Tarvin 1
THEODORE ROETHKE
“MY PAPA’S WALTZ” AND “I KNEW A WOMAN”
This handout was prepared by Dr. William Tarvin, a retired professor of literature.
Please visit my free website www.tarvinlit.com. Over 500 works of American and British
literature are analyzed there for free.
An Answer Key is provided at the end of the handout (p. 4).
I. INTRODUCTION
1.
Roethke (1908-1963) is usually grouped among the “confessional poets.”
2. His is the poetry of self-analysis; in fact, he called his poems psychic
shorthand.
3. His poems show Roethke analyzing himself, delving down through all the
layers of his psyche, perhaps trying to account for bouts of depression and periods of
alcoholism.
4. His poetry is influenced by Freudian psychology, resulting in several poems
which examine his childhood closely, as in “My Papa’s Waltz.”
5. He is noted for his mastery of sound, metrics, and slant _____________.
II. “MY PAPA’S WALTZ”
1. Structure: The poem has four stanzas.
2. Stanza one: The narrator's father comes home drunk one night and decides
to teach his terrified son—“But I hung on like _____________” (3)—how to
____________.
3. Stanza two: The setting is the “_____________” (6); therefore, as the
father flings and drags the boy, they knock over “_________” (5).
This spectacle transpires in front of the boy’s disapproving _____
,
whose “countenance / Could not _____
___ itself” (7-8).
4. Stanzas three and four stress that life has “_______________”
(10) the boy’s father, and that the dancing lesson is ironically also leaving the son
“____________” (12) and “___________[en]” (13).
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5. The last two lines—the father “_____________ me off to bed / Still
“_______________ to your shirt” (15-16)—suggest that the boy (presumably now
grown up) realizes that he is still symbolically “________________” (16) to his
father with persistent if also complicated love.
6. What is the poem’s theme? The influence of a _____________ on his son.
7. What are some of the sinister elements of the poem?
(1)
The father’s _________________________.
(2) The physical _____________ or rough handling which the son
endures during the dance.
(3)
The helplessness of the ________________, although she
obviously disapproves of the spectacle.
8. What are some of the lighter elements of the poem, those which compel us
to infer that the son did not feel he was being abused and which convey the son's
affection for his father?
(1) The boy’s awareness of the comic oddity of the situation of a
rough-hewed father trying to teach his son a genteel, even feminine, social skill—
__________________.
(2) The comedy of the ________________ pans; one usually thinks,
not of pans, but of a drunk _______________ down.
(3) The playful feminine rhymes, such as “dizzy” / “______
” (2, 4)
and “
_______ “ / “buckle” (10, 12). FEMININE RHYME occurs when the
rhyme comes on the penultimate syllable, that is, the syllable before the last syllable. In
“knuckle/buckle,” the rhyme appears on “knuck-” and “buck-” not on “-le.” Feminine
rhyme is often used in comic poems.
(4) The joyful connotations of the words “waltz” (variants in 4 and 25) and
“_______________” (5).
(5) The contrasting terms which the speaker uses in speaking of his
parents:
The term “papa” sounds more affectionate than “father,” while the
term “mother” (7, variant) makes her appear as distant.
Similarly, another stiff or formal word is used for her—
“____________________” (7)—instead of the more common word “face.”
The mother’s unnaturalness is also emphasized by the speaker
coining a word “_____________” (8) to describe her disgust at what is happening in
her kitchen.
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(6) The poem is addressed to the ______________ (“your” and “you”),
not to the mother.
(7) The poem shows sympathy for the father by mentioning the manual
labor which he did to support the family:
His father’s “hand” was “________________ on one knuckle”
(9-10) and his palms were “____________ hard by ___________” (14), a
synecdoche for the father’s hard life.
III. “I KNEW A WOMAN”
1. What is the theme of this poem?
The celebration of the movement of a woman’s _________. The male
lover surrenders to this woman’s varied physical motions, and, in doing so, learns
what “________________” (24, 26) is like: Through physical union, a person can
transcend the self and escape (albeit temporarily) the process of decay and death.
However, the poem suggests that only by intimately knowing these
natural physical processes can one ever hope to transcend them.
Thus, thematically, the poem contrasts physical, temporal love with
soulful, eternal love: “What’s ___________ for? To know _____________” and
“But who would count ______________ in _______?” (24, 26)
2. How are numerous double entendres or double meanings used in the poem?
Many of the words have sexual overtones beyond their usual meaning. For
instance, “___________, and Counter-turn, and ____________” (9) are terms
typically used in describing the art of dance. However, in this poem, their proximity to a
celebration of “_____________[ing]” (10) the woman’s body suggests that “turn,”
“counter-turn,” and “stand” may comically suggest sexual positions.
Secondly, because of their shapes the two agricultural implements
mentioned—“_______________” in describing the woman and “_________” (11) in
describing the man—may connote sexuality.
Finally, by consulting a dictionary, one finds out that “___________” (1,
27), “coming” (13), “mowing” (14), “gander” and “_____________” (15), and
“[s]eed,” “_______________,” and “hay” (22) all have colloquial sexual definitions.
Even the word “_________” in the title, as those who have read
Shakespeare and Donne know, has a sexual sense.
3. Point out three stylistic aspects of the poem.
(1) The last line of each stanza is in ____________________,
thereby perhaps mimicking the embracing lovers.
(2) The poem’s tone is mostly lighthearted and self-deprecating; the
speaker is appreciative of what the woman taught him—his youthful ignorance is
emphasized—about ______ and life.
(3) The rhyme scheme of each stanza is _____________, although
___________ rhyme is used, particularly in the first stanza.
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ANSWER KEY
I. 5. rhyme.
II. “My Papa’s Waltz”
2. death; waltz.
3. kitchen; pans; mother; unfrown.
4. battered’; scraped; beat[en].
5. waltzed; clinging; clinging.
6. father.
7. drunkenness; abuse; mother.
8. waltzing; falling; falling; easy; knuckle; romped; countenance; unfrown; father.
battered; caked; dirt.
III. “I Knew a Woman”
1. body; eternity; freedom; eternity; days.
2. Turn; Stand; Touch[ing]; sickle; rake; bones; goose; grass; knew.
3. parentheses; love; ababccc; slant.