I Knew A Woman Analysis

Author, Henry David Thoreau and Mary Oliver are both very passionate about nature and what it has to offer in life, as well as the symbolism behind nature and its creatures in their works of literature, in “Walden”, and “The House of Light”, Both authors discuss their views of nature and the beauty of the world that they want to make familiar to their audience. In this essay, I’ll provide my reasoning behind this statement.

The poets use personification to create a message about nature in the poems "The Earth is a Living Thing," "Sleeping in the Forest," and "Gold" by making the forest seem to be living and breathing like a human. In "The Earth is a living Thing,'' feel her brushing it clean" this in referring to the universe 'brushing' the earths 'hair'. Usually, when a mom brushes its child's hair, it shows that the mother is favoring that child over its other children. This shows that the Earth is one special planet that is loved by the universe. One example of personification in "Sleeping in the Forest" is "I thought the earth remembered me.

People and the landscape are inextricably linked and consequently each play a role in shaping the other. The texts we have studied show the implications for the individuals present based on their treatment of the landscape, highlighting the connection between the two. Both Judith Wright in her poems “Brother and Sisters” and “The Hawthorne Hedge” as well as Michael Wilding in his short story “As Boys to Wanton Flies” showcase the emotional ties between the individuals and the landscape. Both composers, through their chosen text demonstrate how the individuals are connected, influenced and shaped by the landscape showing that they are not merely inhabitants but are a part of their chosen landscape. This has been done to highlight the involvement

The narrator shares this story from his youth in the words of an educated man. His actions as a teen are in stark contrast to his phraseology as an adult. Early in the story, he viewed “nature” as sex, drugs and rock and roll (Boyle 112-113). However, as the story ends and the turmoil subsides, the narrator sees nature for the first time, through the eyes of a person matured by this traumatic experience. The “sun firing buds and opening blossoms” replaced the once revered beer and

In the essay, “A Literature of Place”, Barry Lopez expresses the importance of nature as it applies to human life. Through this he states that humans’ imagination are inspired by the scenery around them. Lopez revolves around a central perspective; Ancient american literature has always been rooted in nature. By acknowledging that modern human identity has been interpreted by nature, Lopez describes how the landscape of an area can shape the structure of the communities and how it can help with spiritual collapse. Nature writing has often been summarised by being one of the oldest threads in american literature. With our nation's aging one needs to reflect on their literary past; therefore, Lopez insists that we find our path to nature that

Cynthia Lee Kotana says it perfectly when she states in her excerpt, "In the first descriptive octave, personification, the giving of human attributes to inanimate objects, is used to drive home the persuasive mood of the poem." (Kotana, Paragraph 6, Sentence1). She is stating that it is at this point in the poem where Roethke begins to paint a picture of the idea he wants to get across to the reader. It seems possible that he was trying to switch the roles of the humans and the inanimate objects. After all, if it was possible for a pencil to feel sadness, or for a manila folder to feel misery, then is it not possible for a human to feel absolutely nothing? The same nothing that we know all of the inanimate objects around us feel? This was a very great technique used by Roethke in trying to bring the reader to look a little deeper into his poem than just to see "misery" and "sadness" and to think what a dark poem it is. It is truly a great skill and takent to be able to make the reader see that he is bringing the "Dead" to life and the "living" to absolute

Theodore Roethke was born in Saginaw, Michigan on May 25, 1908 to Otto Roethke and Helen Huebner. Along with uncle, his mother and father owned a local greenhouse, where Roethke spent a lot of his childhood days working and playing. He referred to the greenhouse as “my symbol for the whole of life, a womb, a heaven-on-earth” ( ). The greenhouse played a huge role in his poetry. Roethke implies that only after death of the self can people come to realize the true purpose of life, love. Roethke always had stored in the back of his mind “the idea that personal selves were not the focus of time on earth”( ). Therefore, people must experience the death of their selves before they can truly live.

The poets use personification to create a message about nature in the poems "Earth is a Living Thing," by Lucille Clifton "Sleeping

How can an atmosphere be so unbearable and cold, but evidently full of life and constant growth? Set in an old, decaying basement, Theodore Roethke addresses this in the poem “Root Cellar.” Life is clinging to and climbing over the dirty, damp, and dark possessions of the cellar. Why is it possible that so much life is present in such a place of shadows? In “Root Cellar”, Roethke uses imagery, diction, and tone to display that is possible for life to overcome unbearable circumstances suggesting that nature is a truly dominant and powerful force.

Roethke describes Jane in terms of flowers and birds; he reveals her joy and sadness through natural things. These earthly things also reveal the speaker's sadness at Jane's death. Jane's lost presence and Roethke's sorrow receive expression through the concrete world.

As I mentioned earlier as a child Theodore Roethke spent a lot of his time in the greenhouse his father and uncle owned. He observed nature and its true beauty in unique ways. The years he spent in that greenhouse truly helped him become successful in his writing career. A good number of his most famous works, as well as his less notable works reference nature in some way. I will discuss some of these poems showing the references to nature and repeated themes. Roethke tends to relate life and death to nature using imagery and detailed descriptions to captivate the readers.

Theodore Roethke demonstrates an abiding honesty toward the facts of his experience. Roethke, who was one of America's teaching poets before his death, was self-absorbed, and his poetry derives much of its imaginative strength from his quest for that communion joining self and creation (Mills 527-28). In "Elegy for Jane," one of his most successful poems, he blends his grief for his student Jane Bannick with his childhood memories, his students' experiences, and his role as teacher.

Theodore Huebner Roethke was an American poet who grew internally from the experiences that shaped him and transferred them to works that became immensely famous and influential (Theodore Roethke). The poet’s adolescent years were harsh and jarred. He spent most of his childhood playing in his father’s greenhouse and surrounding himself with nature. The emotional events that presented themselves into Roethke’s life because of his father’s death and his uncle’s suicide made him feel isolated and abandoned during his time spent at several different colleges which subsequently influenced him to create one his works, “In A Dark Time,” representing the war between a man and his madness by emphasizing the use of a paradox, personification, and natural imagery.

“Roethke was a great poet, the successor to Frost and Stevens in modern American poetry, and it is the measure of his greatness that his work repays detailed examination” (Parini 1). Theodore Roethke was a romantic who wrote in a variety of styles throughout his long successful career. However, it was not the form of his verse that was important, but the message being delivered and the overall theme of the work. Roethke was a deep thinker and often pondered about and reflected on his life. This introspection was the topic of much of his poetry. His analysis of his self and his emotional experiences are often expressed in his verse. According to Ralph J. Mills Jr., “this self interest was the primary matter of

Thoreau’s constant experimentation at Walden Pond contributed greatly to his ability to recognize the complexity of the surrounding landscape, which in turn aided him in his spiritual connection with the area. His heightened sense of observation, also serves as a record of the local wildlife in the area, contributing to an ecological study of the area. The chapter “Sounds” exhibits this idea through Thoreau’s relay of the different animals he recognizes in the area as demonstrated in the line,”—only squirrels on the roof and under the floor, a whip-poor-will on the ridge-pole, a blue jay screaming beneath the window, a hare or woodchuck under the house, a screech owl or a cat owl behind it, a flock of wild geese or a laughing look on the pond, or a fox to bark into the night” (Thoreau 104-105). Although Thoreau’s Walden was by no means intended to function as an ecological record of the land, generations later, the work provides a glimpse into the local wildlife of the region, a documentation of an area with little human activity. Graham’s poetry functions in a similar way, however the observation of the landscape serves to highlight the changes in the functioning of the environment. In the poem “Later in Life”, the speaker of the poem witness the change of spring into summer, a shift in the seasons over time: “I step out and suddenly notice this: summer arrives, has arrived, is arriving. Birds grow/ less than leaves although they cheep, dip, arc” (Graham 19). This empirical style of observation conveys a scientific understanding of the shift between seasons over time, how life suddenly appears but an individual cannot pinpoint the exact time of appearance. Graham’s poems provide a literary description of the way nature functions, an elaborate attempt to try to decipher a cycle