Theodore Roethke (30 page)

Roethke built his own world, shaping his life to the pure idea in his mind. The contours of his private world can be studied in the
Collected Poems
, and this study provides a map of his wonderful, idiosyncratic planet.

Roethke's specific connections were Romantic, especially with the American visionary side. More so than any other contemporary poet, he carried on an exhaustive dialogue with his precursors. For this reason we have looked closely at the apprentice years to see how his early attitudes about originality and imitation were formed. There will always be critics ready to dismiss Roethke with a backhanded swipe: “He's an imitator.” The response to this is, simply, that he
is;
but he uses imitation as a technique for liberating his own strongly original voice. “In a time when the romantic notion of the inspired poet still has considerable credence,” he wrote, “true ‘imitation' takes a certain courage. One dares to stand up to a great style, to compete with papa” (
SP
, pp. 69–70). Roethke has this courage, competes, and—sometimes—wins.

In all,
The Lost Son
remains the central volume, this poet's most durable achievement, and the key to his work. This is not to dismiss the love lyrics of his middle period or the best of his later meditative sequences, which deepen and extend the autobiographical mythos at the core of all his best writing, the quest for the greenhouse Eden. The cycles of death and rebirth are crucial here, providing the contrarieties that generate creative energy. The long poem sequences, Roethke's favorite medium, make constant use of this pattern; the poet's most basic movement is from desolation and fear to consolation and joy. In this, Roethke becomes a meditative poet par excellence.

It looks clear now that Roethke has earned a permanent place in the literature of American Romanticism. Finally, it is Roethke's fierce honesty with himself that illumines his best work; when he succeeds, it is because he has managed to speak directly about his most personal and, often, disturbing experiences. When he fails, it is because of self-deception or affectation. That he came to understand this truth about himself is evident in a moving fragment taken from one of his last, unpublished notebooks:

NOTES

CHAPTER ONE

1
.   Some of the best essays in this area are collected in Harold Bloom's anthology,
Romanticism and Consciousness
(New York: Norton, 1970), and in
Romanticism: Vistas, Instances, Continuities
, ed. David Thorburn and Geoffrey Hartman (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1973).

2
.   
The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1903), p. 329.

3
.   Hyatt H. Waggoner, in
American Poets from the Puritans to the Present
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1968), demonstrates the Emersonian influence on American poetry as a whole.

4
.   James McIntosh,
Thoreau as Romantic Naturalist: His Shifting Stance Toward Nature
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1974), p. 29.

5
.   René Wellek,
Concepts of Criticism
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1963), p. 160.

6
.   Louis L. Martz, “A Greenhouse Eden,” in
Theodore Roethke: Essays on the Poetry
, ed. Arnold Stein (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1965), pp. 14–35.

7
.   Denis Donoghue, “Roethke's Broken Music” in
Theodore Roethke: Essays on the Poetry
, p. 136.

8
.   
The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke
(New York: Doubleday, 1966), p. 150. All subsequent quotations are taken from this edition and are cited as CP with page number in the text.

9
.   
The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens
(New York: Knopf, 1954), p. 325.

10
.   Ralph J. Mills, Jr., ed.,
On the Poet and His Craft: Selected Prose of Theodore Roethke
(Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1965), p. 11; hereafter cited in the text as
SP
.

11
.   Norman O. Brown,
Life Against Death: The Psychoanalytical Meaning of History
(Middle-town: Wesleyan University Press, 1959), pp. 85–86.

12
.   All unpublished journal entries are taken from the Theodore Roethke Papers in possession of the University of Washington Libraries and are cited as Roethke Papers followed by box and file numbers and the date of the entry, where known; the entries quoted are Roethke Papers, 34—41, 8 January 1944 and July 1945.

13
.   Roethke Papers, 34–41, 8 January 1944.

14
.   Rosemary Sullivan,
Theodore Roethke: The Garden Master
(Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1975).

15
.   Roethke Papers, 35–66, 13 August 1945.

16
.   Ralph Waldo Emerson,
Selected Prose and Poetry
, ed. Reginald L. Cook, 2d ed. (San Francisco: Rinehart Press, 1969), p. 129. Subsequent quotations are hereafter referred to in these notes as Emerson,
Selected Prose and Poetry
.

17
.   Richard Allen Blessing,
Theodore Roethke's Dynamic Vision
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1974), p. 68.

18
.   Karl Malkoff,
Theodore Roethke: An Introduction to the Poetry
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1966), pp. 63–109.

19
.   Harold Bloom, “The Internalization of Quest Romance” in
Romanticism and Consciousness, p. 6
.

20
.   Emerson,
Selected Prose and Poetry
, p. 5.

21
.   Ibid., p. 37.

22
.   Charles J. Smith, “The Contrarieties: Wordsworth's Dualist Imagery,”
PMLA
69 (1954): 118l.

23
.   M. H. Abrams,
Natural Superaturalism
(London: Oxford University Press, 1971), p. 284.

24
.   William Wordsworth,
The Prelude
(1805), ed. E. de Selincourt (London: Oxford University Press, 1933), p. 39.

25
.   
The Complete Poetry and Prose of Walt Whitman
, 2 vols. (New York: Pellegrini and Cudahy, 1945), 1: 80.

26
.   Abrams,
Natural Superaturalism
, p. 431.

27
.   Whitman,
Complete Poetry and Prose
, I: 88.

28
.   Emerson,
Selected Prose and Poetry
, pp. 37–38.

29
.   F. W. J. Schelling, Introduction to
Ideen zu einer Philosophie der Natur
, translated and quoted by Mcintosh,
Thoreau as Romantic Naturalist
, p. 51.

CHAPTER TWO

1
.   Roethke Papers, 32–1, 30 November 1930.

2
.   Allan Seager,
The Glass House: The Life of Theodore Roethke
(New York: McGraw-Hill, 1968), pp. 15–18.

3
.   Roethke Papers, “Annotated Books Collection.”

4
.   Ralph J. Mills, Jr., ed.,
Selected Letters of Theodore Roethke
(Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1968), p. 230. Hereafter cited in the text as
SL
.

5
.   Seager,
The Glass House
, p. 76.

6
.   Roethke Papers, 8–9, 1935.

7
.   Blessing,
Theodore Roethke's Dynamic Vision
, p. 5.

8
.   Ruth Limmer, ed.,
What the Woman Lived: Selected Letters of Louise Bogan
(New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1973), pp. 102–3.

9
.   Roethke Papers, 3–17, “Incoming Letters,” 3 March 1936.

10
.   Limmer,
What the Woman Lived
, p. 169.

11
.   Roethke Papers, 3–18, “Incoming Letters,” 3 August 1937.

12
.   Ibid., 3–19, “Incoming Letters,” 28 June 1939.

13
.   Limmer,
What the Woman Lived
, pp. 56–57.

14
.   Stanley Kunitz,
A Kind of Order, A Kind of Folly
(Boston: Atlantic-Little, Brown, 1975). p. 78.

15
.   Roethke Papers, 8–33, “Incoming Letters,” 31 January 1936.

16
.   Roethke Papers, 8–33, “Incoming Letters,” 30 October 1935.

17
.   Jenijoy La Belle, “Martyr to a Motion Not His Own: Theodore Roethke's Love Poems,”
Ball State University Forum
16 (spring 1975): 71.

18
.   Roethke Papers, 8–33, “Incoming Letters,” November 1935.

CHAPTER THREE

1
.   M. H. Abrams,
The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1953).

2
.   Frank Kermode,
Romantic Image
(London: Fontana, 1971), p. 18

3
.   Roethke Papers, 35–60, July 1945.

4
.   Ibid., 34–51, 1944.

5
.   Ibid., 34–62, 16 December 1946; 34–54, 1944; 34–49, 3 August 1944; 34–63, 26 July 1945

6
.   John Keble, review of John Lockhart's
Life of Scott
(1838) in
Occasional Papers
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1877); quoted by Abrams in
The Mirror and the Lamp
, p. 145.

7
.   C. K. Ogden and I. A. Richards,
The Meaning of Meaning
, 3d. ed. (London: Kegan Paul, 1930), p. 149; I. A. Richards,
Principles of Literary Criticism
, 5th ed. (London: Kegan Paul, 1934), pp. 267, 273.

8
.   Roethke Papers, 72–20, “Teaching Notes”; 36–17, October 1947; 36–56, 31 March 1945; 34–34. 1943; 36–98, December 1947.

9
.   Ibid., 36–89, January-October 1946.

10
.   Preface to the
Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth's Literary Criticism
, ed. N. C. Smith (London: H. Milford, 1905), pp. 21–22.

11
.   Roethke Papers, 55–18, “Teaching Notes,” 6 September 1944; 62–2, “Teaching Notes.”

12
.   Emerson,
Selected Prose and Poetry
, p. 130.

13
.   Kermode,
Romantic Image
, pp. 13, 60.

14
.   Roethke Papers, 65–19, “Teaching Notes.”

15
.   Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
Biographia Literaria
, ed. George Watson (London: J. M. Dent, 1956), pp. 173–74

16
.   Emerson,
Selected Prose and Poetry
, p. 136.

17
.   J. G. Herder, “On the Knowing and Feeling of the Human Soul” (1778); quoted by Abrams in
The Mirror and the Lamp
, p. 204.

18
.   Roethke Papers, 35–68, 23 October 1946; 72–19, “Teaching Notes”; 34–44, 1944; 36–88, 23 October 1946; 34–49, 1944.

19
.   T. S. Eliot,
Selected Essays
(London: Faber, 1932), p. 287.

20
.   Quotations taken from the verses preceding the Prospectus in its original place at the end of
Home at Grasmere
. Quoted by Abrams,
Natural Superaturalism
, p. 21.

21
.   Whitman,
Complete Poetry and Prose
, p. 50.

22
.   Emerson,
Selected Prose and Poetry
, p. 137.

CHAPTER FOUR

1
.   Blessing,
Theodore Roethke's Dynamic Vision
, p. 40.

2
.   Malkoff,
Theodore Roethke: An Introduction to the Poetry
, pp. 32–33.

3
.   See Jenijoy La Belle,
The Echoing Wood of Theodore Roethke
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976).

4
.   Yvor Winters, “The Poems of Theodore Roethke,”
Kenyon Review
3 (Autumn 1941): 515; quoted by Malkoff,
Theodore Roethke: An Introduction to the Poetry
, p. 35.

5
.   Manuscript from The Theodore Roethke Manuscripts Collection of the Pennsylvania State University Library.

6
.   La Belle,
The Echoing Wood
, pp. 13–16.

7
.   Sullivan,
Theodore Roethke: The Garden Master
, pp. 18–19.

8
.   A. O. Lovejoy,
The Reason, the Understanding, and Time
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1961), pp. 137–38.

9
.   Roethke Papers, 32–4, July 1934.

10
.   Ibid., 34–38, 1943; 34–38, 1943; 34–53. 19 January 1945; 34–56, 3' March 1945; 34–65, 12 August 1945.

11
.   Ibid., 34–34, 1943.

12
.   Ibid., 34–39, 3 August 1944.

13
.   Ibid., 35–66, 13 August 1945.

14
.   Review of
Open House
in
Browse
, a publication of the College Bookstore of Penn State College, 8 March 1941, being an early version of a review to appear a month later in
Saturday Review
, 30 April 1941, p. 30.

15
.   Roethke Papers, 34–54, 3 March 1945.

CHAPTER FIVE

1
.   Kenneth Burke,
The Philosophy of Literary Form
(Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1941), p. 63.

2
.   Wallace Stevens,
The Necessary Angel
(New York: Knopf, 1951), p. 118.

3
.   Geoffrey Hartman,
The Unmediated Vision
(New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1966), pp. 156, 155, 161.

4
.   Wallace Stevens,
Collected Poems
, p. 239.