About this poem: "The Treasure" first appeared in Jeffers's Roan Stallion, Tamar, and Other Poems (Boni and Liveright, 1925). In 'Jeffers and Merwin: The World beyond Words,' Neal Bowers writes that '[i]n this remarkable poem, Jeffers transforms the vertiginous possibilities of the void into a vision of fulfillment. The gulf before life and the gulf after [. . .] make the momentary flicker of the thing we call life [. . .] merely a jump of the breath. The treasure is in the enormous repose of nothingness, not in the inadequate exclamations at having found it.'
Стихотворение "Сокровище" впервые появилось в книге Джефферса "Жеребец Роан, Тамар и другие стихи" (Бони и Ливерит, 1925). В эссе "Джефферс и Мервин: Мир за пределами слов" Нил Бауэрс пишет, что "[в] этом замечательном стихотворении Джефферс превращает головокружительные возможности пустоты в видение исполненности. Бездна до жизни и бездна после [. . .] и создают мгновенную вспышку того, что мы называем жизнью [. . .] это - просто перебивка дыхания. Сокровище - в огромном покое небытия, а не в неадекватных восклицаниях о том, что его нашли".
Примечания переводчика: на мой взгляд, в стихотворении "Сокровище" заложено нечто гораздо большее, и такое трактование сокращает его объем. Но объяснять эти метафизические смыслы не стоит...
John Robinson Jeffers, born on January 10, 1887 in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, was an American poet known for his environmental themes and his coinage of 'Inhumanism,' which he described as 'a shifting of emphasis from man to not-man...' He was the author of many collections, including Californians (Macmillan, 1916) and Cawdor and Other Poems (Horace Liveright, 1928). He died on January 20, 1962.
Джон Робинсон Джефферс родился 10 января 1887 года в Аллегейни, штат Пенсильвания, американский поэт, известный своими экологическими темами и своей чеканкой "бесчеловечности", которую он описал как "перенос акцента с человека на не-человека...". Автор многих сборников, в том числе "Калифорнийцы" (Макмиллан, 1916) и "Каудор и другие стихи" (Гораций Ливерит, 1928). Умер 20 января 1962 года.
Robinson Jeffers
1887-1962
Robinson Jeffers was born on January 10, 1887, in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, a town which is now part of Pittsburgh. His father, a professor of Old Testament Literature and Biblical History at Western Theology Seminary in Pittsburgh, supervised Jeffers's education, and Robinson began to learn Greek at the age of five. His early lessons were soon followed by travel in Europe, which included schooling at Zurich, Leipzig, and Geneva. When the family moved to California, Jeffers, at age sixteen, entered Occidental College as a junior. He graduated at eighteen.
Jeffers immediately entered graduate school as a student of literature at the University of Southern California, where, in a class on Faust, he met another strong influence on his intellectual development: Una Call Kuster, who would later become his wife. By the spring of 1906, he was back in Switzerland studying philosophy, Old English, French literary history, Dante, Spanish romantic poetry, and the history of the Roman Empire. Returning to USC in September 1907, he was admitted to the medical school. The last of his formal education took place at the University of Washington, where he studied forestry.
After marrying in 1913, Jeffers and Kuster moved to Carmel, California, and in 1919 Jeffers began building a stone cottage on land overlooking Carmel Bay and facing Point Lobos. Near the cottage, he built a forty-foot stone tower. Both the structures and the location figure strongly in Jeffers's life and poetry. Jeffers's verse, much of which is set in the Carmel/Big Sur region, celebrates the awesome beauty of coastal hills and ravines. His poetry often praises "the beauty of things" in this setting, but also emphasizes his belief that such splendor demands tragedy.
Jeffers brought a great knowledge of literature, religion, philosophy, language, myth, and science to his poetry. One of his favorite themes was the intense, rugged beauty of the landscape set in opposition to the degraded and introverted condition of modern man. Strongly influenced by Nietzsche's concepts of individualism, Jeffers believed that human beings had developed a self-centered view of the world, and felt passionately that they should learn to have greater respect for the rest of creation.
Many of Jeffers's narrative poems also use incidents of rape, incest, or adultery to express moral despair. The Woman at Point Sur (Liveright, 1927) deals with a minister driven mad by his conflicting desires. The title poem of Cawdor and Other Poems (Liverlight, 1928) is based on the myth of Phaedra. In Thurso's Landing (Liverlight, 1932), Jeffers reveals, perhaps more than in any of his other collections, his abhorrence of modern civilization.
During the late 1930s and the 1940s, Jeffers's genius was judged to have faded, and many of his references to current events and figures (Hitler, Stalin, FDR, and Pearl Harbor, for instance) raised questions about his patriotism in a period of national strife. The Double Axe (Random House, 1948) even appeared with a disclaimer from the publisher. However, Jeffers's adaptation of Euripedes' Medea (Random House, 1946) was a great success when it was produced in New York in 1948.
Robinson Jeffers died in 1962.
Перевела с английского Ольга Слободкина-von Bromssen