SOURCE: A review of Cawdor and Other Poems, in Poetry, Vol. 33, No. 6, 1929, pp. 336-40.

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.

The theme of Robinson Jeffers' new poem ["Cawdor"] is the tragedy of a woman who meets the passion and selfish pride of men on their own terms, but finds herself the victim of an unimagined lust whose end comes only with the hideous defeat of those who caused her own humiliation. Even this curt summary is sufficient to indicate that "Cawdor" shares with "Tamar," "Roan Stallion," and The Women at Point Sur those properties of tragic violence and broad dramatic conflict which we have come to regard as this poet's particular marks. The sensitiveness to all the forces of ancient terror, the infinite pathos...