 |
| ROBINSON JEFFERS |
Rock and Hawk
by Robinson Jeffers
Born: January 10, 1887
Died: January 20, 1962
Died: January 20, 1962
Here is a symbol in which
Many high tragic thoughts
Watch their own eyes.
This gray rock, standing tall
On the headland, where the
seawind
Lets no tree grow,
Earthquake-proved, and signatured
By ages of storms: on its peak
A falcon has perched.
I think, here is your emblem
To hang in the future sky;
Not the cross, not the hive,
But this; bright power, dark
peace;
Fierce consciousness joined with
final
Disinterestedness;
Life with calm death; the
falcon's
Realist eyes and act
Married to the massive
Mysticism of stone,
Which failure cannot cast down
Nor success make proud.
The Magnificent View:
The Emblematic Landscape of Robinson Jeffers
As Seen in His Poem “Rock and Hawk”
In the poetry of Robinson Jeffers, it is
the great granite cliffs of the Pacific Northwest that soar, timeless and
solitary, in his imagination. It is the
bedrock underneath the soil with its granite outcroppings breaking the surface
that penetrate his language and infuse his images. The unchanging sea, sky and
mountains of Point Lobos are, for him, the source of his inspiration and the final
answer to his questions. The rest—the forests and land, plant and animal life,
and human life, as well—all these are ephemeral, temporary, merely a part of
the “surface of things” (“Fawn’s Foster Mother” Norton line 19). He looks instead to permanent things, in life as
well as in poetry. In the introduction to a collection of his poems, Jeffers
states that poetry must “concern itself chiefly with permanent aspects of life”
and he goes on to say, “poetry must deal with things that a reader two thousand
years away could understand and be moved by.” (Selected Poetry xiv).
In poem after poem, Jeffers restates this
theme and portrays the magnificent coastline of Northern California as his
emblem of permanence in an otherwise changing and transitory existence. “Rock
and Hawk” is a poem that typifies Jeffers’ concern for depicting humanity’s
preoccupation with the transitory aspects of life instead of addressing
directly those permanent and unchanging features he sees represented in the
landscape and in such things as “the strong / Tribal drum, and the rockhead of
Taos mountain,” (“New Mexican Mountain” Norton, 12).
In “Rock
and Hawk”, he addresses how and where human beings engage with the physical
world, and whether the means they choose to understand it and their
relationship to it are adequate. For a poem whose title suggests the physical
world, most of the poem curiously concerns itself with abstractions. The
speaker begins by addressing—who? Is it the reader, or a potentially
like-minded observer? Does the speaker address himself; perhaps all three? Who is unclear, nevertheless, the
speaker begins by expressing a concern. This ‘concern’ is not initially
suggested in a reading of the first three stanzas. It is only with the fourth
and the use of the word “emblem” (10) that the reader is alerted to what
Jeffers sees as the inadequacy of symbol: an abstraction, he suggests, at a
further remove from the physical world than is the emblem. While both are
abstract concepts humans use in dealing with the physical world, an emblem, he
proposes, retains more of its physical connection to the world and, as such, it
is more useful as a guide in directing the user to more clearly see the
physical reality of the world and the user’s relationship to it. Jeffers implies
that this reality is often obscured through the use of such abstractions as
symbol.
The
central image of the poem is of a hawk perched atop a tall “gray rock” (3) on
the headland overlooking the sea. The poem explores how human beings react to,
and interpret, this scene. The first stanza suggests that the observer could
view the scene in front of him as merely a symbol of his own internal state.
The speaker says that many observers do just that: in looking at the rock
“standing tall / On the headland” (4-5), many see themselves in what they
imagine it is they are seeing before them. They imagine a “tragic” (1) setting
of gray rock, isolated and barren. In the landscape before them, they only see
themselves. With their idea of the landscape as symbol, as merely a projection
of their own internal states, they can form no connection to it, nor develop an
understanding of it. They are merely sentimental, Jeffers suggests, lost in
their own “high tragic thoughts,” (2). What they see is what they are.
At this
point, Jeffers’ speaker provides guidance to his listener. (Again, is the
listener the speaker, a fellow observer, the reader, or all three?) He does so
by providing information that acts to clarify the scene that is before them: It
is not a sentimentally tragic one. For example, the gray vegetation-less rock
is not barren, as those who hold it as mere symbol of how they see themselves
would have it. Rather, its barren quality comes instead from the sea wind that
“Lets no tree grow,” (6) there. This line suggests that the rock is not—by its
nature—barren. In reality, the sea wind keeps the tree-bearing soil from taking
root there. Neither, the speaker says, is the rock isolated. He clarifies
further by stating that the rock’s essential nature is “Earth-quake proved,”
(7). The rock has been tested by earthquakes, and by implication, has proved
itself adequate. The “ages of storms” (8) have also given to the rock their
‘stamp of approval’, adding their signatures in the form of weathering and
scarring to its surface. Thus, the rock is neither barren nor isolated. The
speaker’s clarifications refute the tragic image of the rock held by the
sentimental observers. In reality, this is a place of ancient and tempered
strength. It is a tall place of endurance, and it is to this clarified image
that the speaker adds the falcon.
Whether
the falcon was perched atop the rock initially, or as the speaker may be
suggesting, it arrived later, the sentimental observers in their tragic,
self-absorbed viewing of the rock do not see “on its peak / A falcon has
perched” (7-8). In either case, the crucial element of the falcon is missed.
Thus, the speaker now guides his listeners to the powerful, emblematic nature
of the image that is before them. The speaker continues his guidance by
suggesting that this real, physical scene is an emblem. It represents
something. This ‘something’ is, as yet, unidentified by the speaker, but it is
something that is better than the traditional emblems of the “cross” and the
“hive” (12). He suggests that these traditional emblems (of Christianity and of
communal-technological man, suggested by the hive) are inadequate.
Interestingly, he does not state, directly, that it is Christianity or modern
technological society he finds inadequate. Rather, he says, their emblems fail.
He suggests that while such emblems are themselves symbols of physical objects,
they nevertheless represent abstractions (Christianity and technology). By
implication, the speaker suggests that any society or individual that uses such
emblems is inadequate, hence his emphasis on the adequacy of his emblem: the
physical landscape before them. He sees his own discovered emblem as both
physical and abstract to a degree far
greater than the traditional emblems he criticizes: for the speaker, the idea
does not differ from the physical reality; there is no abstract ‘symbol’
between the observer and what he sees.
Here, the
subtlety of Jeffers’ poem emerges in the movement of the ending stanzas. The
speaker has said abstractions distort our perceptions of reality and that
symbols must be based on the physical reality of the world. He says, in
essence, here is the great symbol of the falcon and the rock to hold up to the
future. In the final three stanzas, the speaker describes this emblem, but
almost entirely in abstract terms, with abstractions suggesting paradox and the
blending of opposites, and ultimately, suggesting mystery. He describes the
emblem of the rock and the falcon as a blending of opposites: of “Bright” with
“dark”, of “power” with “peace” (13), and of “consciousness” with
“disinterestedness” (14-15). Stanza 6 suggests the emblem as a joining of
abstractions: “life” with “death” (16).
The
physical image of the falcon’s eyes is made more abstract by the speaker’s use
of the phrase “Realist eyes and act” (17) to describe them. As well, the image
of the rock itself as a “massive / Mysticism of stone” (17-18) is an
impenetrable abstraction. The final blending of these two abstractions, of the
falcon’s “Realist” eyes and the “Mysticism” of the stone is an emblem that
defies the creation of any clear and specific image. This would suggest there
is a contradiction in the speaker’s desire to create an emblem to “hang in the
future sky” (11) except that the reader is reminded of Jeffers’ concern with
the use of abstractions in general. His speaker does not attempt to create a
final and clear emblematic image because this, too, no matter how faithful it
is to the original, would be at a remove from the physical reality witnessed by
the observers.
The last
three stanzas suggest the dilemma of human beings as they confront the physical
world. As symbolized by the falcon and the rock, the “bright power” of organic
life lay side-by-side with the “dark peace” of the physical world; and it is a
peace that does not change, nor does it answer back to life: it simply is. In his poem, Jeffers suggests this
side-by-side existence by subtly placing a comma in between the two
descriptions (“bright power, dark peace”). Next, humanity’s consciousness is a
“Fierce” and active force that “joins with” (14) the disinterested physical
world. Jeffers phrase suggests this joining is not so much a mutual
blending-together, as more like an uncomfortable partnership. He suggests
humanity grudgingly, though necessarily, joins with the physical world, and in
his use of the word “Disinterestedness” (15) he conveys the sense of
dissatisfaction human beings often feel when confronted with the silences of
the physical world. However, as Jeffers’ speaker continues to describe this
emblem, there is a movement toward greater unity with the rock than suggested
by the choice of connective words used to link the descriptions of opposites.
For example, the speaker goes on to say that life is “with” (16) death. This
word suggests a more normal or acceptable joining. Furthermore, death is
characterized as “calm” (16) which also suggests the sense of a stronger bond
and a greater ‘acceptance’ by life of its opposite.
The final
image moves closest to a sense of sublime unity with the physical world that
Jeffers’ speaker hopes to achieve with his description of his emblem. The
“Realist” eyes of the falcon, the eyes that do not see the landscape as
sentimental projections of the self, but
rather as it is, and the “act” of the falcon, its supreme, bird-like essence,
both now, are “Married” (17) to the “massive /Mysticism of stone”. The image of
marriage suggests an ultimate bond of mutual acceptance. In terms of human
beings, the falcon and the rock represent the marriage of consciousness with a
final and profound mystery, a mystery that cannot, and will not, be explained.
The final two lines of the poem remind the reader that by using such an emblem
(the emblem of the real, physical world) to guide us, we will not be distracted
by the abstractions of symbols. With such an emblem, Jeffers says, neither the
failure of the Christian, nor pride of the modern, will distract us from being
simply with the world as it is.
Works Cited
Jeffers,
Robinson. “Fawn’s Foster Mother”. The
Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry. Ed. Richard Ellman and Robert O’Clair.
NY: Norton, 1988. 431. Print.
---. “New
Mexican Mountain. NY: Norton, 1988. 433. Print.
---.
“Rock and Hawk. NY: Norton, 1988. 433-34. Print.
---.
Introduction. The Selected Poetry of Robinson
Jeffers. NY: Random, 1959. xiv. Print.
Professor Moritz’s Comments:
Jeffers’ Emblematic Landscape in “Rock and Hawk” A+
Don, this is a very rewarding paper. It
is like your last but perhaps still better in patiently bringing out the depths
of the poem and enriching what might be taken by casual reading as seemingly
plain meaning. The end of your paper (from 3.2 onwards) [para. Beginning with
“Here, the full subtlety of Jeffers’ speaker…”] seems to me true in every
respect, and superb. I cannot agree with the theme of your first two pages, nor
can I see that it is necessary. Taking your analysis as seriously as possible,
I cannot see that RJ is expressing an important symbol/emblem contrast or
criticizing people for being limited by “tragic symbolic” views. The issue
seems rather : what is the use and meaning of symbol-or-emblem, and what is the
proper one; it seems clear to my [sic] the tragic thoughts watching their own
eyes are a statement of how the real components of the universe and of a
properly regulated human mind confront each other—in a nature-like “beyond this
life” purity. These poised, silently watching, mutely interrelated thoughts are
precisely those detailed in the list of the last three stanzas culminating in
the two married opposites, the hawk and the rock, the life that reaches to an
is mysteriously part of what is beyond-life: “huge shapes / That do not live as
living men,” says Wordsworth. Your ending comments—on marriage—are especially
fine. In general, the depths of your paper do not hinge on whether you are
right or not on this “symbol” question but go to a deeper heart of the poem. A
few misspellings” p.2 clarifys (clarifies); p4 delimma (dilemma); p.5 destract
(distract). Excellent work.
………………
 |
| Tor House: Built by poet, 1919-1924 |
No comments:
Post a Comment