Married to the Massive Mysticism of Stone: Robinson Jeffers at Tor House

Transcription

1 Married to the Massive Mysticism of Stone: Robinson Jeffers at Tor House Tentative Weekend Schedule Friday Afternoon, October 12 4:00 6:00 pm: First seminar session at Tor House with Professor Gelpi, focused on Jeffers; early poetry Friday Evening, October 12 6:15 pm: Welcome dinner at PortaBella Restaurant, Ocean Avenue between Lincoln and Monte Verde, Carmel- by- the- Sea, (Note that dinner will no longer be held at the Cassanova.) Saturday, October 13 9:00 am: Coffee and muffins at Tor House 9:30 am: Second seminar session: Jeffers long poem, Cawdor 12:00 2:00 pm: Lunch on the private patio at Tor House, followed by a private tour of Tor House and Hawk Tower 2:00 5:00 pm: Excursion to Point Lobos Evening and dinner on your own Sunday, October 14 9:00 am: Coffee and muffins at Tor House 9:30 am 12:00 pm: Final seminar session: Jeffers later poetry The seminar is limited to 18 students; there will be no grades, and no written work required (but there will be memorable experiences). Directions to Tor House Traveling on Highway 1 south to Carmel, go past the Carmel exits to Rio Road and make a right- hand turn onto Rio Road. Follow Rio Road about 1/2 mile past the Carmel Mission. The second street after the Carmel Mission is Santa

2 Lucia. Make a left- hand turn onto Santa Lucia. Follow Santa Lucia all the way down to the ocean until you come to Bay View Avenue and make a left- hand turn onto Bay View Avenue. Follow Bay View Avenue three blocks to the end and make another left- hand turn onto Ocean View Avenue. Follow Ocean View Avenue about 100 yards. On the right side of the road, you will find Tor House at Ocean View Avenue. Accommodations Near Tor House The Monterey/Carmel/Pacific Grove area has many options for overnight accommodations, at a range of prices. A few suggestions: Cypress Inn, Carmel: inn.com/ Green Gables, Pacific Grove: Gosby House Inn, Pacific Grove: The Clement Intercontinental, Monterey: preferences/monterey- clement Albert Gelpi William Robertson Coe Professor of American Literature, Emeritus, Professor of English, Emeritus Beginning in 1968, Albert Gelpi has taught American literature, particularly American poetry, from its Puritan beginnings to the present day. As a student of Perry Miller at Harvard, he became interested in the intellectual backgrounds of literary expression, and he has become increasingly interested in the connections between American letters and American painting. He also teaches Southern writing. Gelpi has written Emily Dickinson: The Mind of the Poet (1965) and The Tenth Muse: The Psyche of the American Poet (1975), the first volume of a study of the American poetic tradition. The Tenth Muse centers on American Romantic poetry; its sequel, A Coherent Splendor: The American Poetic Renaissance

3 (1987), continues the historical argument by relating American Modernist poetry to its Romantic antecedents. Gelpi has edited The Poet in America, 1650 to the Present, Wallace Stevens: The Poetics of Modernism, Denise Levertov: Selected Criticism, The Blood of the Poet: Selected Poems of William Everson, and (with Barbara Charlesworth Gelpi) Adrienne Rich's Poetry and Prose. Gelpi was founding editor of Cambridge Studies in American Literature and Culture, published by Cambridge University Press and has served as Associate Dean of Graduate Studies, Chairman of the American Studies Program, and Chairman of the English Department. He received the Dean's Award for Distinguished Teaching in Living in Time: The Poetry of C. Day Lewis was published in With Robert Bertholf he edited The Letters of Robert Duncan and Denise Levertov (2004) and the collection of essays, Robert Duncan and Denise Levertov: The Poetry of Politics, the Politics of Poetry (2006). His anthology of the poetry of Robinson Jeffers, The Wild God of the World, appeared in 2003, published by Stanford University Press. Robinson Jeffers Tor House Foundation Continuing Studies is grateful to the Tor House Foundation for their generous hospitality hosting the seminar, Married to the Massive Mysticism of Stone. The Robinson Jeffers Tor House Foundation, affiliated with the National Trust for Historic Preservation, is a nonprofit organization of volunteer members established in 1978 to: To preserve Tor House, Hawk Tower and their collections, To promote the literary and philosophical legacy of Robinson Jeffers for the enrichment and enlightenment of the public, To serve the community as a cultural resource. For more information please visit the Foundation website at: torhouse.org. Robinson Jeffers Tor House In 1914, when they first saw the unspoiled beauty of the Carmel- Big Sur coast south of California's Monterey Peninsula, Robinson Jeffers ( ) and his wife, Una ( ), knew they had found their "inevitable place." Over the next decade, on a windswept, barren promontory, using granite boulders gathered from the rocky shore of Carmel Bay, Jeffers built Tor House and Hawk Tower as a home and refuge for himself and his family. It was in Tor House that Jeffers wrote all of his major poetical works: the long narratives of "this coast crying out for tragedy," the shorter meditative lyrics and dramas on classical themes, culminating in 1947 with the critically

4 acclaimed adaptation of Medea for the Broadway stage, with Dame Judith Anderson in the title role. Construction began in The house was intentionally small, set low to the ground to withstand the great storms of winter. Modeled after a Tudor barn in England, it contained two attic bedrooms, a main floor guest room, the living room, a tiny kitchen and a single bathroom. The granite stones were drawn by horses from the little cove below the house. Jeffers apprenticed himself to the building contractor, thus learning the art of making "stone love stone." Construction was completed in mid Oil lamps and candles were the only means of illumination until electricity was installed in In 1920, the poet- builder began his work on Hawk Tower - - a retreat for his wife and a magic place for his sons. It was completed in less than four years, a remarkable feat since Jeffers built the tower entirely by himself! He utilized wooden planks and a block and tackle system to move the stones and to set them in place. Many influential literary and cultural celebrities were guests of the Jeffers family. Among them were Sinclair Lewis, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Langston Hughes, Charles Lindbergh, George Gershwin and Charlie Chaplin. Later visitors have included William Everson, Robert Bly, Czeslow Milosz and Edward Abbey. Almost all of Jeffers' writing was done at Tor House. The genius of the man is reflected in the granite walls of this home that he built with his own hands,

5 this place as enduring and timeless as the poet's work Robinson Jeffers Robinson Jeffers was born in His father, a professor of Old Testament Literature and Biblical History at Western Theology Seminary in Pittsburgh, supervised Jeffers's education, and Robinson began to learn Greek at the age of five. His early lessons were soon followed by travel in Europe, which included schooling at Zurich, Leipzig, and Geneva. When the family moved to California, Jeffers, at age sixteen, entered Occidental College as a junior. He graduated at eighteen. Jeffers immediately entered graduate school as a student of literature at the University of Southern California, where, in a class on Faust, he met Una Call Kuster, who would later become his wife. In the spring of 1906, he was back in Switzerland studying philosophy, Old English, French literary history, Dante, Spanish romantic poetry, and the history of the Roman Empire. Returning to USC in September 1907, he was admitted to the medical school. The last of his formal education took place at the University of Washington, where he studied forestry. After marrying in 1913, Jeffers moved to Carmel, California, and in 1919 he began building a stone house (Tor House) on land overlooking Carmel Bay and facing Point Lobos. Near the house, Jeffers built a forty- foot stone tower, called Hawk Tower. Both the structure and the location figure strongly in Jeffers's life and poetry. His poetry, much of which was set in the Carmel/Big Sur region, celebrates the awesome beauty of coastal hills and ravines that plunged into the Pacific. With few exceptions, his poetry praises "the beauty of things" in this setting and emphasizes his belief that such splendor demands tragedy. Jeffers brought enormous learning in literature, religion, philosophy, languages, myth, and sciences to his poetry. One of his favorite themes was the intense, rugged beauty of the landscape in opposition to the degraded and introverted condition of modern man. Strongly influenced by Nietzsche's concepts of individualism, Jeffers believed that human beings had developed an insanely self- centered view of the world, and felt passionately that we must learn to have greater respect for the rest of creation. Many of Jeffers's narrative poems use incidents of rape, incest, or adultery to express moral

6 despair. The Woman at Point Sur (1927) deals with a minister driven mad by his conflicting desires. The title poem of Cawdor and Other Poems (1928) is based on the myth of Phaedra. In Thurso's Landing (1932), Jeffers reveals, perhaps more than in any of his poems, his abhorrence of modern civilization. His many other volumes include Solstice and Other Poems (1935), containing early use of the Medea story, to which he later returned. Jeffers died in (adapted from the entry in poets.org)

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