Enzyme, Pharmaceutical Aids, Miscellaneous Last Part of Chapter no 5th.pdf
Theodore roethke powerpoint
1.
2. Biography
Born: May 25, 1908 in Saginaw,
Michigan Theodore Roethke
Died: August 1, 1963 in Bainbridge
Island, Washington
- Son of Otto Theodore and Helen
Marie
- Married Beatrice Heath O'Connell on
January 3, 1953
Education: University of Michigan
(1929)
- Graduate study completed at
Harvard University
3. Personal Life
Interest in literature began at young age
Coached tennis team at Pennsylvania State University
Lost his job at Michigan State after one semester
because of a mental breakdown
Diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and manic
depression
Unable to deal with everyday life and had to be
institutionalized
Denied service in WWII due to condition
Used illness to connect to other ‘spiritual’ realms
4. Influences on Roethke’s Writing
- Roethke grew up in the
greenhouse (built by father and
uncle)
- Returned to it to in later years
relive childhood memories
- Drew a source of inspiration and
power for his poetry
- At age fourteen, Roethke’s father
died
- Left subconsciously feeling a sense
of abandonment
5. Literary Period: Contemporary
Period
Forms/Techniques Commonly Used:
Blending fiction & nonfiction
-Blending fantasy and realism
-Dialogue in poems
Themes include expression of complex,
impersonal, and commercial nature of the
world.
6. Historical Setting of Contemporary
~Period States had emerged from
The United
WWII as a powerful force in the
world.
~The Cold War between the Soviet
Union and the West commenced.
~ Domestically, segregation in all
public schools was banned.
~1969: American astronaut Neil
Armstrong became the first man to
set foot on the moon.
~TV’s proliferated in houses and
American industry rapidly changed
~These changes influenced the works
7. Significant WorkS
Books:
1.Open House (1941)
2. The Lost Son and Other Poems (1948)
3. Praise to the End (1951)
4. The Waking (1953)
5. Words for the Wind (1958)
6. I Am! Says the Lamb (1961)
Poems:
7. The Far Field (1964)
1.The Reckoning (1941)
2.My Papa’s Waltz (1948)
3.Pickle Belt (1948)
4.Elegy for Jane (1953)
5. Journey to the Interior (1964)
6. The Geranium (1964)
7. In a Dark Time (1964)
8. My Papa's Waltz
The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.
We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother's countenance
Could not unfrown itself.
The hand that held my wrist
Was battered on one knuckle;
At every step you missed
My right ear scraped a buckle.
You beat time on my head
With a palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt.
9. Line by Line Explanation
Lines 1-2:
- Mood and tone are established,
- Relationship between two characters introduced
Line 3:
- Sense of fear shown in son; “like death”
- Boy was perhaps frightened or had emotional separation anxiety
Line 4:
- First reference to the actual waltz
- Paradox introduced: “such waltzing was not easy”.
- Literally: humorous image of son trying to dance with drunk father
- Metaphorically: difficult father/son relationship
Lines 5-6:
- Boisterousness of waltz depicted
- Ironic because waltzes are generally fluid and elegant
Lines 7-9:
-Mother is introduced as a disapproving figure
-Synecdoche: essential aspects of the part describe the whole
10. Cont’d Line by Line Explanation
Lines 9-12:
- Father’s actions have direct consequence on son
- Pain is emphasized; father’s pain seems to be from his occupation, while
the son’s is from his dancing with (or his relationship with) his father.
Lines 13-14:
- The hand keeping rhythm on the boy’s head is an odd gesture
- Shows awkwardness of dance
Lines 15-16:
- On the surface, the conclusion is just an easygoing parting.
- The dance ends and the son is ‘waltzed’ off to bed, ‘clinging’ onto his shirt
- Child could’ve been frightened of father, or in a deeper sense, may not
have wanted the dance (or the relationship) to come to an end.
- The son may not have wanted death to separate them, which we know is
what happened in Roethke’s personal life.
11. Themes:
2 key themes are developed:
3.The son’s attempt to understand his relationship with his father
4.The use of the dance as a metaphor for life itself.
The poem contains many ironies that are highlighted by Roethke’s use of
detail.
ex) A waltz has a positive connotation, and is graceful and romantic.
The dance in the poem, however, is jolting and awkward. A father and son
waltzing is quite abnormal.
Forms/Devices Used in this Poem:
• The meter, though iambic, at times adds an extra syllable at the end of
the second or fourth line. (ex. “could make a small boy dizzy”)
• Lines are short and do not flow
Diction:
• The diction mixes words that a child may use (due to the subject of the
poem) and words of an adult, because the poem is flashback from an
adult’s perspective. (ex.“papa” is a child name for ‘father’, whereas
“countenance” is a more mature term for describing a person).
• Roethke’s word choice is also connotative (ex. “like death” and “clinging.”)
12. Literary Criticism
“Roethke was a great poet, the successor to Frost and Stevens in modern
American poetry. /…/ Specifically, Roethke was a Romantic. His work
abounds in references to Blake, Wordsworth, and Yeats, especially, but my
stress is upon the American quality of his Romanticism. /…/ Without
impugning his originality, one can read all Roethke's work as a continuing
conversation with his precursors; he was a poetic ventriloquist of sorts,
able to speak through masks of those whom he called "the great dead."
Still, there is a voice at his core which is unmistakably his own. He has
his special province, a landscape so personal and distinct that no amount
of imitation or writing-like-somebody-else, as he called it, disturbs the
integrity of his voice....”
13. Literary Criticism con’td
“One central source of conflict for Roethke was his father's death when he
was fifteen. He returns to this painful experience of loss throughout his
career, always seeking that final atonement where conflicts are abolished
and harmony is restored. I doubt whether he attained this goal, but perhaps
he didn't really want to; this conflict proved a wealthy source of poetry.
From this single life crisis, Roethke generated his mythos /…/ Otto, the
father, lords over this dream world; he is the "garden master" /…/ Otto
metamorphoses into God in the later poems…”
14. Literary Criticism con’td
“The greenhouse as a symbol was obviously rich in possibilities. /…/ Far
from the transcendental state of resolution, the greenhouse stands for
process, for generation. It is paradisaical in its lushness /…/ protected from
the wilderness outside its walls. But this paradise remains unnatural,
artificial. Only the massive effort of the florist-father keeps it going through
winter. It is analogous with the family itself, that hothouse where a child
matures in the constant temperature of parental protection/…/ the vines
that reach out for something to wind around: these terrify the child. To
press the analogy one step further /…/ the father-son struggle witnessed
in Roethke becomes part of the son's efforts to establish identity. “
