Peter Balakian (essay date 1989)
SOURCE: "Our First Contemporary," in Theodore Roethke's Far Fields: The Evolution of His Poetry, Louisiana State University, 1989, pp. 1-13.
[In the following essay, Balakian draws attention to Roethke's influence on modern American poetry, particularly his synthesis of autobiographical detail and transcendental consciousness reflected in the subsequent work of beat, confessional, and deep image poets.]
Poets' reputations rise and fall with the currents of aesthetic fashion, the prevailing winds of critical...
Source: Contemporary Literary Criticism, ©1997 Gale Cengage. All Rights Reserved. Full copyright.
(The entire page is 4790 words.)
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