Poetry-Authorship Analysis of The Waking

The waking

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow

I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.

I learn by going where I have to go.

We think by feeling. What is there to know?

I hear my being dance from ear to ear.

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow

Of course so close beside me, which are you?

God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,

And learn by going where I have to go.

Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?

The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Great Nature has another thing to do

To you and me, so take the lively air,

And, lovely, learn by going where to go

The shaking keeps me steady. I should know.

What falls away is always. And is near.

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

I learn by going where I have to go.

By Theodore Roethke

Analyze Authorship

          The waking was created by Theodore Roethke. He was a teacher, poet an author. He was born on May 25^th 1908. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize Poetry in 1954 for his book, The Waking And now, I want to talk about how the author created poem whose title the waking. At first, I had given my point of view about what the poem tells about. The poem tells about someone who wants to keep learning in facing his life. The speaker wants to live in the waking time, the condition that he will not feel afraid to face his life which is bad. Why the author wrote this poem, it related to his life.

When he was 15 years old, his uncle’s suicide and his father’s death because of cancer made his psyche and creative life. In poem “the awaking” he said “I feel my fate in what I cannot fear”, actually he felt fear because he had to live without his father. That’s why he just wanted to keep in waking time. Then, he had to continue his study, he briefly entered law school.  In addition, he had to teach English in several universities. That made him stressed out or depressed. Because of his great depressed, he had to abandoning his graduate. In his poem, “the awaking”, he repeated in saying “I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow”, I think that he were really depressed, that’s why he wanted the waking time run slow, because he were not in the his real depressed life there. Beside that he was expelled from a university where he taught. But, all the things that made him felt afraid or blue made him stronger as he said in “the awaking”. He said, “the shaking keeps me steady. I should know” and “I learn by going where I have to go” all shocks he had, made him to become stronger because he learned from it.

          “The awaking” reflected his life which did not run well. So, he didn’t want to wake up from his sleep, but in the fact he should wake up, so he hoped that he was just in the waking. But, he could learn something from that. He learned by surrounding, from the problems that were always happened in his life. He were aware that the nature surround him could give a lesson. Although, he tried to be strong, he tried to be optimist, he were just an ordinary man. He had a fear. So he chose the waking which is not sleep and not really awake, in the middle of sleep and awake. If he chose to sleep, he would die, because life must go on whatever it was. If he chose to awake, he would face his real life which was not too well. So, he chose the waking. That’s all why Theodore Roethke wrote “The Waking”.