The Jacob’s Ladder (1961). Detailed description

“The Jacob’s Ladder” serves as the title poem to a collection published in 1961 that also includes a poem Levertov considered to be her first obviously political poem, “During the Eichmann Trial: ‘When We Look Up.’” “The Jacob’s Ladder” takes its title and subject from a biblical passage. Once again, we see that Levertov establishes her major poetic themes even before exploring them more thoroughly many years later. Furthermore, “The Jacob’s Ladder” incorporates her interest in the poetic as a topic of poetry as well as elements from her Hasidic heritage.

Background on the title’s religious allusion helps in understanding the basic content of the poem. The epigraph of her collection The Jacob’s Ladder explains not only the origin of the reference, but also Levertov’s interest in it. She quotes a portion of Martin Buber’s Tales of the Hasidim:

Rabbi Moshe (of Kobryn) taught: It is written: “And he dreamed and behold a ladder set up on earth.” The “he” is every man. Every man must know: I am clay, I am one of the countless shards of clay, but “the top of it reached to heaven”—my soul reaches to heaven; “and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it”—even the ascent and descent of the angels depend on my deeds. (Poems 1960-1967)

The quoted portions are from the Bible story in Genesis of Jacob’s falling asleep and dreaming of a ladder that reaches to heaven. When he wakes up, God, standing at the top, promises him the land he slept on so that his “offspring shall be like the dust of the earth” and spread in all directions (28:14). Levertov, however, claims that her interest in the story has more to do with the Hasidic interpretation.

As the rabbi says, much depends on the deeds of every man, just as the angels’ ascent and descent depend on the dreams of Jacob. Levertov, as a poet, feels a responsibility to use her voice to stir people’s minds and articulate feelings for which others may not have words. While such a belief later leads her to activism, in “The Jacob’s Ladder” it leads to the romantic idea of transcendence. Levertov’s earliest critics grouped her among England’s “new romantics” because she often depicts art as exceeding the limits of the physical world, as well as locating a spiritual element in the earthly.

Notice that in “The Jacob’s Ladder” the stairway is not “for angels’ feet that only glance in their tread, and need not / touch the stone” (25). Rather, it is built of sharp-angled stone that men scrape their knees on while trying to climb. Levertov uses the ladder as an image to express the difficultly of human achievement. She ends, however, on a note of possibility. With awkward and hard work, the product of man might join the angels in ascension. The last line, “The poem ascends,” suggests that in the midst of earthliness, hope remains for revealing a divine truth that surpasses the material world.

For Discussion or Writing
1. The second stanza describes “a rosy stone” that looks soft and “a doubtful, a doubting” gray sky. What place does such a dark and dubious image have in a poem about a solid stone stairway? What point(s) does Levertov make by including the second stanza among the others? Does it add contrast, or does it build upon a singular theme in the poem?

2. Read the Bible story of Jacob found in chapter 28 of Genesis. Does the rabbi’s interpretation make sense to you? Do you see other possibilities for interpreting the passage, and if so, how do those interpretations lend themselves to understanding Levertov’s poem?

3. Note the extreme variance of line length in “The Jacob’s Ladder.” What does the contrast of short and long lines suggest, and how does if affect the poem’s structure?

4. Why might art and religion seek to transcend the physical and material world? What does a poem expressing such a desire suggest about materiality? Explore the relationship between art and religion. Do they serve similar social purposes?