The son of a theology professor at Western Seminary in Pittsburgh,
Robinson Jeffers was taught Greek, Latin, and Hebrew as a boy, and
spent three years in Germany and Switzerland before entering the
University of Western Pennsylvania (now Pittsburgh) at fifteen. His
education continued on the West Coast after his parents moved
there, and he received a B.A. from Occidental College at eighteen.
His interest in forestry, medicine, and general science led him to
pursue his studies at the University of Southern California, and
the University of Zurich. He began writing poetry exclusively after
moving to Carmel, California.
His first volume of verse, Flagons and Apples, was published
in 1912, but it was his 1924 volume Tamar and Other
Poems that first brought him attention. His poetry often
features and celebrates nature and is imbued by a personal
philosophy he called "inhumanism." Although he gained popularity in
the 1920s and 30s and was even featured on the cover of
Time in 1932, he lost popularity in the late 1940s for what
was deemed "unpatriotic" verse. He died in 1962 at the age of
seventy-five, ending one of the most controversial poetic careers
of the century.
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