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
Contrasting Love in To His Coy Mistress and Elegy for Jane If one is interested enough to look, one can find twenty-eight definitions for the word "love" in the dictionary. Such a broadly-defined word has no doubt contributed to the diverse array of poems which all claim (legitimately) to be about "love". Two such poems are "To His Coy Mistress", by Andrew Marvell, and "Elegy for Jane", by Theodore Roethke. Both poems are clearly love poems; however, the types of love that each one represents
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
An elegy is a poem of lament, usually formal and sustained, over the death of a particular person; also, a meditative poem in plaintive or sorrowful mood. Through an elegy authors are able to convey their deepest remorse and grief through the eloquent use of the English language. Three elegies in which show the possible interpretations and moral convictions of death are “Elegy for Jane”, “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”, and “A Satirical Elegy”. Jane's unfortunate death in an equestrian accident
In Elegy for Jane and Bells for John Whiteside's Daughter, two poets mention the loss that they have experienced and the different ways the dead have influenced their lives. However, the literary devices used by the two authors reveal two very different themes. In “Elegy for Jane” Roethke uses auditory imagery, personification of nature, and metaphors to depict the somber mood of the elegy, while Ransom uses ironic juxtaposition, symbols, and euphonious alliteration to reveal the true grief in the
complex attitude in an "Elegy for Jane." In the beginning the tone was reminiscent, heartfelt and warm bringing up cherishing moments between the speaker and Jane. However, the tone shifted as the piece developed going from a warm heartfelt poem to a dark sorrowing work. Roethke accomplishes this transition by using dominant literary devices throughout the work such as personification, similes, and imagery. These devices help us understand that the teacher loves and cares for Jane but is fearful of letting
unknown reason, I felt that it was unacceptable for me to cry for someone else’s dad. I thought that society would not acknowledge my grief since I was not part of his family. Similarly, the speaker in Elegy for Jane, My Student, Thrown by a Horse, by Theodore Roethke, ponders the same thing. This elegy exposes the grief that the speaker feels for his beloved student. Within these lines,
a student that dies by horseback, and the teacher is the speaker of the poem. A theme in the poem is birds. Not just birds, but gray, plain birds, if there ever was such a thing. Obviously Jane was not the most attractive girl in the class, if a teacher would have such thoughts, but the qualities of Jane the teacher speaks of, would assume that he was quite fond of her and her ways, as only a teacher, or parent could probably be. It appears that Roethke was treading the fine line between student
The Alice Williamson Diary To read the Civil War diary of Alice Williamson, a 16 year old girl, is to meander through the personal, cultural and political experience of both the author and one's self. Her writing feels like a bullet ricocheted through war, time, death, literary form, femininity, youth, state, freedom and obligation. This investigation attempts to do the same; to touch on the many issues that arise in the mind of the reader when becoming part of the text through the act of reading
Achieving a Balanced Life in Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility We are often told that too much of anything can be a bad thing. Even Aristotle, one of the greatest thinkers of all time, insisted that the only path to real contentment and inner peace is "The Golden Mean" (Funk & Wagnalls 328). This life lesson is learned by two of Jane Austen's most well-known characters. Only when Elinor and Marianne Dashwood achieve a balance between Sense and Sensibility do they find true happiness in their
“Features of Neoclassic Poetry” Alexander Pope and John Dryden’s Writings of late 17th to 18th century referred to as neoclassical literature. Neoclassic structure emerged from Greek and Roman literature and is a new form of classic. This literature is quiet efficiently designed by using Regular meter, proficient use of strenuous figurative devices and anxiously controlled rhyme. We find such form of work mostly in Greek and Latin poetry. Conveniently, the Neoclassic period can be divided into three
“When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” is an elegy, a poem of mourning written by Walt Whitman. Whitman’s style of writing uses symbols or images from nature. The three dominant nature images in this poem, referred to in line four as the trinity, are the lilac, the star, and the thrush. They symbolize the poem’s concern with the “thought of death” and the “knowledge of death.” A thought can evolve. In line 119, the knowledge of death is referred to as sacred implying ultimate insight. As the
While the brewing revolutions which influenced Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Blake differed from the political radicalism experienced by Percy Bysshe Shelley, the social restrictions enforced in Jane Austen’s time provoked her critical writings. In ‘Kubla Khan’ and ‘Frost at Midnight’, Coleridge champions the natural world and the human imagination as a vehicle with the capacity to metaphysically transport the individual to a new world, while in ‘Hymn to Intellectual Beauty’, Shelley reveres
The Absence of Women in Beowulf, The Wife's Lament, and the Battle of Maldon It could be argued that women are indeed present in the minority in surviving Anglo-Saxon poetry, and that therefore, they are made conspicuous through their absence. The fact they may appear less frequently in Old English Literature does not necessarily mean that women were any less significant in society at this time, although this is the conclusion reached by some. It is assumed that women did, in general, have less
deepest relationship is that between the individual and a timeless essence beyond – though linked with – artistic beauty. An example of poets if spirit are Arthur Sze (1950- ), who is said to have a Zen-like sensibility. His poems offer meditations; and Jane Hirshfield (l953-) who refers to Buddhism in her poems. The poetry of nature focuses on person’s relation to nature. Today environmental concerns inform a powerful strain of ecologically oriented U.S. poetry. James Welch, Leslie Marmon Silko, Pattiann
considered a form of art and the way it's understood depends on who reads it. There are several types of poetry including; free verse (where one writes freely with no pattern), Acrostic (where the first letter of each line of the poem spells out a word), Elegy (a poem in which is often on a sadder note about someone's death, but ends with a comforting feeling), Haiku (a form of poetry originally from Japan that consists of 3 non-rhyming lines in five, seven, and five syllables. ) and etc. In Chinese Literature
Metafictional Traits Metafictional Traits found in Flaubert's Parrot and in John Fowles' The French Lieutenant's Woman, before comparing these with the elements of realism in Isaac Singer's The Family Moskat. "For some, Life is rich and creamy ... while Art is a pallid commercial confection ... For others, Art is the truer thing, full, bustling and emotionally satisfying, while Life is worse than the poorest novel: devoid of narrative, peopled by bores and rogues, short on wit ... and leading