The symbolism of Robinson Jeffers

The place of a poet in the modem world is at best tenuous. A glance at the list of best sellers in any publishing house will display little, if any, poetry. There has to be a reason for this lack of interest in verse on the part of the reading public. A strong indication for the unpopularity of poetry among the average readers may lie in the fact that this type of literature is the most difficult to understand, especially in the case of Robinson Jeffers. Jeffers, being a symbolist, cloaks his verses in double-meaning. When we read Jeffers, we must have some insight into the meaning of the symbols, or the poetry is incapable of holding our interest. Since the average person has neither the time nor inclination to study poetry and has not been blessed with a natural sensitivity to poetic language, symbolic verse, such as Jeffers writes, remains the pleasure of the few. The symbols in Jeffers—the glass, hawks, incest, and the death wish—are the stones on which the foundation is established. There can be no question that incest is the symbol for the intrinsic inwardness of man; this is forcibly established in the Tower Beyond Tragedy by the closing speeches of Orestes. This inwardness is again presented in Give Your Heart to the Hawks. The fact that Fayne Fraser was seduced by her brother-in-law in no way reduces the crime of incest Jeffers feels that co-habitation within a family, whether the relationship be of blood or of marriage, constitutes incest. From these two examples we can see that Jeffers is not attempting to write earthy verse, as a cursory reading of Tamar might indicate, but that he uses incest to symbolize what he thinks is wrong with man: inwardness. The hawks in Jeffers' poetry are his symbols for the Furies of Greek tragedy. In Give Your Heart to the Hawks, Lance Fraser is tormented by the hawks, just as Orestes was ty the Furies in Aeschylus' drama. Helen, in Thurso's Landing, refers to her husband's mother as a "white-headed hawk" because the old woman hates her and warns Reave Thurso, Helen's husband, against his wife. Jeffers' characters use the hawks to excuse their tormented consciences, and Electra, in the Tower Beyond Tragedy, reminds Orestes that they are hawks, and must seek vengeance, Jeffers believes that there is a kernel of good in man, and this kernel is the power that every man has to remove himself from the earth: suicide. This death wish is a symbol that appears most strongly in the Tower Beyond Tragedy. Cassandra, after the spirit of Agamemnon has left her, is the symbol of outward love in the poem because she has this death wish. Lance Fraser, in Give Your Heart to the Hawks, redeems himself by his suicide, as does Helen Thurso in Thurso's Landing, and Tamar Cauldwell in Tamar. These major symbols are surrounded by minor ideas. Glass, for example, is Jeffers' symbol for the mind. Lance Fraser says that men's minds are "little bottles that hold all hell". In Such Counsels You Gave to Me, there are many references to "splintered glass" when speaking of approaching madness. The cruelty of Bowren in the same poem is a symbol of man's innate disregard for the world in which he lives. When Howren forces his horse to nuzzle the pig, he is symbolizing man's rape of nature. Perhaps the most interesting of the minor symbols is that of the evil mind controlling the beautiful body. Jeffers believes that the body is of nature, therefore good; whereas the mind is taught by man, therefore evil. When the body dies, it returns to nature, but the mind, being evil, forces the body to rise and obey the commands of the thinking brain. This is why Jeffers seems inconsistent; he seeks oblivion after life, yet writes of ghosts and visions. These ghosts and visions are the evil minds returning, minds so evil that eternal rest can never be theirs. The ghost of Mary Abbey in Give Your Heart to the Hawks, returns, not because Mary was evil, but because the minds of Lance and Fayne Fraser deserved torment. From this we assume that Mary herself is at rest, but her shade, created by the evil consciousnesses of the Frasers, returns to assist the hawks in torment. With a knowledge of these symbols the reading of Jeffers' poetry becomes clearer, and the power of the poet's thought becomes increasingly evident. He shows us that inwardness is the cause for man's misfortune; then he points to the solution for man's troubles: outwardness. If we did not examine the symbols, we would be unable to grasp this philosophy; and if we were to miss the point of Jeffers' ideas, we could not appreciate the poetry.English, Department o