Abstract
The Beginning and the End (1963) gathers poems Robinson Jeffers wrote following the publication of Hungerfield in 1954 until his death in 1962. His biographer, Melba Berry Bennett, prepared the collection from Jeffers’ handwritten drafts and a few typescripts left on his desk. Comparing her versions of the material with the actual manuscripts shows that she at times misread the sources, at times, mixed and matched units from different poems, and in a few instances treated fragments as completed works. This article assesses the nature and implications of the differences between the manuscripts and the collection Bennett constructed from them. It also provides a guide for correlating Bennett’s versions with the documentary transcriptions of the manuscripts published in The Collected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers, where this material is grouped under the heading Last Poems.
Recommended Citation
Hunt, Tim
(2020)
"Problematic Authority: The Beginning and the End as an Edition of Robinson Jeffers' Last Poems,"
Jeffers Studies: Vol. 21, Article 2.
Available at:
https://ir.library.illinoisstate.edu/js/vol21/iss1/2