Biography EssayThe motif of the journey is more crucial to the poetry of Theodore Roethke than to that of any other major American poet since Whitman. Perhaps it is more important to Roethke. Certainl...
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American poet and teacher Theodore Roethke (1908-1963) is considered a major poet of his generation. He demonstrated a wide range of styles and growing awareness of how to transform his love of nature...
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The motif of the journey is more crucial to the poetry of Theodore Roethke than to that of any other major American poet since Whitman. Perhaps it is more important to Roethke than it is to Whitman. C...
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By the time Theodore Roethke arrived at the University of Washington in the fall of 1947, he was nearing forty and had more than a dozen years of college-teaching experience. His first book of poems, ...
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Auden is recognized as one of the preeminent poets of the twentieth century. His poetry centers on moral issues and evidences strong political, social, and psychological orientations. In the following...
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A prominent figure in American literature, Schwartz created poems and stories that are deeply informed by his experiences as the son of Jewish immigrants. His verse often focuses on middle-class New Y...
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An American poet and critic, Mills has published several volumes of verse and studies of such poets as Richard Eberhart, Edith Sitwell, and Kathleen Raine, in addition to Roethke. As well, he is the a...
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The following is a transcript of a spoken address. Roethke discusses such topics as teaching, his literary influences, the role of readers, and the poetic process. In the absence of further informatio...
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In the following review, Carruth judges that in The Far Field Roethke achieved qualified success.
During the past year the fashion has been to praise Theodore Roethke to the skies. But what possible g...
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Donoghue is an Irish-born educator and literary critic. In his study The Arts without Mystery (1984), he attacks the tendency of contemporary societies to reduce art to a commodity. In the following e...
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James is an Australian-born English critic, poet, and novelist who has written extensively about British culture and national politics but is perhaps best known for his commentaries on television and ...
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Heaney is widely considered Ireland's most accomplished contemporary poet and has often been called the greatest Irish poet since William Butler Yeats. In the following essay, which was first p...
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In the following excerpt, Jaffe highlights Roethke's strengths as a poet.
It has become a cliché of the modern poetry class to point out how divided critical and anthological opinion had...
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Wilbur is an American poet and critic. Respected for the craftsmanship and elegance of his verse, he employs formal poetic structures and smoothly flowing language as a response to disorder and chaos ...
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In the following essay, La Belle asserts that Roethke's love poems place him in the tradition of John Donne, Andrew Marvell, and Dante Alighieri, among others.
For Theodore Roethke writing poet...
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An American poet and translator, Humphries published several volumes of verse and translated works by the Spanish poet and dramatist Federico Garcia Lorca and the classical writers Ovid, Virgil, Juven...
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In the following essay, Bogen studies the evolution of Roethke's poetry as illustrated in the representative poems "Genesis," "On the Road to Woodlawn," and "...
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In the following essay, Lewandowska claims that the poems in Praise to the End! evince the influence of the Bible's Psalms.
Theodore Roethke's long Praise to the End! sequence is probabl...
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In the following essay, examines the connection between Roethke's manic-depression and evidence of mystical themes in his works.
Although Theodore Roethke's manic depressive syndrome, wh...
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In the following essay, Vanderbilt considers evidence of regionalism in Roethke's poetry.
Since Theodore Roethke's sudden, untimely death in summer of 1963, his work has been the subject...
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In the following essay, Gardner classifies Roethke's "North American Sequence" in the long poem genre and compares the method and style of the sequence to Walt Whitman's &#...
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major American lyric poet whose darkly romantic verse is characterized by her use of traditional structures, concise language, and vivid description, Bogan is recognized particularly for her honest an...
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An American poet and critic, Kunitz won the Pulitzer Prize in 1959 for his Selected Poems, 1928-1958. His work is skillfully crafted, incorporating rhythms of natural speech, and evidencing a fine ear...
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Eberhart is a highly regarded lyric poet whose verse examines fundamental questions about the nature of existence. His poems typically evoke quotidian images that illuminate conflicts between emotion ...
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In the following excerpt, Bogan compares Roethke's poetry to that of Richard Eberhart and applauds the symbolism that Roethke employs in Praise to the End! to suggest the journey from childhood...
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Carruth is a well-respected and prolific American poet whose verse is frequently autobiographical, varied in mood and form, and noted for its unadorned and precise language. His literary criticism, wh...
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Kramer is a prominent art critic who has served on the staff of such journals as Arts Digest, Arts Magazine, Nation, New Leader, New Criterion, and the New York Times. In the following essay, which fo...
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Spender was an English man of letters who rose to prominence during the 1930s as a Marxist lyric poet and as an associate of W. H. Auden, Christopher Isherwood, C. Day Lewis, and Louis MacNeice. His p...
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Critical Essay by Kenneth Burke
Roethke can endow his brief lyrics with intensity of action. Nor is the effect got, as so often in short forms, merely by a new spurt in the last line. No matter how br...
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Critical Essay by John D. Boyd
There is a widespread emerging consensus that Roethke must be judged, along with Robert Lowell, as one of the two American poets of his generation most likely to achieve...
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Critical Essay by Anthony Libby
Roethke remains, despite shadows of doubt about his ultimate value, a seminal voice in contemporary poetry. He must be one of the most uneven poets ever called "...
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Critical Essay by C. E. Nicholson and W. H. Wasilewski
A pervasive interest in the poetry of Theodore Roethke is that man creates the world he perceives, hence Roethke accepts as axiomatic the recipro...
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Critical Essay by Brian Swann
The purpose of this essay is to take representative poems from the first three books Roethke wrote, Open House (1941), The Lost Son and Other Poems (1948), Praise To The ...
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Critical Essay by Rosemary Sullivan
An ambition to find order through poetry is movingly apparent [in Roethke's last poems]. The poems read like last poems, attempts to integrate his themes and...
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Critical Essay by Dwight L. Mccawley
[All previous readings of I Knew a Woman] have assumed the woman to be real, having bones, skin, hips, nose, and other physical attributes; all have therefore conc...
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Critical Essay by Jeff Westfall
There is a common critical opinion that for Roethke, "all problems centered in the self" …, and that "one of Roethke's gravest limita...
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Critical Essay by Charles Sanders
Scholars are indebted to Jenijoy La Belle's The Echoing Wood of Theodore Roethke … for its demonstration that Roethke's poetry, increasingly from...
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In the following review, Rosenthal offers tempered criticism of Words for the Wind.
Pick up one of Theodore Roethke's longer poems and you are confronted with a stunning mishmash of agonized gi...
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In the following essay, Floyd-Wilson examines Roethke's representation of women in his poetry, noting Roethke's idealization of the female persona and attempt to transcend self by portra...
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In the following essay, Bogen explores the process of self-discovery and maturation as expressed by Roethke in "The Lost Son" and Praise to the End!, especially as influenced by parental...
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In the following essay, Malkoff provides an overview of Roethke's life and work, noting developmental influences, recurring themes, and his major publications.
The "lost world" of...
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In the following essay, Blessing examines technical devices employed by Roethke to evoke dynamic energy and movement, particularly as evident in his elegies.
Theodore Roethke was ever one to appreciat...
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In the following essay, Vernon explores Roethke's affinity for garden imagery and the symbolism of sexual development, personal growth, and self-consciousness.
In Marvell's "The G...
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In the following essay, Williams provides a survey of Roethke's critical reception among contemporary poets and reviewers.
Throughout Theodore Roethke's middle and late career and after ...
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In the following essay, Spanier examines autobiographic allusions to the creative process revealed in the "Greenhouse Sequence" from Roethke's The Lost Son and Other Poems.
Simpli...
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In the following essay, Vanderbilt examines Roethke's regional self-identity and distinct American voice, particularly as influenced by his Midwestern origins and later years in Seattle.
To exp...
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In the following essay, Nelson examines theme and image of "North American Sequence" in The Far Field, drawing attention to Roethke's pastoral tone, American sensibility, and freq...
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In the following essay, Balakian draws attention to Roethke's influence on modern American poetry, particularly his synthesis of autobiographical detail and transcendental consciousness reflect...
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In the poem "My Papa's Waltz" by Theodore Roethke, the speaker is reflecting on a childhood experience involving his father. Through diction and details, the speaker conveys his complex attitudes towa...
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Theodore Roethke's My Papa's Waltz is an extended metaphor comparing a father and son's relationship to that of a waltz. The waltz is an intimate dance between two partners, where one leads another. T...
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Theodore Roethke
Theodore (Huebner) Roethke
