a foreword by Matthias Falke
  • Beginning and End and Other Poems , 2008, translated and with a foreword by Matthias Falke
  • The double ax and other poems , 2008, translated and with a foreword by Matthias Falke
  • Hungerfield and other poems , 2008, translated and with a foreword by Matthias Falke
  • Angry with the sun and other poems , 2007, translated and with a foreword by Matthias Falke
  • The time to come . Translated by Eva Hesse , Carl Hanser Verlag, 2008, ISBN 978-3-446-23008-8 .
  • Robinson Jeffers - Selected Poems . Translated by Kai-Michael Gustmann, Regen-Buch, Leipzig 1997, ISBN 3-00-001363-6
  • Robinson Jeffers: Poems . German with an afterword by Eva Hesse, Andreas-Haller-Verlag, Passau 1984
  • Dramas: The source, Medea, the woman from Crete . Translated by Eva Hesse, Rowohlt, Reinbek 1960

Secondary literature

Web links

Commons : Robinson Jeffers  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Members: Robinson Jeffers. American Academy of Arts and Letters, accessed April 6, 2019 .
  2. ^ A b Robinson Jeffers - Poet & Work. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on February 18, 2005 ; Retrieved September 12, 2008 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.jeffers.de
personal data
SURNAME Jeffers, Robinson
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Jeffers, John Robinson (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American lyricist, playwright, and natural philosopher
DATE OF BIRTH January 10, 1887
PLACE OF BIRTH Allegheny, now Pittsburgh , Pennsylvania
DATE OF DEATH January 20, 1962
Place of death Carmel-by-the-Sea , California