A Study Guide for Robert Hass's "The World as Will and Representation"

By Gale and Cengage

A Study Guide for Robert Hass's "The World as Will and Representation," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Poetry for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Poetry for Students for all of your research needs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cengage Learning - Gale
• Release date: Sep 2, 2016
• ISBN: 9781535840668

Book preview

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The World as Will and Representation

Robert Hass

2007

Introduction

Robert Hass's poem The World as Will and Representation is a direct reference to the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, who published his most important work, The World as Will and Representation, in 1818. Schopenhauer posited that it is through art that human beings are capable of glimpsing the universal truth that resides in the particulars of human experience, and that aesthetic experience can also silence the endlessly desiring nature of the will so that we can glimpse the universal. The silencing of the will, or of desire, is one of the central tenets of Buddhism, a belief system that influenced both writers.

The World as Will and Representation is narrative and confessional in nature, and is written in a conversational tone, a style characteristic of much of Hass's work. Hass is a poet who often explores the ways that vernacular language expresses truths of which the speaker might be unaware. Hass is also a poet for whom universal truths are nearly always glimpsed through the mundane details of everyday life; that is, rather than seeking the sublime in elevated language or romantic imagery, Hass seeks to illuminate the ways in which even ordinary moments can be emblematic of larger and more universal truths.

Hass has been a major voice in American poetry since the 1970s, and is particularly representative of a West Coast poetic voice, one that values a conversational tone, a deep attention to the natural world, and an appreciation of domestic life. The publication of Time and Materials: Poems 1997–2005, the collection in which The World as Will and Representation appears, garnered Hass both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, and further solidified his place in the American poetic canon.

Author Biography

Hass was born on March 1, 1941, in San Francisco, California. He grew up in Marin County, just north of the city, and attended St. Mary's College in nearby Moraga, California, where he majored in biology. He earned both an M.A. and a Ph.D. in English at Stanford University, and he taught at St. Mary's from 1971 to 1989; since 1989 he has taught at the University of California at Berkeley, where he currently holds the Distinguished Chair in Poetry and Poetics. The landscape and culture of the San Francisco Bay area and the northern Sierra Nevada Mountains, where he has lived for most of his life, form one of the central themes of his work. Hass has three children by his first marriage, Leif, Kristen and Luke, and he is currently married to the poet Brenda Hillman. As of 2010, they lived in Berkeley, California.

Hass's career was launched in 1973 when he won the prestigious