In this critical study of Theodore Roethke's poetry, Peter
Balakian treats the evolution of the poet's work from his first
book, Open House (1941), to his last, The Far Field (1964).
Balakian argues that Roethke was among the most innovative poets of
his time and that The Lost Son and Other Poems (1948) brought
America to a new frontier in the contemporary era. Balakian
maintains that Roethke combined and furthered major traditions in
English and American poetry -- the formal poetics and meditative
sensibility of British metaphysical and Romantic poetry, the
American visionary tradition, and the innovations of modernism.
The early chapters of the book explore Roethke's intellectual,
religious, nd psychological development and his development as a
poet. Balakian discusses the influence of William Carlos Williams
on Roethke's work and claims that the relationship between the two
poets provided Roethke with a sense of the American grain. Later
chapters treat the shift from self-absorption to union with
otherness that marks Roethke's love poems, exploring the poet's
development of mysticism and a poetic persona and examining the
influences of Eliot and Whitman on his work. Balakian also
discusses the metaphysical language necessary for Roethke's late
poems and follows Roethke's spiritual progress as he prophetically
faces his final work.
In presenting the evolution of Roethke's career, Balakian offers
fresh and original readings of the poetry. He avoids any monolithic
approach to the body of Roethke's work, employing instead various
approaches to Roethke's stages of poetic evolution. Balakian makes
use of the psychology of C.G. Jung and Erich Neumann, the writings
of the mystics, the aesthetics of William Carlos Williams, and the
myth of the American frontier. With a literary historian's concern
for Roethke's place in history and a critic's eye for the sources
and structures of poetry, Balakian studies the resonances of
language and the inner life of this poet's craft. Theodore
Roethke's Far Fields places Roethke firmly in literary and
intellectual history and asserts his place as a major poet.
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