Dolor (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Theodore Roethke
- First Published: 1943
- Type of Work: Lyric
- Genres: Poetry, Lyric poetry
The Poem
Theodore Roethke’s “Dolor” is a thirteen-line lyric poem that explores the persona’s response to a life constrained in a grindingly repetitive institutional environment. The title of the poem sets the mood of sorrow, grief, and pain, which is totally unrelieved, as the accumulated details of office life bear down on the speaker of the poem.
The first eight lines of “Dolor” form a brutally graphic picture of a typical 1940’s office. The persona is buried under the detritus of office life: pencils, pads, folders, paper clips. The sheer weight of...
[The entire page is 1378 words long]
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