Pessimism’s Aid to Robinson Jeffers’s Inhumanism

Robinson Jeffers stands out as one of the most controversial American poets in the nineteenth century. His earlier poems were well-received with his unique idea, inhumanism, which means a shifting of emphasis and significance from man to nature; the rejection of anthropomorphism and recognition of the organic whole. Over time, his fame plummeted due to his anti-war rhetoric around Wolrd War Ⅱ but began to revive along with the advent of deep ecological movement in the late twentieth century. Nevertheless, his already declined reputation is not likely to gain its original position with ease. Besides the ideological problems, his provocative and hard-hitting description seems to be a critical reason. Meanwhile, the previous remarkable researches are focused on the ecological meaning of inhumanism with a reference to Taoism and separate his political view from it. Unfortunately, these studies cannot explain what Jeffers lacks accurately enough to promote inhumanism and require a more philosophical aid. Therefore, I aim to discuss the controversy over Jeffers’s inhumanism and analogize it with Arthur Schopenhauer’s pessimism. Through the analysis, the two men think that humans’ excessive and narcissistic desire causes their unhappiness and they need some self-sacrifice. After this, I analyse three long narrative poems, “Tamar,” “Roan Stallion,” and “The Tower Beyond Tragedy” in the light of the above analysis, considering that the others have not treated the long poetry but shorter ones. Lastly, I hope that this research will contribute to extending the research range of Jeffers’s inhumanism.