Four Critics’ Perspective of Theodore Roethke's Elegy for Jane
More than forty years after her untimely death, Jane Bannick breathes again--or so it seems while reading about her. Jane's unfortunate death in an equestrian accident prompted one of her professors, the poet Theodore Roethke, to write a moving poem, "Elegy for Jane," recalling his young student and his feelings of grief at her loss. Opinions appeared almost as soon as Roethke's tribute to Jane, and passages about the poem continue to appear in articles and books. Recent writings by Parini, Ross-Bryant, Kalaidjian, and Stiffler disclose current assessments.
According to Parini, Jane's death is not the subject of the poem; rather, her death presents an occasion for calling up a certain emotional state in which Roethke's feelings of grief and pity transcend the occasion. Following the standard of elegiac celebration of the vegetation god Adonis reaching back to Bion's Lament for Adonis and Moschus's Lament for Bion, Roethke associates the deceased with elemental aspects of nature--the plant tendrils, the pickerel, the wren--to defuse the pathos of her death. A Romantic poet, Roethke views death as a stage; the plants point to rebirth (138-39). The subject of Roethke's most famous poem (45) becomes the response to Jane's death and his ambivalent emotions at her graveside. Without the associations of earlier elegies, the emotion would surpass the occasion. Roethke mourns not only Jane, whom he knew only slightly, but also the deaths of us all (138-39).
Jane presents one aspect of woman in The Waking collection (1953): Ross-Bryant views Jane as a young girl who is dead. The poem expresses concern with the coming of death. This poignant elegy is presen...
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...ini and Ross-Bryant appear almost polarized in their opinion of the nature of Roethke's feelings for Jane: Parini contends that Roethke mourns for us all; Ross-Bryant feels that Roethke's grief is intensely personal. Other than the nature of than Roethke's feelings for Jane, these four critics find little to disagree about in "Elegy for Jane."
Works Cited
Kalaidjian, Walter B. Understanding Theodore Roethke. Columbia: U of South Carolina P, 1987.
Parini, Jay. Theodore Roethke: An American Romantic. Amherst: U of Massachusetts P, 1979.
Roethke, Theodore. The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke. New York: Anchor-Doubleday, 1975.
Ross-Bryant, Lynn. Theodore Roethke: Poetry of the Earth . . . Poet of the Spirit. Port Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat, 1981.
Stiffler, Randall. Theodore Roethke: The Poet and His Critics. Chicago: ALA, 1986.
...is father brought to small town Michigan. Matt Forster, a biographer, states that “Much of Roethke’s poetry would draw on the imagery of his childhood, such as the landscapes of Michigan, the dirt and roots he remembered from working in the nursery, and memories of his father (Forster 2005).” Roethke wrote about his childhood throughout his literary career, and his poems reflect small town life in Michigan and the important people with whom he was surrounded during his childhood and adolescence.
O'Hara, Frank. "The Day Lady Died." The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry. Ed. Jahan Ramazani et al. 3rd ed. 2 vols. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2003. 2: 365.
“I am very happy, Jane; and when you hear that I am dead, you must be
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World Nuclear Association. (Updated October 2013). Safety of Nuclear Power Reactors. Available: http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Safety-and-Security/Safety-of-Plants/Safety-of-Nuclear-Power-Reactors/. Last accessed 25th April 2014.