In the following essay, Boyers provides a reexamination of Jeffers's poetry, focusing in particular on "the ferocity of the critical reaction against Jeffers" since the late 1940s.

Jeffers' poetry presents some difficulties, but it is in the main poetry of direct statement. Yet even if Jeffers were serving up a pastiche of metaphysical conceits and French symbolism, it seems unlikely that the "esthetic" critics [who have objected to his style] would feel moved to enthusiasm for his sprawling, often careless narratives. The poems need critical re-examination, but the need centers in their philosophical texture, in the relationship of idea to idea rather than the re...

In the following essay, Zaller discusses Jeffers's narratives in the context of Aristotelian tragedy.

In the essay below, Hunt provides a biographical and critical overview of the Jeffers's life and work, focusing in particular on the poet's rejection of modernism.

In the essay below, Brophy places Jeffers's work in the context of the American West, concluding "the westering experience was for [Jeffers the exemplar of all journeys. Western motifs gave him vehicles for a larger philosophizing."]

In the following essay, Beers examines the negative reaction to Jeffers's poetry among the New Critics and suggests that feminist and deconstructionist critical approaches may be more receptive to his work.

In the following review of Rock and Hawk, Vendler provides an overview of Jeffers's career, concluding Jeffers "will remain a notable but minor poet. "

In this excerpt from a review of The Selected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers, Schwartz discusses Jeffers's treatment of such themes as science, war, and nature.

In the essay below, Nolte surveys critical reception to Jeffers's work, concluding that after many years of suffering critical disdain, his reputation is once again on the rise.

In this review of The Collected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers, Everett finds Jeffers's doctrine of "inhumanism " incompatible with the demands of tragic narrative and suggests that the poet's lyric achievements will prove more enduring than his narratives.

Winters was a prominent American poet and critic who maintained that all good literature must serve a conscious moral purpose. In the negative review of Dear Judas below, he examines the themes and narrative structures in the volume, concluding that Jeffers's "aims are badly thoughtful and are essentially trivial."

Even a casual reading leads one to conclude that much of Robinson Jeffers' poetry is profoundly apocalyptic. Fires, deluges, storms, and earthquakes menace the lives of his major characters, and serve as constant reminders of nature's catastrophic potential. There are forebodings of Armageddon and gloomy speculations about man's fate. A number of narratives result in the destruction of a small group of people in such a way as to suggest that they symbolize the human race itself. All of ...

On March 3, 1941, Robinson Jeffers read from his poetry to a large audience in Emerson Hall, Harvard University. The room seated four hundred, but many more crowded the halls outside. The next day I drove Jeffers to visit Emerson's Concord and Walden Pond, and in conversation inquired the title of his next book. "Beyond Good and Evil," he replied; and when I did not hear well, he added: "Nietzsche." Nine months later his new book bore the title, Be Angry at the Sun; and on...

In the following mixed review of Solstice and Other Poems, Warren states that "this collection brings nothing new."

[The Selected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers] presents a sufficient span of writing … to give any reader a just conception of what Jeffers has done. Above all, this selection invites a brief consideration and judgment of Jeffers' work as a whole, especially with regard to its sources. At least one source is the scientific picture of the universe which was popular and "advanced" thought until a few short years ago. (p. 30)

In the mixed review of Cawdor and Other Poems below, Zabel praises Jeffers's technical skill as a poet but questions his detached treatment of such themes as fear and violence.

In the following review of Roan Stallion, Tamar and Other Poems, Monroe disparages the long poems in the volume but praises such short poems as "Woodrow Wilson" and "Night."

[Robinson Jeffers' poem] "Post Mortem" is a prophetic warning of the future dangers of over-population. As such it is more true, more relevant, more important now than when it was written…. The dangers of exploding population which Jeffers proclaimed in 1927 have become the crucial concern of our time. And I would suggest that the present renaissance of his poetic reputation is due, in part at least, to the accuracy and timeliness of his prophecy, and to the depth of his concern ...

A contemporary of Stevens and Frost, Jeffers differs from them in his long free lines and his unrelieved solemnity. Though he turned to dialogue more often than they did, it was originally with no thought of theatrical performance. Only his Medea (1946) was specifically intended for the stage…. Besides Medea, Jeffers wrote five poems in dialogue form, all of them subsequently performed. The Tower Beyond Tragedy is Jeffers' version of the Oresteia. Divided into three parts, the dramatic poem is...

Dickey was an American poet and critic. In the excerpt below, he suggests that despite Jeffers's conspicuous flaws, he is a poet of greatness and power.

In the review below, Spender extols the "ruggedness" and "grandeur" of Jeffers's poetry but disagrees with the poet's "abdication" of human consciousness.

In Robinson Jeffers we find a poet concerned … with the cosmos in which man is but a momentary flicker, [and] the magnificent strophes of this strangely obscure poet show a [rich] maturity. This reviewer, reading Jeffers, felt somewhat as Keats professed to feel, on looking into Chapman's Homer…. The opening poem, "Tamar," is a powerful dramatic narrative on the stern Greek model, given a native setting and written in a free verse that has in it the long roll and swing of ...

The most rousing volume of verse I have seen in a long time [is Robinson Jeffers's "Tamar and Other Poems."]… Few recent volumes of any sort have struck me with such force as this one has; few are as rich with the beauty and strength which belong to genius alone…. [Two] long narrative pieces are its real contribution…. [The title-poem, "Tamar"], seems to me to point a new path for narrative verse in America. The rhythms, for one thing, are variable and...