Cawdor and Medea: A Long Poem After Euripides a New Directions Book

About this book

Here for a new generation of readers and students are two major poetic works of Robinson Jeffers (1887-1962). The verse narrative Cawdor set on the ruthless California coast which Jeffers knew so well tells a simple tale: an aging widower Cawdor unwilling to relinquish his youth knowingly marries a young girl who does not love him. She falls in love with his son Hood and the narrative unfolds in tragedy of immense proportions. Medea is a verse adaptation of Euripides drama and was created especially for the actress Judith Anderson. Their combined genius made the play one of the outstanding successes of the 1940s. In Medea Jeffers relentlessly drove toward what Ralph Waldo Emerson had called "the proper tragic element"terror.