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Article: Jeffers's Hungerfield.(Robinson Jeffers)(Critical Essay)
- Article from:
- The Explicator
- Article date:
- January 1, 2004
- Author:
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In 1932 Robinson Jeffers flatly stated that Walt Whitman had never influenced him: "Poe captured me when I was very young; I had almost forgotten. Emerson interested me; Whitman never did" (Selected Letters 201). Jeffers's editor, Tim Hunt, suggests, to the contrary, that in the earliest stages of his career "Jeffers probably flirted with Whitman only briefly," specifically in the unpublished poem "Aesthetics" (5). Despite these claims, most readers will sense Whitman's influence--or Jeffers's anxiety about Whitman's influence--in almost everything Jeffers ever wrote.
When discussing his adult influences, Jeffers consistently named European writers such as ...