Influences and Sources of Theodore Roethke's Elegy for Jane
In "In Memoriam A. H. H.," a new kind of elegy with roots in the elegiac tradition, Tennyson writes, "For words, like Nature, half reveal/And half conceal the Soul within" (1045). The truth of Tennyson's statement appears in Theodore Roethke's "Elegy for Jane: My Student Killed by a Horse." Roethke conceals much about himself as a person yet reveals much about himself as a poet when he puts his grief into words.
Without knowing something of Roethke's personal and professional life, one would think that a student named Jane was the sole inspiration for this moving elegy; however, in The Glass House, the poet's biographer, Allan Seager, reveals more than one possible source of inspiration for the poem. At the University of Washington, as at Roethke's other teaching posts, students liked him, and he frequently formed close relationships with his students--in fact, he married one of his former students; however, this was not the case with Jane Bannick. Seager reveals that "Ted had not known her [Jane] very well." She " was a student of Ted's for only one quarter. She was thrown from a horse and killed" (193). Yet another one of his students may also have had an influence on this elegy.
According to Seager, Roethke "may have been influenced also by Lois Lamb, who had fallen from a horse the previous summer and described the attendant fears to him in detail" (193). Seager also mentions that [the poet] and Lamb conducted a series of `experiments' with a flock of turkeys on the sanitarium [Pinel] grounds" (187) during the poet's 1949-50 hospitalization of manic-depressive illness. These visits by Lamb indicate a closer relationship between Roethke and Lamb t...
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... us all. We can all relate to it. Thus, drawing not only upon his personal experiences and emotion but also universal emotion as well as elegiac and pastoral traditions, Roethke reveals himself as not only a warm, caring instructor but also as an outstanding, and perhaps instinctive, poet.
Works Cited
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.
Seager, Allan. The Glass House: The Life of Theodore Roethke. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1968.
Tennyson, Alfred Lord. "In Memoriam A. H. H." The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 3rd ed., Vol. 2. New York: Norton, 1974. 1042-84.
...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.
Ross-Bryant, Lynn. Theodore Roethke: Poetry of the Earth . . . Poet of the Spirit. Port Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat, 1981.
The customer support and customer service functions are more than departments; they are part of an essential strategy for growing your business. In the modern business climate, customers expect answers to their questions immediately. When the right information is available anytime, from anywhere in the world, customers are more likely to have a positive experience, thus customer loyalty will be increased. It is a known fact that the cost to obtain a customer is ten times higher than to maintain and keep existing customers. (Gouran, Dennis, W.E. Wiethoff, & J.A. Doelger. (1994). Mastering communication. 2nd ed. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.) Not in Reference Pg.
However, the last two lines of the poem suggest feelings other than resentment: "Then waltzed me off to bed/ Still clinging to your shirt" (Roethke 668). By mentioning the fact that his father put him to bed, Roethke seems to show affectionate feelings
Greenblatt, Stephen, and M. H. Abrams. The Norton anthology of English literature. 9th ed., A, New York, W.W. Norton & Company, 2012. Pp
Southam, B.C. “Tennyson.” Writers and Their Works : NO 218. London: Longman Group, 1971. p.6. print.
Just as Katherine Philips, poet Ben Jonson also wrote two elegies, for his son Benjamin and daughter Mary, entitled “On My First Son” and “On My First Daughter”. Jonson’s son died the early age of seven, and he expressed the strong, personal bond between them through the years Benjamin was “lent” to him. Jonson really comes from a place of sorrow and self-condemnation while writing this elegy. His approach to “...
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Berkin, Carol, Lisa Olson. Paddock, and Carl E. Rollyson. Encyclopedia of American Literature. New York: Facts on File, 2002. Print.
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330-337. Tennyson, Alfred, Lord of the Lord. The Lady of Shalott. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Ed.
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