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Theodore Roethke's Elegy For Jane

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Samantha Lacewell Professor David Miller English 2328 February 20, 2015 Theodore Roethke's Elegy for Jane: My Student, Thrown by a Horse Theodore Roethke was born in Saginaw in 1908 and grew up in the house now preserved as The Theodore Roethke Home Museum. He worked in his grandfather’s floral company, which his experience there inspired many of his poems. After graduating college, he taught at several colleges. He would later receive a Pulitzer Prize for “The Waking”, which included the short poem “Elegy for Jane”, along with two National Book Awards and a Bollingen Prize from Yale in 1959 (1). In conclusion, while visiting with friends at Bainbridge Island in 1963, Washington, Roethke suffered a fatal heart attack. During the last years …show more content…

The comparison of Jane as a small delicate little bird, who sings, is flipped into a dull brown colored bird that does not do much; reflects the fragile state Jane is in. It is pointed out that Jane in absence, so the reader is left to assume that the poet is referring to Jane after her passing and how she led her life in the shadows; it may even be describing her complex inner conflict with herself and how she struggles in life with it. The wet stones may be referring to her head stone and the teacher may be sitting by her gravesite; grieving her and the memories are not helping ease the pain. Roethke appears to be peeling back the layers of the grieving process from the teacher, in which he appears to be struggling …show more content…

The writer states that, he mentions my maimed darling, leading us to believe her death was extremely unfortunate and left Jane mangled. Then again, Jane was compared to another bird, this time flighty like a pigeon that you approach in a park. The teacher really had an emotional connection to this young girl and is still suffering from her loss, as he was not her father or lover just someone who cared deeply for her. He mentions he had no legal rights or any power of attorney over her affairs as he was not her partner or her father. Apparently Jane was recently buried at the grave, since the dirt had not settled and was still wet. The picture illustrated of Jane expressed that she was a complex individual who brightened the world but due to her depression, she was unable to see her effect on the world around her and the people she left behind who will forever keep Jane as a part of

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