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The Inhumanism of Robinson Jeffers

by Zachary Wendeln

First addressed in the 1948 preface of The Double Axe and Other Poems, the concept of

inhumanism served as a pervasive, driving element throughout the poetry of nature writer

Robinson Jeffers. Primarily a philosophical code, Jeffers’ inhumanism evolved over time to

address metaphysical, spiritual, and scientific concerns, answering the question, “Can man

honestly justify the pervasive sense of humanism that dominates societal norms, that declares the

superiority of man to flora and fauna, even to God?” Robinson Jeffers expressed his theory of

inhumanism in his letters and selected poetry—primarily “Tamar,” “Cawdor,” and “The

Inhumanist”—as a natural philosophy, theology, and scientific conjecture. Furthermore, this

inhumanism is grounded in philosophical concepts, his intimate experience with the rugged

California coastline, his negative experience with the World Wars, his rejection of his family’s

devout Calvinism and his views of others religions, and his scientific studies.

Jeffers foremost expressed his inhumanism as a natural philosophy. Joy Palmer notes a

direct correlation between Jeffers’ studies of “Lucretius, Herodotus, Nietzsche and

Schopenhauer, his four main philosophical pillars,” and the development of his inhumanism

(Palmer 183). Jeffers was particularly inspired by Lucretius’ opus De Rerum Natura. Like

Lucretius, “he studied himself and drew a distinct line expounding his image of God, the

universe, and the human species” (Milosz 232). One might consider Jeffers’ compilation of

works and his inhumanism as a reimagining of this classic essay, addressing the world from a

scientific and a metaphysical standpoint that encourages an environmentalist-minded respect of

nature while proclaiming the oneness of all things, human, nonhuman, and divine.

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Jeffers defined inhumanism as “a shifting of emphasis and significance from man to

notman; the rejection of human solipsism and recognition of the transhuman magnificence”

(Palmer 181). Through this philosophy, Jeffers urges man to remove himself from the ego (or

self) and enter into a communal relationship with nature. He views the solipsistic human

consciousness as a dangerous, selfish mechanism that impedes our understanding of something

outside and greater than ourselves. The “transhuman magnificence” speaks to the transience of

humanity, which Jeffers almost demands humans accept as inevitable and beautiful. The clearest

outline of inhumanism can be found in a letter Jeffers wrote in 1942:

First: Man also is a part of nature, not a miraculous intrusion. And he is a

very small part of a very big universe, that was here before he appeared, and will

be here long after he has totally ceased to exist.

Second: Man would be better, more sane and more happy, if he devoted

less attention and less passion (love, hate, etc.) to his own species, and more to

non-human nature. Extreme introversion in any single person is a kind of

insanity; so it is in a race; and race has always and increasingly spent too much

thought on itself and too little on the world outside. (Jeffers, Letters 291)

The first point argues insignificance of man versus the importance of nature, the main tenet of

inhumanism. While Jeffers considers humans as part of the natural, universal world, he

emphasizes how the world dwarfs their importance. The reason for nature’s superiority is

simple: the natural world will endure all time, while eternity will blow the remains of man away

like sand and fog. The second point offers mankind a remedy. We can escape our inherent self-

importance and self-absorption—and ultimately our decline—by focusing our attentions on the

world without. By doing so, humans not only achieve enlightenment or fulfillment but also “fall

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in love outwards,” becoming attached to the natural world and concentrating their efforts on

preserving it instead of their own ilk (Jeffers, Letters 196).

Since inhumanism concerns itself with the distinctions between and unity of nature and

man, it is important to understand how two key encounters with each world shaped Jeffers’

philosophy. Building Tor House, his home in Carmel, California, was the first formational

experience. He documented the process in a letter to Dr. Lyman Stockey: “I spend a couple

hours nearly every afternoon at stone, masonry…or bringing up stone from the beach, violent

exercise; and physically I’m harder” (Jeffers, Letters 23). This physical maturation translated

into a mental and emotional metamorphosis, “a kind of awakening such as adolescents and

religious converts are said to experience,” according to his wife, Una (Jeffers, Letters 213). Like

sexual and spiritual awakenings, Jeffers’ communion with stone stirred within him an awe and

reverence for the natural world. Living with and handling stone gave him greater admiration for

it; growing with the material of his home allowed him to observe and appreciate its strength and

permanence.

For Jeffers, “rocks [served both] as teachers, revealing much…about the meaning and the

mystery of the world,” and as a gateway to the miraculous truths of nature (Karman 8). His work

on Tor House opened his eyes to the intransience of the nonhuman universe and diminished the

passing existence of humanity. In “To the House,” he refers to stone as “bones of the old

mother,” the “mother” in this context being Mother Earth (Karman 14). Stone is the foundation

upon which the rest of the natural world rests, its life-force. From here, Jeffers developed his

love of all things outside humanity. In his “De Rerum Virtute,” or “On the Virtue of Things,” a

clever homage to Lucretius’ famous work, Jeffers writes:

One light is left us: the beauty of things, not men;

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The immense beauty of the world, not the human world.

Look—and without imagination, desire nor dream—directly

At the mountains and the sea. Are they not beautiful?

…is the earth not beautiful? (Jeffers, “De Rerum Virtute” 21)

This excerpt speaks to Jeffers’ core poetic theme, that nature, not humanity, contains immense

beauty, and that it is through communion with this beauty that humans will find their salvation.

Like Henry David Thoreau wrote, “Nature, the earth herself, is the only panacea” (Hoagland 19).

Jeffers’ inhumanism embodies this notion that only the earth offers a remedy for all the ills of

mankind. Hence, the poet calls humans to discard their mortal flaws and adopt the majestic

fortitude, the glorious freedom, and the divine beauty of the natural world. Jeffers goes further

to say that “the beauty of things is the face of God…labor to be like it” (Palmer 184). The

morning sun shining on the flanks of the mountains, the dazzling azure sky mirrored in the seas

below, all the intrinsic pulchritude of the earth—all nature reflects the face of God. In urging

humans to be one with nature, Jeffers encourages union with some divine power greater than

humanity that could allow for a certain level of redemption.

Jeffers’ struggle to reconcile his conscious with the World Wars was a second major

influence on his philosophy. Between the Wars, Jeffers developed a sense that “Western

civilization was poised for an inevitable slide into decadence and barbarism” (Hunt 4). While he

initially viewed humanity only as a scar on the flesh of the universe, Jeffers, during the Wars,

began seeing his kind as a cancer, criminal and ignorant for giving into propaganda and violence.

Thus, his writing became “consumed by a pessimistic, fatalistic sense of human self-destruction”

(O’Leary 353). Because war is unnatural yet very human in character, it stands in the way of our

communion with nature, diminishing both the virtue of the human race and the physical beauty

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of the natural universe. Moreover, such conflict stems from human pride, the antithesis of

inhumanism.

In his writing, Jeffers warns against prideful human consciousness, while emphasizing

the importance of human values as key to our salvation. To Jeffers, the human consciousness is

a double-edged sword. On the one hand, “it enables transcendent awareness,” but if one “simply

contemplates nature’s flux rather than identifying with it and recognizing one’s final and

inevitable participation in it,” he or she cannot truly be one with nature (Hunt 7). While the

human consciousness potentially allows one to transcend his or her narrow, human focus to see

the wholeness of the universe, it more often alienates humanity from such insight. Thus Jeffers

presents this consciousness as self-centeredness that “encourages people to believe they are the

raison d’etre of the universe” (Karman 15). This egocentricity is the cause of the decline of

humanity. The mind entraps man in concern for self, for temporal and human things, and blinds

him to the truth and divinity manifested in the natural world. In this way, man “is like a new

born babe, conscious almost exclusively of its own processes…As the child grows up its

attention must be drawn from itself to the more important world outside it” (Jeffers, Letters 159).

Jeffers hopes that as humanity matures it will begin to break out of itself, recognizing its

insignificance in the grand scheme of things. While “we can’t turn back the civilization, not at

least until it collapses,” humans can move forward and better themselves individually (Jeffers,

Letters 159). The only way to attain salvation for the race is to achieve it as individuals. By

purging ourselves of the collective human consciousness and emerging as individuals, we can

also enter into a synthetic relationship with nature.

This synthesis is realized through the persistence and evolution of human values,

specifically freedom and integrity. While it may seem paradoxical that our escape from

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humanity should come from human values, Jeffers makes a point to distinguish these virtues

from our vices. To Jeffers, humanity refers to human vice, our introversion and gluttony, and he

believes we must rid ourselves of this in order to commune with nature and bring harmony,

enlightenment, and peace to the universe. Unlike humanity, human values are long-lasting. As

Jeffers wrote about values, “The states of the next age will no doubt remember you, and edge

their love of freedom with contempt of luxury” (Carpenter, Values 359). Values, like the natural

world, are permanent, and therefore deserve our reverence. The greatest values are freedom,

“the cornerstone of [Jeffers’] house of human values,” and its evolution, integrity, the

transcendental value of the unity of man and nature (Carpenter, Values 355). Jeffers saw

freedom as the liberation of oneself from the human self and the embracing of the natural world.

Through the acceptance of inhumanism, man might find freedom, which in turn leads to

integrity, “the wholeness of living things, the divine beauty of the universe” (Carpenter, Values

362). Once mankind integrates with the rest of the world, it can become part of that divinity,

completing the universal puzzle.

Robinson Jeffers’ inhumanism also carries strong spiritual overtones. Jeffers’ father, Dr.

William Hamilton Jeffers, was a Calvinist minister and heavily educated his son in theology.

However, the son felt at an early age a certain tension and animosity between his father’s faith

and himself. Robinson’s wife, Una, cites the emphasis on what Jeffers realized to be “the

unimportance of loving humanity in toto” as the root of this ill-fated relationship with religion

(Jeffers, Letters 265). Jeffers could not accept a faith that idolized humanity as God’s direct

offspring and dominant over the earth. Moreover, the concept of a Savior sent to redeem

mankind baffled Jeffers, who believed man must save himself. Because of this disagreement,

“he turned to a faith diametrically opposite, to a conviction of the utter insignificance of man…

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and of the folly and futility of a devotion to man’s preservation and salvation” (Johnson 159).

He saw in Calvinism, and in most other religions, the subtle manifestation of that same self-

consciousness and self-adoration against which he wrote and lived. Hinduism serves as another

antithesis of his message. In a letter to Lawrence Clark Powell, Jeffers wrote, “the Indian feeling

that the world is illusory and the soul—the I—makes it, is very foreign to me. The world seems

to me immeasurably more real” (Jeffers, Letters 184). Inhumanism developed, in a sense, as a

philosophical alternative to such humanistic ways of thought, proposing that the soul is a

transitory illusion, while the outer world is real and divine.

What faith, then, did Jeffers subscribe to, if any? A letter to Sister Mary James Power, a

Carmelite nun, suggests the poet most closely aligned himself with Deism:

I believe that the universe is one being, all its parts are different expressions of the

same energy, and they are all in communication with each other, influencing each

other, therefore parts of one organic whole. (Jeffers, Letters 221)

Jeffers, like Deists, believed in a God who flows through every living being, natural and human

alike. This divine connection binds humanity and nature, but is weak enough for solipsism to

knot and constrict it. Salvation, according to Jeffers, can only be found “in turning one’s

affections outward toward this one God, rather than inward on one’s self, or on humanity”

(Jeffers, Letters 221). Only men attuned to nature deserve God’s forgiveness and love. God

does not give preference based on supplication and sacrifice, but based on respect for Him as He

appears in nature. Furthermore, it is necessary for man to commune and empathize with the

universe outside his own race in order to end the world’s—and God’s own—suffering. Jeffers

reasoned that “if God is all, he must be suffering, since an unreckoned part of the universe is

always suffering” (Jeffers, Letters 240). Because humans and nature are one being, any harm

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inflicted on oneself is felt throughout the cosmos; therefore, we damage both God and ourselves

by harming or diminishing the environment. Jeffers poses a moral argument, then, that we

should adhere to his doctrine of inhumanism if not for ourselves then for a greater purpose.

The final tenet of spiritual inhumanism is the rejection of a Savior figure. Since Jeffers

believed that the “only hope for the world…is in the destruction of mankind as it now exists,” a

Christ-like messiah refutes his doctrine (Johnson 161). The word “savior” implies an individual

whose sole purpose is to save humanity. If the only hope for the world is humanity’s ruin, then a

Savior would, by saving mankind, destroy the natural world. Therefore, “it follows that the role

of the savior, love of mankind, the rescue and salvation of men, is dangerous, immoral, and to be

resisted” (Johnson 161). Jeffers chose instead to lay the burden of salvation on the shoulders of

man himself. It is our responsibility to recognize and discard our introversion, not the

responsibility of an intervening demigod. Worse yet is the Savior’s embodiment of ego and self-

importance. Jeffers addresses this concept in his poem, “Dear Judas,” in which he explores the

possessive love of the Savior, which quickly descends into “self-love and love of power and is

made dependent on discipleship, and discipleship is used to further inflate the ego” (Johnson

165). A Savior who depends on followers for affirmation and power, instead of deriving these

from the natural environment, fundamentally opposes Jeffers’ philosophy and prevents faithful

individuals from following the doctrine of inhumanism.

Jeffers’ inhumanist poetry is also heavily entrenched in scientific understanding of the

world, particularly from analytical, psychological, astronomical, and geological standpoints. An

early education in the sciences provided Jeffers with a deep understanding of a range of medical

and environmental knowledge. In 1906, Jeffers attended the University of Southern California

Medical School; in 1910, he enrolled in a forestry course at the University of Washington in

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Seattle. While he ultimately pursued a career as a writer, “the implications of the science with

which he was acquainted as a medical student” and his education as an environmentalist “had

become the dominant elements in his philosophy of life, and he had learned to fuse belief,

knowledge, and experience in creating his poetry” (Waggoner 276). Jeffers’ poetry presents

itself as a complex blend of scientific data and analysis and a deeper, more personal relationship

with truth, spirituality, and humanity. His inhumanism and writing absorbed medical and

environmental concerns and address morality and man from an analytical standpoint. Thus, his

poetry came to “contain many words of scientific flavor,” such as “atom, planet, galaxy,

universes…cancerous, tissue, cell, ulcer, artery, vertebra, test-tube, bacteria, and electrons”

(Waggoner 276-277). Instead of speaking of concepts like humanity, love, or sin in vague terms,

Jeffers drew concrete analogies between solipsism and cancer, between the break from humanity

and an atom splitting, between the relatively microcosmic Earth in comparison to the greater,

metaphysical universe.

This concreteness both lends a certain validity and scholarly weight to Jeffers’

inhumanism and makes his writing—and in conjunction, his philosophy—more approachable.

The incorporation of science into his writing also “turned Jeffers from romantic preoccupation

with the state of his own emotions to scientific preoccupation with people and things as they

really are” (Waggoner 287). By focusing on the issue of inhumanism with a scientific eye,

Jeffers pulled himself out of an introverted mindset, allowing his writing to better address

concerns in a general, universal manner. This embodiment of inhumanism also modeled Jeffers

into the perfect archetype of inhumanism: a man who, having recognized the error of his

internalized lifestyle, strives to better himself and others, both human and inhuman, through

communication and communion. Jeffers realized that “we cannot take any philosophy seriously

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if it ignores or garbles the knowledge and view-points that determine the intellectual life of our

time,” and so he took great care to incorporate facts with feelings in his writing (Palmer 185).

Jeffers’ poetry deals mostly with the sciences of analysis, psychology, astronomy, and

geology. As Waggoner points out, the style and voice of Jeffers’ writing changed during the

early 1930s, becoming more analytical of certain concepts, such as love, rather than merely

critical. While the “young” poet was content with generalizations and sweeping remarks about

the insignificance of man, “in the later volumes he gives us, usually, reasons for that

insignificance—reasons that derive to a great extent from science” (Waggoner 278). Around

1932, Jeffers began concerning himself more with specific, evidential poetry, writing that

explained his dismay at society rather than simply stating it. Much of his writing is also heavily

imbued with psychological analysis and tropes. Inspired primarily by Sigmund Freud and Carl

Jung, Jeffers penned characters who seem more like “psychological theories” than people

(Waggoner 278). He mainly focused on characters ruled solely by emotions, as opposed to ones

governed by emotions, will, and reason. Thus, Jeffers’ characters, stripped of reason and

freedom, “are impelled by passions, and restrained by the blind forces of the external world”

(Waggoner 283). These individuals become models of Jeffers’ “humanist,” one who allows his

or her irrational, selfish whims to push and pull him or her against a backdrop of an almighty,

divine landscape, a nature that punishes man for his folly. Studies of astronomy and geology

also contributed greatly to Jeffers’ writing. He uses astronomical images “to give point to the

brooding on human insignificance or the beauty of the inanimate” and describes landscapes in

great detail, right down to the shades and shapes of grains of sand (Waggoner 280). Through

such imagery, Jeffers contextualizes his message of inhumanism, presenting his thoughts on

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humanity within a context that emphasizes its irrelevance while glorifying the wonders of the

natural world.

Three specific poems stand out as Robinson Jeffers’ prime inhumanist works: “Tamar,”

“Cawdor,” and “The Inhumanist.” Each piece expresses various key tenets of inhumanism

through artfully crafted dialogue, characterization, and symbolism. The first, “Tamar,” tells the

tragic tale of the titular character, whose passionate affair with her brother, Lee, both literally and

figuratively consumes their household, serving as a warning against human solipsism. In the

opening scene of this epyllion, Jeffers conveys the indifference of the cosmos to human affairs,

stating, “The night you know accepted with no show of emotion the little accident” (Jeffers,

“Tamar” 26). Jeffers establishes the events of the narrative as insular and isolated from the

natural world, purely human in nature and therefore self-absorbed and of little importance to

anything not-man. This notion of human solipsism, to which inhumanism is both the antithesis

and the remedy, takes form in Tamar and Lee’s affair, in the passion and vanity of two fallible

humans. As Tamar exclaims while bathing with her brother, “What are we for…to want

and/want and not dare know it” (Jeffers, “Tamar” 32). Desire and sin enslave humanity, forcing

our thoughts and actions to turn inward on trivial wants while neglecting the greater importance

of the external world. What is worse, we cannot realize our folly, condemned to live our days

with eyes turned inward, blind to the natural, divine world.

Moreover, “Tamar” suggests that humans are doomed to repeat their transgressions for

generations, as Tamar’s father, David Cauldwell, carried on a similar relationship with his now-

deceased sister, Helen, “a ghost of law-contemptuous youth” (Jeffers, “Tamar” 37). Just as the

Cauldwell family is literally haunted by its past—the spirit of Helen possesses Tamar’s Aunt

Stella’s body throughout the poem—so, too, is humanity eternally plagued by an incest of a

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different sort, a toxic relationship of the self with the self. Thus, “life is always an old story,

repeating itself always like…the lips of an idiot,” and solipsism is a trap “laid to catch you when

the world began” (Jeffers, “Tamar” 60, 38). Furthermore, our inherent incest feeds on itself like

a fire, expanding to encompass and consume all around us:

…as a fire by water

Under the fog-bank of the night lines all the sea and sky with fire, so her

self-hatred

Reflecting itself abroad turned back against her, all the world growing hateful.

(Jeffers, “Tamar” 49).

The negative energy exuded by our self-consciousness shrouds the world, making it more human

and less natural. By the end of the poem, Tamar becomes the fire, enflaming her loved ones with

similar crazed, obsessive passion, just as our “incest” infects others. Her house represents Earth,

completely humanized and sheltered from the surrounding woods and river, and she pleas with

God to raze it with lighting and flame. When her prayers go unanswered, Tamar takes it upon

herself to scorch the inhabitants of the house with “something/Worse than arson” (Jeffers,

“Tamar” 93). She literally drives her father and brother insane and causes her mentally-disabled

aunt Jinny to actually embrace and feed the flame of a candle, setting the house and its residents

ablaze. Unless mankind changes its ways, the only end in sight is “Eternal death, eternal wrath,

eternal torture, eternity, eternity, eternity” (Jeffers, “Tamar” 81).

The second poem, “Cawdor,” is a story of struggle between man and nature, each

represented by specific characters. The titular character, stone-faced patriarch Cawdor, and his

newlywed wife Fera are symbols of the natural world. More importantly, they stand for the

union of man and nature as figures born from Jeffers’ understanding of Deism. Cawdor, “violent

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towards human nature,” fled civilization and built a home deep in the wooded mountains, where

“he knew/His hills as if he had nerves under the grass” (Jeffers, “Cawdor” 71). He is one with

the natural world, more beast and stone than human. Fera, too, is akin to nature, with eyes “like

sea wind from the gray sea” and “flushed with the west in her face,/the purple hills at her knees

and the full moon at her thigh” (Jeffers, “Cawdor” 63, 67). She reflects and absorbs the

landscape into her being, and this synthesis affords her greater understanding of the human

condition, as seen in her reflections on human failure and mortality throughout the poem.

Moreover, Fera becomes various animals throughout the poem, first dawning the skin of a puma

to trick Hood into shooting her, which then transforms her into Hood’s sisters’ “eagle in the fresh

of its wound waving the broken flag: another one of Hood’s rifle-shots” (Jeffers, “Cawdor” 105).

As the eagle, she serves as the judge of her human companions, ever watching and noting their

transgressions. Fera is the only character who truly realizes the inferiority of humankind in the

world, stating when marked by the blood of the puma skin, “Who am I…Not to be stained?”

(Jeffers, “Cawdor” 63).

On the other hand, Cawdor’s son, Hood, and Fera’s dying father serve as archetypes of

mankind. Hood reveals he is a hunter, not a farmer like his father. The hunter is the predator of

the natural world, and therefore its enemy, whereas the farmer cultivates and nourishes the flora

and fauna, adding to nature. Unlike his father, Hood is all human, cunning and harmful, nearly

killing the love of his life out of bloodlust. Fera’s blind father represents ignorant mankind

bemoaning its frailty and shortcomings, “deeply absorbed in his own misery/His blindness

concentrating his mood” and chattering on about “Remembered things, little dead pleasures”

(Jeffers, “Cawdor” 70). While Hood represents humanity at its most vicious, actively tearing

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apart Mother Earth for its own gain, the old man is passive human nature, too busy wallowing in

self-absorption and clinging to the past to participate in and save the natural order.

These diametrically opposing forces collide in a twisted, Oedipal-themed reflection on

mortality and human failure. Jeffers plays with Freud’s Oedipus Complex. Jeffers’ Oedipus is

not the son but the father who, in a fit of jealousy, backs Hood off a cliff to his death to protect

his own marriage. In the end, Cawdor even “cut out the eyes that couldn’t tell [his]

innocent/Boy’s head from a calf’s to butcher” (Jeffers, “Cawdor” 135). Cawdor, once a force of

nature, reduces himself to a mere man by giving into his weakness and passions, reverting

inwards rather than remaining one with the peaceful world around him. The main themes at play

are failure and death; as Fera exclaims, “it’s known beforehand, whatever I attempt bravely

would fail./That’s in the blood (Jeffers, “Cawdor” 68). No matter the good intention, human

action can only end in failure and tragedy because mankind’s inherent solipsistic tendencies

prevent it from achieving perfection. Furthermore, Jeffers reminds his readers of the fleetingness

and insignificance of human life. He conveys this most poignantly through Hood’s death:

There was no cry.

The curving hands scrabbled on the round of the rock

And slipped silently down, into so dreadful a depth

That no sound of the fall: nothing returned:

Mere silence, mere vanishing. (Jeffers, “Cawdor” 110)

We will all die relatively quietly. The universe will not resound with our final shouts, the stars

will not note our passing. We shall simply fall and vanish, unheeded by the eternal splendor of

the natural world.

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The final poem, “The Inhumanist,” defines Jeffers’ inhumanism while focusing on the

spiritual and moral implications of this philosophy. The old man, the central character of the

poem and the prophet of inhumanism, defines inhumanism as the recognition of “the beauty of

things…the human mind’s translation of their transhuman/Intrinsic value” (Jeffers, “The

Inhumanist” 596). Inhumanism urges man to reflect on the wholeness and splendor of nature as

something beyond and above human beauty, something intrinsically pure. More importantly,

“the beauty of things is not harnessed to human/Eyes…it is absolute. It is not for human

titillation…It is the life of things,/And the nature of God” (Jeffers, “The Inhumanist” 647).

Humans do not determine the ideal beauty of the natural world, nor does nature’s magnificence

exist to serve mankind any purpose, but rather to provide life and to serve as a testament to the

divinity of God. Man has no control over nature, or over God, but rather they reign over him.

This subjection of man to not-man implies certain spiritual and moral codes that must be

followed in adherence to inhumanism. Foremost, the inhumanist in the poem obliges man to

accept “not a tribal nor an anthropoid God./Not a ridiculous projection of human fears, needs,

dreams, justice and love-lust,” but rather a God of “one energy,/One existence, one music, one

organism, one life” (Jeffers, “The Inhumanist” 593, 592). God is not a human construct, but the

life force within and surrounding all things. As for those “to whom the word is God: their God is

a word” (Jeffers, “The Inhumanist” 641). It is not enough to simply preach or believe in

scripture; idly reading does not bring one into communion with God. The inhumanist calls

humans to better themselves and the world through an active faith. At the same time, “The

Inhumanist” advocates an adoption of scientific faith. In this poem, Jeffers refers to science as

“an adoration; a kind of worship,” something “not [meant] to serve but to know” (Jeffers, “The

Inhumanist” 628, 627). Like nature and God, science is meant to instruct, not serve, mankind.

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Humans should not use their knowledge of science to gain power or prestige, but to discover

their own unimportance in relation to the grandeur of nature.

Finally, “The Inhumanist” reprehends men for their self-importance and militarism and

urges them to abandon these for a more wholesome, natural lifestyle. The old man calls America

“the brutal meddler and senseless destroyer” and demands we beg God “forgive the deliberate

tortures of millions…the endless treacheries…Of the rulers of Russia” (Jeffers, “The

Inhumanist” 594-95). To the old man—and to Jeffers—there are no good and evil, just human.

America was just as culpable in the World Wars as Russia or Germany because all three

succumbed to passion, arrogance, and narcissism. Man is nothing more than “civil war on two

legs” (Jeffers, “The Inhumanist” 618). Jeffers calls us to end warfare and adopt the moral code

of inhumanism; he wants “a little nobility in man/To match the world’s” (Jeffers, “The

Inhumanist” 619). Nature serves as the model for such nobility; abandon all manmade things—

barbed wire, guns, concentration camps—and accept the ethics and harmony of nature.

For all of their depth and beauty, Jeffers’ poetry and philosophy suffered greatly at the

hands of critics, who detested the poet’s harsh judgment of humankind, among other things.

Many critics branded him a radical, offended by his advocating a new order so fundamentally

juxtaposed to the normative philosophy of humanism. Such opponents of Jeffers’ work called

him “the poet of denial, the destroyer of morality and human values” (Carpenter, Values 353).

Because Jeffers promoted stripping away humanity, people feared that his inhumanism

threatened human values as well. Some critics also argued that Jeffers presented himself as a

martyr of the human race, scorned and despised by the very people he strove to protect and

enlighten. Czeslaw Milosz, Jeffers’ contemporary and one of his most vocal critics, wrote:

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[Jeffers] needed to see himself as being elevated above everything alive,

contemplating vain passions and vain hopes…Thus, Jeffers’ universe, in which

man is neglected by infinitely extended Newtonian space and by time deprived of

any human meaning…is the universe of nineteenth-century martyrs. (Milosz 229,

434)

Milosz faulted Jeffers’ need to present himself as humanity’s savior. He accused the poet of

evolving into the very being he admonished in his poetry, a self-righteous and condescending

martyr whose faith rested on vanity and unrealistic goals for his disciples.

Other critics attacked Jeffers more directly for his intrusions into religion and morality.

Peter O’Leary noted that “the difficulty in Jeffers’ poetry lies not so much in its content…Rather,

its difficulty comes from the fact that Jeffers…is a religious poet” (O’Leary 358). In a highly

secularized, materialistic world, readers find Jeffers unapproachable because he lays out a highly

philosophical, religious doctrine in his works. Such writing compels the reader to dwell on

morals, or lack thereof, both his or her own and of humanity at large. This experience shakes the

reader, forces him or her to explore, acknowledge, and confront his or her flaws and vices, which

no one enjoys doing. On the other hand, religious conservatives or apologists “condemned

Jeffers’ portrayal of Jesus and his anti-Christian stance…Jeffers’ acceptance of violence as an

essential aspect of life, and…[his] use of sexual acts” (Palmer 183). Religious devotees who

read Jeffers’ works reacted negatively toward his contemptuous attitude toward the Savior type

as blasphemous denial of the core of their faith. Furthermore, his explicit use of themes like

incest and murder caused them to label him as amoral instead of appreciating such tropes as

metaphorical expressions of humanity’s obsession with the self.

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Finally, many critics attacked Jeffers’ political isolationism and condemnation of all

world leaders equally during World War II. In his collection, Be Angry at the Sun, published on

December 6, 1941, just one day before the attack on Pearl Harbor, Jeffers “announced the setting

sun of all Western civilization” and “coupled Roosevelt with Hitler as equal instigators of the

new world war” (Carpenter, Good and Evil 86). Patriotic Americans, believing strongly in their

cause as the “right” or “good” against the “evil” of Nazi Germany, turned against Jeffers for his

failure to support good over evil, while Jeffers admonished anyone condoning violence. He saw

what others, blinded by patriotism and nationalism, could not, that humanity’s persistence in

waging wars is senseless and threatens our very existence. Many readers simply dismissed the

poet as an unpatriotic dissenter, his poetry as an anti-American manifesto.

At the same time, many critics defended Jeffers, offering more positive interpretations of

his style and themes. Krista Walters supported what harsher critics called Jeffers’ nihilistic

tendencies, quoted by O’Leary as saying, “Jeffers was no misanthrope…Rather, he rejects our

self-centeredness, our need to find affirmation for being in the material world, and our tendency

to transmit such a need into false beliefs in the supernatural” (O’Leary, 355). Walters reads

certain optimism in Jeffers’ poetry. She realizes that he does not deny all of our humanity, just

the selfish part of our nature that clouds our senses and keeps us from realizing our true place in

nature. Furthermore, Walters notes the positive call away from superstitious, backwards-minded

tendencies and Jeffers’ push toward progress. Another critic, Benjamin Lehman, believed it was

not so much that Jeffers’ writing was offensive; rather it was baffling in its novelty. Lehman

found that in Jeffers’ writing “we confront simply the problem of a new approach to the universe

and the individual” (Carpenter, Values 354). In a world where human values are esteemed,

where humans consider themselves rulers over an untamed dominion of beasts and vegetation,

Wendeln 19

Jeffers’ views are naturally rejected as heretical, even dangerous to the norm. Once one digs

deeper past the initial shock of the writing, he or she will find invaluable arguments for universal

balance and harmony.

In an age rife with warfare, industrialization, solipsistic philosophy, and materialism, poet

Robinson Jeffers reached out to humanity to draw us beyond our selves to honor the world

around us. His personal doctrine of inhumanism, which flows through and guides his poetry,

gave voice to his cause, calling humanity to reject its selfish, introverted tendencies to again

become one with the natural world and God. Influenced by his childhood and education, his life

in California surrounded by sea and mountains, and his isolationist observance of the World

Wars, Jeffers shaped a philosophical, spiritual, and scientific doctrine that emphasized

humanity’s graces, disowned its faults and folly, and glorified nature through the art of poetry.

Wendeln 20

Works Cited

Carpenter, Frederic I. “Robinson Jeffers Today: Beyond Good and Beneath Evil.” American

Literature 49.1 (1977): 86. Academic Search Premier. Web. 19 Jan. 2011.

- - -. “The Values of Robinson Jeffers.” American Literature 11.3 (1939): 353. Academic Search

Premier. Web. 19 Jan. 2011.

Gelpi, Albert, ed. The Wild God of the World: An Anthology of Robinson Jeffers. Stanford:

Stanford UP, 2003. Print.

Hoagland, Edward. “The Broken Balance: The Poet Robinson Jeffers Warned Us Nearly a

Century Ago of the Ravages to Nature We Now Face.” American Scholar 77.2 (2008):

18-21. Academic Search Premier. Web. 19 Jan. 2011.

Hunt, Tim. Introduction. Selected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers. Ed. Tim Hunt. Stanford: Stanford

UP, 2001. 1-11. ebrary. Web. 6 Jan. 2011.

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2011.

Jeffers, Robinson. “Cawdor.” 1928. The Wild God of the World: An Anthology of Robinson

Jeffers. Ed. Albert Gelpi. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2003. 53-147. Print.

- - -. “De Rerum Virtute.” The Selected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers. Ed. Tim Hunt. Stanford:

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- - -. “The Inhumanist.” 1948. Selected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers. Ed. Tim Hunt. Stanford:

Stanford UP, 2001. 592-648. Print.

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- - -. The Selected Letters of Robinson Jeffers. Ed. Ann R. Ridgeway. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins,

1968. Print.

- - -. “Tamar.” 1925. Selected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers. Ed. Tim Hunt. Stanford: Stanford UP,

2001. 26-97. Print.

Johnson, William Savage. “The ‘Savior’ in the Poetry of Robinson Jeffers.” American Literature

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Karman, James. Introduction. Stones of the Sur. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2001. 1-21. ebrary. Web.

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- - -, ed. Stones of the Sur. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2001. ebrary. Web. 6 Jan. 2011.

Milosz, Czeslaw. To Begin Where I Am: Selected Essays. New York City: Farrar, Straus and

Giroux, 2002. Print.

O’Leary, Peter. “Robinson Jeffers: The Man from Whom God Hid Everything.” Chicago Review

49.3/ (2004): 350-65. Academic Search Premier. Web. 19 Jan. 2011.

Palmer, Joy A., ed. Fifty Key Thinkers on the Environment. New York: Routledge, 2000. ebrary.

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Waggoner, Hyatt Howe. “Science and the Poetry of Robinson Jeffers.” American Literature 10.3

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