Activity 2.5.4 – The Biographical Perspective
Before reading the poem My Papa’s Waltz by the American poet Theodore Roethke read this brief biographical summary adapted from The Poetry Foundation website.
Theodore Roethke hardly fits anyone’s image of the stereotypical high-minded poet-intellectual of the 1940s through 1960s. Born in Saginaw, Michigan, his father was a German immigrant who owned and ran a 25-acre greenhouse. Though as a child he read a great deal he suffered from issues of abandonment and loss, and his lack of self-esteem led him to strive to be accepted by peers. When he was 14, his father died of cancer and his uncle committed suicide. He attended the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where he adopted a tough, bear-like image (weighing over 225 pounds) and even developed a fascination with gangsters. Eccentric and nonconformist—he later called himself “odious” and “unhappy”—Roethke yearned for a friend with whom he could talk and relate his ambitions.
His difficult childhood, his bouts with bipolar disorder, and his ceaseless search for truth through his poetry writing led to a difficult life, but also helped to produce a remarkable body of work that would influence future generations of American poets to pursue the mysteries of one’s inner self.
There were times when Roethke was unable to maintain any semblance of balance in his life. His well-publicized mental breakdowns were, at least in part, the result from his going “from exhaustion to exhaustion. His mental breakdowns became increasingly more frequent and by 1958, he was attending therapy sessions six times a week. Some have claimed that they were attributable to his intense self-exploration and that he was able to see into himself more clearly because of his illnesses. Kenneth Burke has shown that by willingly immersing himself in the conflicts of his childhood Roethke precipitated his second breakdown; one psychiatrist has said, “I think his troubles were merely the costs he paid for being his kind of poet.” Roethke probed the darkness of his childhood in his book of poetry titled “The Greenhouse Poems.”
Now read and re-read (out loud and silently) the poem carefully.
Please answer the following analytical questions:
- How relevant do you think Roethke’s biography is to the content of his poem?
- What does Roethke’s use of a rhyme scheme and meter reinforce the poem?
- In addition to a biographical perspective, what other perspective(s) do you think the poem might suggest (ex. Marxist/Conflict...Psychoanalytical ... Feminist ... Post-Colonial)