Theodore ROethke
Published on Feb 27, 2016
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PRESENTATION OUTLINE
Important events
- Age 14, Roethke's father dies and his uncle commits suicide
- Roethke was a shy, almost reclusive child
- Studied at the University of Michigan, Ann
- Worked as a professor at various universities
- Suffered from manic depression throughout his life
Photo by the justified sinner
"From the consequent sense of his own inadequacy Roethke seems to have acquired the burdens of fears and guilts which haunted him all his life"
-Rosemary Sullivan on Roethke after his father's death
Roethke's tense relationship with his father was never mended before his father's death.
Roethke's second mental breakdown (1945) is said to have been caused by his increasing introspection and reflection on his early childhood relationship with his father.
Roethke's second mental breakdown (1945) is said to have been caused by his increasing introspection and reflection on his early childhood relationship with his father.
Photo by antonella.beccaria
Solipsism:
noun, The theory or belief that one's own self or consciousness is all that exists or all that can be known (OED)
For his entire life, Roethke struggled to fit in and be accepted. As a child, he was shy and reclusive, gangly and awkward. In college, Roethke gained weight, weighing around 250 pounds, and choosing to seem intimidating rather than admit that he struggled to maintain friendships.
As a poet, he was greatly invested in reviews of his writing and used these reviews to further his introspection and self-awareness.
As a poet, he was greatly invested in reviews of his writing and used these reviews to further his introspection and self-awareness.
Photo by Dr. RawheaD
"[The modern poet] must, in effect, march through the history of poetry - rewrite the poems of the past - that he may come out at the end of his journey a poet who has absorbed the tradition and who thus may take one step forward and add to that tradition"
-Jenijoy La Belle on Roethke's struggle as a conscious immitator
Roethke was greatly influenced by T.S. Elliot's ideas that writing should be based on assimilation and imitation.
Roethke once said, "imitation, conscious imitation, is one of the great methods, perhaps the method of learning to write. ...The final triumph is what the language does, not what the poet can do or display."
Roethke's dedicated himself to writing poetry that built upon the writing of poets and professors before him.
Roethke once said, "imitation, conscious imitation, is one of the great methods, perhaps the method of learning to write. ...The final triumph is what the language does, not what the poet can do or display."
Roethke's dedicated himself to writing poetry that built upon the writing of poets and professors before him.
Photo by Fouquier ॐ
Epidermal Macabre
From "Open House", published in 1941
"Indelicate is he who loathes
The aspect of his fleshy clothes, -
The flying fabric stitched on bone,
The vesture of the skeleton,
The garment neither fur not hair,
The cloak of evil and despair,
The veil long violated by
Caresses of the hand and eye.
Yet such is my unseemliness:
I hate my epidermal dress,
The savage blood's obscenity,
The rags of my anatomy,
And willingly would I dispense
With false accounterments of sense,
To sleep immodestly, a most
Incarnadine and carnal ghost."
The aspect of his fleshy clothes, -
The flying fabric stitched on bone,
The vesture of the skeleton,
The garment neither fur not hair,
The cloak of evil and despair,
The veil long violated by
Caresses of the hand and eye.
Yet such is my unseemliness:
I hate my epidermal dress,
The savage blood's obscenity,
The rags of my anatomy,
And willingly would I dispense
With false accounterments of sense,
To sleep immodestly, a most
Incarnadine and carnal ghost."
Photo by DeeAshley
