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Essay on Papa's Waltz by Theodore Roethke-3
Theodore Roethke, whose father ran a nursery school and conservatory production in Saginaw. This poem avoids all psychobabble about love-hate associations, upbringing idolization of the father, family tensions and conflicts, the borderline between play and aggression, whatsoever. It avoids those clichés and stale formulations by as a substitute seeing particular things and moments of understanding by metaphors, in a word. Every representation here deserves to be pondered and tasted to the full, for its affecting affluence. The general attitude and sentiment contains love and pain and humor and reminiscence all blended. Roethke made substantive revisions to "My Papa's Waltz" in two drafts. Differences sandwiched between handwritten manuscripts give you an idea about how Roethke attempted to poise constructive and pessimistic aspects of the poem, varying the child in the first plan from a girl to a boy. The poem contains many optimistic and depressing connotations, leading to a work rich in vagueness.
In choosing a label, Roethke struggled with two choices: "Waltz/Dance" and "Papa/Father." After penning the initial title, "My Papa's Waltz," Roethke substituted "Dance" which most likely had a more democratic nuance for this son of a workingman. He might have had a hard time imagining his father doing an elegant waltz however could see him dancing something less pretentious, like a polka. In fact, "Dance" appeared in all of the intervening variations, only disappearing when Roethke finally returned to the original version "My Papa's Waltz." Nevertheless, return to "Waltz" he did, suggesting that the elegant, refined texture of a waltz was what he wanted. This allowed him to add a more genteel aspect to the depicted scene. The choice of "Waltz" is his attempt to elevate this experience for the boy above the mere roughhouse lurchings of an intoxicated working-class father................
