FREE ESSAY ON I ONCE KNEW A WOMAN

I ONCE KNEW A WOMAN

Nothing is more personal than an individual's work of poetry. By reading the poetry of
another person, you are able to see what they see and feel what they feel. It is like
looking through a window of their soul. Analyzing another person's poetry works can be a
difficult task, which requires deep thought and the ability to not only analyze but also
understand their emotions and feelings. By examining the different techniques and aspects
that were used in Theodore Roethke's "I Knew a Woman", I will attempt to do just that. 
"I Knew a Woman" revels in the wonders of a woman's body. In addition, the poem cleverly
uses figures of speech to hint at both the pleasures Roethke found in sexual relations,
as well as the pleasures he found in language itself. The first stanza is full of puns,
word repetitions, and more. Word repetition appears four times in this stanza, including
three of the first four lines. It is evident from the very start of the poem that Roethke
is planning to play with the language and the reader. Words move around and reappear,
creating a sense of motion that continues through the entire work. When she moved, she
moved more ways than one, he announces in line three, clearly stating that the poem will
also move in more ways than one. Repetition appears again in stanza two and stanza three,
but is clearly dominant in the first.
The shapes a bright container can contain! begins the use of sexual and literary puns and
double meanings in the poem. This line can be interpreted as the shapes her body can form
during her motions, but it can also be seen as a metaphor for the female sexual role as a
container. In terms of a literary pun, he could easily be referring to the word play to
come in the poem, words and lines taking new, playful shapes in the container of this
poem.
The strongest series of puns in the poem begins in the last three lines of the first
stanza and continues throughout other sections as well. Of her choice virtues only gods
should speak, or English poets who grew up on Greek (I'd have them singing in a chorus,
cheek to cheek). These lines set up the continuing references to Greek choral odes in
stanza two. In line 9, Roethke gives us, She taught me Turn, and Counter-turn, and Stand.
Those three terms, in addition to their sexual suggestiveness, are the English equivalent
of the Greek strophe, antistrophe, and epode. Apparently the woman, by her movement,
becomes a kind of Muse whose turn and re-turn serve as inspiration for the poet's turns
of language. 
Stanza three continues with these sexual double meanings, Love likes a gander, and adores
a goose. It is not evident whether Roethke is referring to flocks of geese or sly looks
and crude gropes. Line 16 also has many connotations. The errant note to seize can mean a
wrong musical note (musical puns again), or, more likely, to take advantage of an
adventuring emotion. Roethke's lady is clearly in control of this sexual encounter, since
she is doing the seizing, the puckering, and is playing the role of the sickle (the tool
doing the actual mowing). She played it quick, she played it light and loose, continues
her domination of the situation.
The last stanza of the poem finally states Roethke's feelings about the motion of this
woman and his time with her. He reveals that much of the poem is about time and aging.
This younger woman clearly keeps him feeling youthful with her playfulness. The reader
realizes this age difference from the comparison of his old bones to her lovely ones. The
first line of the stanza refers to time, also. Let seed be grass, and grass turn into hay
shows the life cycle of grass, from birth to harvest. Seed also has sexual connotations.
The narrator lives to learn her wanton ways, but wanton can mean sexually unrestrained
along with the innocent, frolicking motion.
Roethke has used figures of speech and word play in almost every line of I Knew a Woman.
With puns, metaphors, meaningful word repetition, and allusions to ancient Greek odes, he
has taken us, the reader, on a journey. Poetry is not always easy to interpret, and is
interpretable in many different ways, depending on the reader. 
After a fellow classmate and I completed some research on Theodore Roethke, I viewed his
poem very differently than the first time I read it. I learned to read it with a sense of
humor and compassion, which immediately gave me a new outlook on the poem. I learned that
Theodore fell in and out of love often. As a college professor he developed a number of
intimate relationships; one of his affairs was brought to the attention of the
administration by the girls' parents. This nearly caused his dismissal, but he decided to
leave. He came close to marriage with several people before he ever went through with it.
I learned that when Theodore was only 15, both his father and uncle died within just
three months of each other. At the age of 27 he suffered several mental breakdowns and
was hospitalized for three months. And once again just three years after this poem was
published he was hospitalized for three months for the same reason. Theodore died at the
age of 55 after receiving a Pulitzer Prize 11 years earlier. Roethke is now known today
as one of the most distinguished and widely read American poets of the twentieth
century.