Inventing the Language to Tell It: Robinson Jeffers and the Biology of Consciousness

by George Hart

Overview

From 1920 until his death in 1962, consciousness and its effect on the natural world was Robinson Jeffers's obsession. Understanding and explaining the biological basis of mind is one of the towering challenges of modern science to this day, and Jeffers's poetic experiment is an important contribution to American literary history no other twentieth-century poet attempted such a thorough engagement with a crucial scientific problem. Jeffers invented a sacramental poetics that accommodates a modern scientific account of consciousness, thereby integrating an essentially religious sensibility with science in order to discover the sacramentality of natural process and reveal a divine cosmos.

There is no other study of Jeffers or sacramental nature poetry like this one. It proposes that Jeffers's sacramentalism emerged out of his scientifically informed understanding of material nature. Drawing on ecocriticism, religious studies, and neuroscience, Inventing the Language to Tell It shows how Jeffers produced the most compelling sacramental nature poetry of the twentieth century.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780823254897
Publisher:	Fordham University Press
Publication date:	09/02/2013
Pages:	192
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

George Hart is Professor of English at California State University, Long Beach. He edited, with Scott Slovic, Exploring Social Issues through Literature: Literature and the Environment.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Robinson Jeffers's Sacramental Poetics

1 Rock, Bark, and Blood: Sacramental Poetics and West Coast Nature Poetry

2 The Strain in the Skull: Biopoetics and the Biology of Consciousness

3 The Whole Mind: Brains, Biology, and Bioregion in the Middle Period

4 To Keep One's Own Integrity: "The Inhumanist" and the Crisis of Holism

5 The Wound in the Brain: The Discoveries of the Later Poetry

Conclusion: The Jeffers Influence and the Middle Generation

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Editorial Reviews

George Hart's Inventing the Language to Tell It develops a significant new paradigm for engaging the poetry of Robinson Jeffers. By treating the central puzzle in Jeffers, the nature of consciousness, as a biological and environmental matter rather than a philosophical or psychological one, he clarifies the nature of Jeffers' modernity, defines its significance both for an understanding of Anglo American poetry in the first half of the 20-Century, and establishes its continued significance for the dynamics of environmental literature.——Tim Hunt, Illinois State University

The mind–body problem, faced anew by the best thinkers in every age, grew ever more complex in the twentieth century as a result of revolutionary discoveries in biology and physics. As George Hart demonstrates in this brilliant, original, and essential book, no modern poet probed the mystery of consciousness more deeply than Robinson Jeffers, whose "sacramental materialism" outpaced even the boldest conjectures of neuroscience.——James Karman, Emeritus Professor, English, Comparative Religion and Humanities. California State University, Chico

“Inventing the Language to Tell It promises to open up significant new territory in the study of one of the most important and misunderstood twentieth-century American poets and in the rapidly developing field of ecocriticism. George Hart minces no words in diving right into the complicated and fascinating problem of Jeffers’s push-pull relationship with “materialism and mysticism,” finding that the author’s literary strategies enable him to develop a “sacramental poetics” that accommodates these two, seemingly incompatible impulses.”——Scott Slovic, Universityof Idaho and editor of ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment

From the Publisher

The mind–body problem, faced anew by the best thinkers in every age, grew ever more complex in the twentieth century as a result of revolutionary discoveries in biology and physics. As George Hart demonstrates in this brilliant, original, and essential book, no modern poet probed the mystery of consciousness more deeply than Robinson Jeffers, whose "sacramental materialism" outpaced even the boldest conjectures of neuroscience.

Emeritus Professor, English, Comparative Religion and Humanities.California State University, Chico - James Karman

“Inventing the Language to Tell It promises to open up significant new territory in the study of one of the most important and misunderstood twentieth-century American poets and in the rapidly developing field of ecocriticism. George Hart minces no words in diving right into the complicated and fascinating problem of Jeffers’s push-pull relationship with “materialism and mysticism,” finding that the author’s literary strategies enable him to develop a “sacramental poetics” that accommodates these two, seemingly incompatible impulses.

University of Idaho and editor of ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment - Scott Slovic

George Hart's Inventing the Language to Tell It develops a significant new paradigm for engaging the poetry of Robinson Jeffers. By treating the central puzzle in Jeffers, the nature of consciousness, as a biological and environmental matter rather than a philosophical or psychological one, he clarifies the nature of Jeffers' modernity, defines its significance both for an understanding of Anglo American poetry in the first half of the 20-Century, and establishes its continued significance for the dynamics of environmental literature.

Illinois State University - Tim Hunt