John Robinson Jeffers (January 10, 1887–January 20, 1962) was an American poet whose works are characterized by a conservative cultural pessimism, a critical stance toward modernity and progress, and a nature-centered ecological consciousness rather than a man-centered humanism.
In the 1920s and ’30s, Robinson Jeffers was one of America’s most esteemed and critically acclaimed poets. However, in 1948, his public and critical reputation entered a steep and irreversible decline upon the publication of The Double Axe and Other Poems (New York: Random House, 1948), which contains a number of poems about the Second World War and its aftermath that were strongly critical of the Allies and clearly sympathetic to the defeated Axis powers. Read more …
The mumble-jumble dones on, the hangman waits;
the shabby surviving
Leaders of Germany are to learn that Vae Victis
Means Weh den Gesiegten. Read more …
While this America settles in the mould of its vulgarity, heavily thickening to empire,
And protest, only a bubble in the molten mass, pops and sighs out, and the mass hardens,
Tragedy Has Obligations
557 words
Graphic by Harold Arthur McNeill
Editor’s Note:
In the 1920s and ’30s, Robinson Jeffers was one of America’s most esteemed and critically acclaimed poets. However, in 1948, his public and critical reputation entered a steep and irreversible decline upon the publication of The Double Axe and Other Poems
(New York: Random House, 1948), which contains a number of poems about the Second World War and its aftermath that were strongly critical of the Allies and clearly sympathetic to the defeated Axis powers. Read more …