Inhumanism

Jeffers coined the phrase inhumanism, the belief that mankind is too self-centered and too indifferent to the "astonishing beauty of things." Jeffers articulated that inhumanism symbolized humans' inability to "uncenter" themselves. In The Double Axe, Jeffers explicitly described inhumanism as "a shifting of emphasis and significance from man to notman; the rejection of human solipsism and recognition of the transhuman magnificence.... This manner of thought and feeling is neither misanthropic nor pessimist.... It offers a reasonable detachment as rule of conduct, instead of love, hate and envy.... it provides magnificence for the religious instinct, and satisfies our need to admire greatness and rejoice in beauty." 

CASSANDRA

The mad girl with the staring eyes and long white fingers

Hooked in the stones of the wall,

The storm-wrack hair and the screeching mouth: does it matter,

Cassandra,

Whether the people believe

Your bitter fountain? Truly men hate the truth; they'd liefer

Meet a tiger on the road.

Therefore the poets honey their truth with lying; but religion-

Venders and political men

Pour from the barrel, new lies on the old, and are praised for

kindly Wisdom. Poor bitch, be wise.

No: you'll still mumble in a corner a crust of truth, to men

And gods disgusting.-You and I, Cassandra.

КАССАНДРА

Безумица с острым взором длинными белыми пальцами

Вцепилась в камни стены,

В волосах — ураган, во рту — крик. А скажи, Кассандра,

Так ли важно, чтоб кто-то поверил

Горьким твоим речам? Воистину люди возненавидели истину,

им приятней

По дороге домой встретить тигра.

Потому-то поэты подслащают истину ложью; но торговцы

Религией и политикой новую ложь громоздят на старую,

и их прославляют за добрую Мудрость. Дура, одумайся.

Нет: ты жуешь в углу свою крошку истины, а люди

И боги возмущены.- Такие уж мы с тобой, Кассандра.

To focus on Jeffers's women seems beside the whole point of Jeffers's philosophy, which is that men and women alike ("You and I, Cassandra") are doomed in their human, evolutionarily misguided drive to wreak destruction through greed (жадность), avarice (алчность), desire, and power-mongering. No doubt there is a personal psyche at work in Jeffers which allows him to portray women as so much bigger, more flexible, stronger than most of his male figures. But I interpret Jeffers as caught in the paradox of trying to have an "inhuman" vision while still bound by his humanity, which includes the fact that he is a man and limited by that gender.

It is not accidental that, in this lyric poem, "Cassandra," coming after the bitter time of his Double Axe persecution and unofficial literary blacklisting, he makes himself equal or a twin to a woman. It is a gesture, I think, showing his stance as a poet, and one that can be found in many other of the short lyric poems. The poet is outside, an observer. "It" (the poet) can be either male, as Jeffers is, or female, as Cassandra is. The haunting lament, "You and I, Cassandra," is a statement of his equality with her, and the hopelessness of the human condition out of which, for the duration of the poem, they both remain. They both have given up their personal (i.e., gender) identities in the pursuit of truth. This lyric offers a glimpse into Jeffers's view of the godly androgyny which he wishes he could imagine in an "inhuman" world.