1、Introduction to Literature,Lesson FIVE: Roethke and plath Family Relationships,Margarette Connor,Outline,Theodore Roethke “intentional fallacy” “My Papas Waltz” discussion Sylvia Plath “Daddy” discussion,Theodore Roethke (1908-1963),Considered by many critics to be one of the most important American
2、 poets of the 20th century.,His influence,“Roethkes pioneering explorations of nature, regional settings, depth psychology, and personal confessionalism-coupled with his stylistic innovations in open form poetics and his mastery of traditional, fixed forms-have secured his reputation as one of the m
3、ost distinguished and widely read American poets of the twentieth century.” American National Biography.,Early life,Born in Saginaw, Michigan. Son of Otto Roethke and Helen Huebner As a child, he spent much time in the greenhouse owned by his father and uncle. impressions of the natural world contai
4、ned there would later profoundly influence the subjects and imagery of his verse. When he was 15, his father died of cancer would powerfully shape Roethkes psychic and creative lives.,Education,1925 to 1929 at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, graduating magna cum laude. Resisting family pres
5、sure to pursue a legal career, he quit law school after one semester 1929 to 1931, he took graduate courses at the University of Michigan and later the Harvard Graduate School, where he worked closely with the poet Robert Hillyer. The Great Depression forced Roethke to leave Harvard and to take up t
6、eaching at Lafayette College from 1931 to 1935.,Beginning career,In the fall of 1935 Roethke assumed his second teaching post at Michigan State College at Lansing soon hospitalized for what would prove to be recurring bouts of mental illness. Throughout his subsequent career Roethke used these perio
7、dic incidents of depression for creative self-exploration. They allowed him, as he said, to “reach a new level of reality.” Taught at Pennsylvania State Univ, 1936 - 1943, publishing in Poetry, the New Republic, the Saturday Review, and Sewanee Review.,First book,Open House (1941), took ten years to
8、 write Critically acclaimed upon its publication. Many poets influenced the work, including TS Eliot, but the books subjective focus on personal experience marked an important departure from T. S. Eliots doctrine of poetic impersonality, stated in “Tradition and the Individual Talent,“ (1917), and f
9、rom what the New Critics W. K. Wimsatt and Monroe Beardsley later deplored as the intentional fallacy.,Intentional fallacy:,“Many modern critics regard a literary work as a public document, complete in itself, and the writers intention of writing the work, if he had one other than the invariable int
10、entional of writing the work, an external irrelevance. The error in judging a work by the authors success or failure in achieving his intention these critics call the intentional or generic failure. (cont),TS Eliot,More on intentional fallacy,In The Verbal Icon, Wimsatt and Beardsley wrote, The poem
11、 is not the critics own and not the authors (it is detached from the author at birth and goes about the world beyond his power to intend upon it or control it). The poem belongs to the public.What is said about the poem such as the poets statement of intention is subject to the same scrutiny as any
12、statement in linguistics or in the general science of psychology.”) definition from Beckson and Ganz, Literary Terms, a Dictionary,Bennington years,In 1943 he left Penn State to teach at Bennington College, a major arts school in America, known for the number of writers who teach/attend,Important se
13、cond book,1948 published second, pivotal, volume, The Lost Son and Other Poems. Includes “My Papas Waltz” In the so-called “greenhouse poems,“ the metaphor of the open house passes into the figure of the glasshouse as the dominant symbol of the selfs interior, existential world.,Roethke on his work,
14、In “An American Poet Introduces Himself and His Poems“ (BBC broadcast, 30 July 1953), Roethke described the glasshouse, as “both heaven and hell It was a universe, several worlds, which, even as a child, one worried about, and struggled to keep alive.“,Last ten years: height of his popularity,worked
15、 last at the University of Washington, where he was mentor to a generation of Northwest poets 1953 married Beatrice OConnell, whom he had met during his earlier stint at Bennington reputation grew with each new collection, including The Waking which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1954. 1955 and 1
16、956 Roethkes traveled in Italy, Europe, and England on a Fulbright grant. 1957 published Words for the Wind, which won all sorts of prizes for poetry Died in 1963, at the height of his popularity.,My Papas Waltz (1),The whiskey on your breath Could make a small boy dizzy; But I hung on like death: S
17、uch waltzing was not easy. We romped until the pans Slid from the kitchen shelf; My mothers countenance Could not unfrown itself. We see family dynamics here; the little boy is clinging to his father, hes a little bit afraid; her mother is not happy,My Papas Waltz (2),The hand that held my wrist Was
18、 battered on one knuckle; At every step you missed My right ear scraped a buckle. a painful memory for the little boy but also NOT a painful memory,My Papas Waltz (3),You beat time on my head With a palm caked hard by dirt, Then waltzed me off to bed Still clinging to your shirt. The title “Papa,” t
19、he author chooses the familiar and the affectionate; and Waltz is the loving dance; theres pain and fear here, but theres also love and affection.other interpretation of this poem the child is being abused?,Sylvia Plath (1932-1963),Mixed reactions to her poems her suicide and relationship with her h
20、usband Ted Hughes, who later became Britains Poet Laureate, often color reaction to her works.,Parents,Daughter of Otto Plath and Aurelia Schober, German immigrants to the US. Father an entomologist who taught at Boston University Mother later taught secretarial skills there,Fathers early death,1940
21、 Father died when Plath was 8 of diabetes mellitus, which at the time was a very curable disease. Upon his death a friend only asked, “How could such a brilliant man have been so stupid?“ The disease contributed to gangrene in his toe, which turned black from the disease. This appears in “Daddy”.,Ea
22、rly education,Excellent and hardworking student, had already published some of her stories and poetry before she left high school. Her first poem appeared when she was eight in the Boston Herald (10 August 1941, page B-8) Scholarship to Smith College, an excellent womans college in Massachusetts. En
23、tered in September 1950.,Schoolgirl Plath,Early successes,Beginning in 1950 began publishing in national periodicals. “Youths Appeal for World Peace” published Christian Science Monitor ,16 March. Short story “And Summer Will Not Come Again“ appeared August Seventeen Poem “Bitter Strawberries“ appea
24、red Christian Science Monitor ,11 August . Throughout 1951-2 published quite a bit. 1953 also writing articles for local newspapers like the Daily Hampshire Gazette and the Springfield Union as their Smith College correspondent.,Important experiences,Her short story, Sunday at the Mintons won first
25、prize in a Mademoiselle contest. From this story, she also won a one-month, summer Guest Editorship at Mademoiselle. She spent June 1953 in NYC, and was hoping to be admitted to Harvards Summer Writing Program for the rest of the summer. She did not get accepted.,Plath around this time,First suicide
26、 attempt,24 August 1953, Plath left a note saying, “Have gone for a long walk. Will be home tomorrow.“ Instead, she swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills in the familys basement in a suicide attempt. She was found and spent many months hospitalized, receiving many treatments, including shock treatmen
27、ts.,The Bell Jar,The novel, The Bell Jar , written under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas, is a thinly disguised memoir of the period in her life from the Mademoiselle internship through her recovery.,Back to school,Readmitted to Smith in the Spring 1954 term and went on to graduate summa cum laude. Won
28、 a Fulbright Scholarship Newnham College, Cambridge University, a life-changing event.,The River Cam, Cambridge,Ted Hughes,February 1955, at a party she met Ted Hughes, a young English poet whose works she had just read and memorized. The attraction was intense and instant. They married June 1956 in
29、 London. The partnership with Hughes, while eventually personally destructive, was a strong and positive influence on Plaths development as a poet.,Back to America,1957, Hughes won first prize in the New York Poetry Center contest judged by Marianne Moore, W.H. Auden and Stephen Spender for his book
30、 The Hawk in the Rain. Plath was offered a teaching job at Smith College. She studies hard to finish her graduation exams In the fall, they go to America.,Teaching Experience,Plath was very unsure about her own teaching ability, and was extremely frustrated by the lack of time for her own writing. A
31、t the end of one year, the couple decided to focus on their writing and give up academia.,Yaddo,Fall 1959, Hughes and Plath stayed at Yaddo, a famous writers colony in Saratoga Springs, New York, Plath finally had a breakthrough in her writing. During this time, she had been closely reading the poet
32、ry of Theodore Roethke. Plath was also pregnant, and Hughes wanted the child born in England. In December 59 they went back,Major output on two levels,1960, settled in London. In April, Frieda Rebecca, was born. Plaths first collection of poetry, The Colossus and Other Poems published in October. De
33、mands of motherhood limited her writing output.,Illnesses and writing,February 1961 Plath had a miscarriage followed closely by an appendectomy, which left her hospitalized for a number of weeks The illness led to a writing frenzy. According to the only authorized biography, Bitter Fame, she began T
34、he Bell Jar in March 1961 and wrote it in 70 days.,Joy and sadness,January 1962 had a son, Nicholas Farrar She starts another frenzy of writing around April of that year. May 1962, Plath discovers Hughes is having an affair. Tried to patch up their relationship on holiday in September, but it deteri
35、orates. He moves out.,Major writing frenzy,October 1962 and January and February 1963 she created an incredible output of poems, including “Daddy”.,Plath with her children, Frieda and Nicholas,The End,On February 11, 1963, Plath commits suicide, though some think it may have just been a cry for help
36、 that went awry.,Misguided critics,The critic Elizabeth Hardwick writes that Plaths father died “of a long illness, but there is no pity for his lost life” adding that “he did not kill anyone and the fat black heart of the poem is really Plaths own” and concluding that to bring “strangers, the towni
37、nto the punishment of her father. . .is somehow the most biting and ungenerous thought of all.”,Daddy (1),You do not do, you do not do Any more, black shoe In which I have lived like a foot For thirty years, poor and white, Barely daring to breathe or Achoo.,Daddy (2),Daddy, I have had to kill you.
38、You died before I had time- Marble-heavy, a bag full of God, Ghastly statue with one gray toe Big as a Frisco seal,Daddy (3),And a head in the freakish Atlantic Where it pours bean green over blue In the waters off beautiful Nauset. I used to pray to recover you. Ach, du. shes remembering praying to
39、 have her father back,Daddy (4),In the German tongue, in the Polish town Scraped flat by the roller Of wars, wars, wars. But the name of the town is common. feel unprotected after her father died; after the war, anti-German feeling going on; We can feel the girls hatred , anger, and shame.,Daddy (5)
40、,My Polack friend Says there are a dozen or two. So I never could tell where you Put your foot, your root. I never could talk to you. The tongue stuck in my jaw. It stuck in a barb wire snare. Ich, ich, ich, ich, I could hardly speak. I thought every German was you. And the language obscene,Daddy (6
41、),An engine, an engine Chuffing me off like a Jew. A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen. I began to talk like a Jew. I think I may well be a Jew.,Daddy (7),The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of Vienna Are not very pure or true. With my gipsy ancestress and my weird luck And my Taroc pack and my Ta
42、roc pack I may be a bit of a Jew.,Daddy (8),I have always been scared of you, With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo. And your neat mustache And your Aryan eye, bright blue. Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You,Daddy (9),Every woman adores a Fascist, The boot in the face, the brute Brute heart of a brute li
43、ke you. her father abandon her emotionally You stand at the blackboard, daddy, In the picture I have of you, A cleft in your chin instead of your foot But no less a devil for that, no not Any less the black man who Bit my pretty red heart in two. I was ten when they buried you,Daddy (10),At twenty I
44、 tried to die And get back, back, back to you. I thought even the bones would do. But they pulled me out of the sack, And they stuck me together with glue. And then I knew what to do. I made a model of you, A man in black with a Meinkampf look She replaced her father with another man,Daddy (11),And
45、a love of the rack and the screw. And I said I do, I do. So daddy, Im finally through. The black telephones off at the root, The voices just cant worm through. shes talking about a new man, not her father anymore. The new man is her husband.,Daddy (12),If Ive killed one man, Ive killed two- The vamp
46、ire who said he was you And drank my blood for a year, Seven years, if you want to know.,Daddy (13),Daddy, you can lie back now. Theres a stake in your fat black heart And the villagers never liked you. They are dancing and stamping on you. They always knew it was you. Daddy, daddy, you bastard, Im through.,Daddy (14),When we read closely, we see that shes dealing with her emotions that she had with her father and moved it (the emotion) to her husband.,
