THEODORE ROETHKE
Theodore was born in the United States. His family was well off due to his
father's business on a greenhouse, of which he acquired a great fond of
Nature. However, at the age of thirteen, his uncle committed suicide, and
his father died of cancer. Two tragedies are going to mark him for his entire
life.
Theodore enrolled at the University of Michigan. He was excellent at his
studies but at tennis too, becoming a tennis coach. During this period, Mr.
Roethke devoted to verse and poetry, although his family pressures made
him give in any postgraduation in Harvard or Michigan. In 1931, he
worked at Lafayette College, where he was recognized as an energetic and
inspiring teacher. He published his first poems in a magazine called The
Harp. In this university, he met the poet Bogan, a relationship that will
influence his early works at poetry. In 1941 his first work Open House was
published by Knopf in 1941. This work reflects his command at traditional
prosody, but rather impersonal sans any private experience something will
become his signature as a writer.
In this period, Theodore underwent a severe addiction to drink, an issue
that will remain for his entire life. In 1935, he returned to Michigan to work
as a teacher, yet he suffered his first nervous breakdown and was admitted
to hospital. Mr. Roethke suffered from bipolar disorder and suffered bouts
of mental illness, due to alcohol and the feverish commitment of his artistic
vision.
Some of his most famous works are The Lost Son (1948), Praise the End,
the latter is taken from Wordsworth prelude. Mr. Roethke married his
former student Beatrice O'Connell. Due to this pledge, his poems were
focused on prosody and sexual love (Four for John Davies). However, his
final volume 'Meditations of an Old woman' that marked the true
realization of Roethke's poetic vision. Although his next poems were
coined as 'light verse' he continued with the development of his poetic
breakthrough.
The most remarkable poem collection in his late period was 'The Far Field'
(1964) The North American Sequence, consisted of six poems in little free
verse that featured the Meditations of an Old Woman. He entangled
startling images from the Nature of his childhood and adulthood, the
growth of psyche among Nature, trauma of death inter alia. The author died
from a heart attack in 1962.