Elegy for Jane (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Theodore Roethke
- First Published: 1953
- Type of Work: Elegy
- Genres: Poetry, Elegy
- Subjects: Girls, Teaching or teachers, Nature, Death or dying, Birds, Students or student life
The Poem
“Elegy for Jane,” subtitled “My Student, Thrown by a Horse,” is a poem in free verse whose twenty-two lines are divided into four stanzas. The poem follows the elegiac tradition insofar as it mourns the death of a loved one. The first nine lines follow the custom of honoring the deceased by describing Jane’s delicacy and youthful exuberance. Roethke describes Jane as a light, quick animal, the epitome of the lovely in nature. Her neck curls are damp as plant tendrils, trailing, winding, and new. Quick and nervous in her movements, Jane’s smile was...
[The entire page is 1484 words long]
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