TO THE mind of Western man, life has always seemed the greatest
good and death the greatest evil. In Homeric times the shade of
Achilles exclaimed: "Nay, speak not comfortably to me of death,
oh great Odysseus. Rather would I live on ground as the hireling of
another, than bear sway among all the dead that be departed." And
in early Christian times, Saint Paul could overcome the fear of death
only by the promise of personal immortality: "O death, where is
thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" Again in the Middle Ages
the horror of "The Dance of Death" was pictured to persuade men
to seek a "life eternal." And in the Renaissance, when the dying
Hamlet spoke of death as "felicity," he was still imagining the joys
of life after death.--In the words of Robinson Jeffers:

. . . A few centuries,
Gone by, was none dared not to people
The darkness beyond the stars with harps and habitations.

Always life, here or hereafter, has seemed absolutely good; and
death evil.

But now (the modern poet believes) men's minds may have
changed:

But now, dear is the truth. Life is grown sweeter and lovelier,
And death is no evil.

Upon this reversal of values, Robinson Jeffers has sought to build a
new philosophy, in which life shall no longer be the only good, nor
death the ultimate evil. Instead, many of his finest poems ( "Ante
Mortem," "Post Mortem," Descent to the Dead, "Night," "Hooded
Night," "Margrave," and others) have celebrated "death" and
"night," and have questioned the goodness of life.

This questioning of life, and this celebration of death, have been
important in causing the rejection of his poetry by many readers and
critics. For the habits of thought of three millenniums are not altered
so easily: even if the minds of some men have changed, death still
seems the ultimate evil to the majority. And this is natural: all men

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