SOURCE: "The Enigma of Robinson Jeffers," in Poetry, Vol. 55, Part 1, October, 1939, pp. 30-8.

In this excerpt from a review of The Selected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers, Schwartz discusses Jeffers's treatment of such themes as science, war, and nature.

Although only half of his poetry is here [in The Selected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers] and the important poem called The Women at Point Sur is omitted, evidently because "it is the least liked and the least understood" of his poems, nevertheless this selection presents a sufficient span of writing in its six hundred pages to give any reader a just conception of what Jeffers has done. Above all, this selection invites a brief consideration and judgment of Jeffers' work as a whole, especially with regard to its sources.

At least one source is the scientific picture of the universe which was popular and "advanced" thought until a few short...