Roethke, Theodore (Vol. 8) - Roethke, Theodore 1908–1963
Roethke, Theodore 1908–1963
Roethke, an experimenter in forms and voices throughout his career, was one of the most important American poets of his generation. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1954 for his volume The Waking. (See also CLC, Vols. 1, 3.)
The career of Theodore Roethke remains one of the most remarkable achievements of a period whose creative vigor will surely astonish succeeding ages. Coming near the end of a great revolution in the arts and sciences …, his career is like a history in miniature of that artistic revolt. His work not only managed to recapitulate this culture's war against form and matter, he pushed that attack several new steps forward. Yet, coming after the futile social revolutions which rose from the same drives and so accompanied the artistic one, he also summed up our peculiar inability to capitalize on our astounding achievements—our flight from freedom, from the accesses of power we have...
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