Talk:Robinson Jeffers

Request to reword first paragraph
I don't have any ideas right now, but I think the first paragraph should be reworded. That first paragraph should concisely sum up Jeffers accomplishments and style, if this is possible. I don' t feel like it is very informative as it is. Is it really important that Jeffers traveled extensively in his youth? I mean he didn't exactly hitchhike across the world or anything. He lived in Europe and Washington State. That was it. It isn't really an accomplishment. The part about Carmel should stay, but I think something needs to be formulated that describes his poetry without being too banal. In other words not calling him an "inhumanist" or "environmentalist", i.e. something a little more expansive and expressive but still NPOV.

--Wrong: Jeffers' travels were extensive. Read Jim Karman's book Robinson Jeffers Poet of California. Also, he himself coined the term "Inhumanism." Jeffers was most certainly an environmentalist. Do a bit of homework.

- Dear "Wrong:", I've been trying to figure out how to address your comment for the last few days, as I was really taken aback by it. I wrote the above suggestion a few months ago, but I forgot to sign. Your comment was actually very hurtful to me, because I began the major changes that led to what the Jeffers page being what it is today. Before I was a registered user, I fleshed out the entire article from a small stub from IP location 134.69.138.42 (you can see the work I put into it in the "history" section). I did this from the many Jeffers' biographies I have read, including the book by Jim Karman, who, incidentally, I admire immensely and who I met and talked with at the Jeffers'Festival in Monterey last year. I did all of this work, and it was a lot of work, because I thought Jeffers needed fair representation on this public information source. My original suggestion was simply meant to encourage others to help to put together an introduction that didn't widdle Jeffers' life and work down to the label "inhumanist" or "environmentalist," as he often is in short bios. Really, all I ask is that you have more tact in how you respond to suggestions in the future, oh yeah, and please sign in your comments in the future as well.Asedzie 12:15, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

This para lifted from Dict. Nat'l Bio
This paragraph appears in American National Biography 1999 Oxford Univ. Press.

Deleting and adding bare facts back to temporarily fill deletion.


 * Una fell ill with cancer and died in 1950. She had played many roles for him: lover, wife, muse, protectress, and his ears and eyes on the social world he shunned. Jeffers's last volume, Hungerfield and Other Poems (1954), contains a moving eulogy to Una, who for him may have come closest to embodying Inhumanism, his philosophy that the non-human was more important than the human in the cosmos. Jeffers died in Carmel, California; a posthumous collection, The Beginning and the End and Other Poems, appeared in 1963.

Caltrop 12:59, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Very nice Caltrop. Excellent catch. Asedzie 11:19, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Jefferscover.jpg
Image:Jefferscover.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

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BetacommandBot (talk) 17:49, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Pantheist category
Gwern undid my category deletion with a link to a Google search. However, there is no text in the article that supports those categories. I will remove them again. Feel free to add back the pantheist category when the information has been added with citations from reliable sources to the text of the article. A link to a google search in an edit summary is not good enough. Lady of  Shalott  02:56, 14 February 2010 (UTC)


 * The Google search would be quite sufficient for anyone with eyes and who was not rules-lawyering. Typically, before removing content, one is supposed to make a good-faith effort to find sourcing. You clearly did not, as there were multiple RSs on the very first page of the Google results. --Gwern  (contribs) 14:43 14 February 2010 (GMT)


 * It would be different if it were something actually in the article. We do not categorize articles based on information not in them. It is also incumbent upon those who wish to add information to find the sources for it. Lady  of  Shalott  14:55, 14 February 2010 (UTC)


 * WP:V says "It has always been good practice to make reasonable efforts to find sources oneself that support such material, and cite them." It also says that cites are only necessary for contentious or challengable material; up till now, no one has challenged it (nor is being a pantheist seen as a negative thing by any but fundamentalist monotheists).
 * I have linked to 1 essay, 1 book, 2 encyclopedia articles, and numerous websites describing Jeffers as a pantheist or close to it. That you choose to argue about it says something about your priorities. --Gwern (contribs) 16:14 17 February 2010 (GMT)

Should be downgraded; mostly a "fan's notes"
This contains lots of unsourced and speculative statements. I deleted one (about "expecting" an uptick in Jeffers' popularity), but many more remain. It is as if a bigtime "fan" has gone through the article and added lots of glowing comments, most of which turn out to be unsourced, for example, the assertion that such and such a professor at UCal thinks it's time to boost Jeffers' reputation. As well, the description of the man as an environmentalist, while it may well be true, has nothing in the article to back it up. This is stylish, but it's pretty poor stuff from a factual point of view, and constantly verges on espousing a sort of charming bias, that is, it tries to charm with a smooth style, and thus hide its evident bias. Theonemacduff (talk) 05:06, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

I just noticed that a couple of other paras also have been lifted pretty much verbatim from the Dictionary of National Biography; does the writer have permission for this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Theonemacduff (talk • contribs) 05:22, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

Shelley?!
The name "Shelley" appears only once on the page right now. It seems relevant. Was that the name of his daughter? Did it get lost in a rewrite? 80.145.17.162 (talk) 20:34, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

"reputation as a tough outdoorsman"?
Under the heading Poetic career, it states "In the 1920s and 1930s, at the height of his popularity, Jeffers was famous for being a tough outdoorsman..." I'd say that's quite inaccurate. I've read just about every biography ever published on the man and from what I can tell, his "outdoorsman" activities consisted largely of hauling stone up from the beach to build Hawk Tower and (to help build) Tor House. Yes, there are references to his camping, riding, etc., but that hardly qualifies him as having a reputation as a "tough outdoorsman" in the way we think of Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett and others to whom that moniker is commonly applied. He certainly spent a good deal of time outside, but other than his masonry work, it seems to have largely been spent observing nature. Any suggestions as to what this could be changed to? Bricology (talk) 18:40, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

Jeffers poem quoted in full in 'Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72'.
The Jeffers poem 'Be Angry at the Sun' is quoted in full in Hunter S. Thompson's book 'Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72' (p.432, HarperCollins: London, 1973).

[Sorry, I don't know how to wiki-edit, but a full quote by Thompson seems significant.] Mitchdxx (talk) 13:45, 31 January 2021 (UTC)