Just some information that I found on this poem and the poet. This elegy was written 40 years after Jane's death (I'm pretty sure-need to double check). It's said that her death wasn't the only thing that influenced Roethke. Many critics say that Roethke loved her (as in lover) and they base that on the fact that he had married another former student. However, there are others who say that this wasn't the case with Jane. There's a very interesting debate about the question of boundaries, especially in an educator's career.
Personally, I don't agree with the critics and the pedophile talk. The last line of the peom makes it clear enough for me. Roethke is saying that he neither loved her as a father nor as a lover. He also talks about having the right to mourn her before that line. I think he's saying that in society's eyes, he doesn't have the right to mourn her death like he does because only fathers and lovers can do that for a girl. This is a special relationship of a teacher and a student. I think that it's natural for teachers to have respect and admiration for certain students. It doesn't have to be perverted like society thinks in most cases. I think that the guy just cared and there's nothing wrong with that. In fact, it's beautiful that a sort of stranger shows respect for another person and feels the hurt when something aweful happens.
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Fatima, I'm going to have to compeltely disagree with you here. I read this poem, and it's screaming creepster to me. This guy says he can't love her like a father or a lover... because he isn't either of those. He still acts like he's loving her from afar, and its creepy. He calls her "my sparrow", a pretty possessive term. I'm going to go with he's a creepster.
I read an interesting article about the structure of the "Elegy for Jane" and how it relates to what Roethke (the article seemed to suggest that this format fit most elegies).
Roethke spends the first three stanzas of the poem remembering how Jane was when she was alive. He uses strong imagery, often related to life and vitality (comparing her hair to the tendrils of plants, a happy wren, etc.) to show that she was a youthful, emotional girl. But he also addresses her darker side, how she could become very depressed and withdrawn (stanza 3).
In the last two stanza, Roethke is standing on Jane's grave, lamenting her death and the pain that it has caused him. In these two stanzas, he uses images that are dark, damp, and sad (spiney shadow, wet stones and moss, skittery pigeon). He shows that all he has left of Jane is the memories of her.
What I really liked about this poem is that Roethke didn't gloss over the more negative aspects of Jane's life. He acknowledged the fact that she is not always blithe and youthful, she could become quite depressed. I liked this because it seems that after death, people like to forget the negative aspects of the person, even though those are a major part of who that person was.
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