The son of German immigrants, Theodore Roethke was born on May 25, 1908, un Saginaw, Michigan. The young Roethke spent much time in the greenhouses among an environment in which would greatly influence his early work. (Ruby 191) Roethke’s relationship with his father appears to have been a complicated one. Otto Roethke was a demanding parent who required perfection of the son who idolized him. When the elder Roethke died of cancer when his son was in high school, Theodore appears to have been left with many unresolved and conflicting emotions about his father (Ruby 190).” My Papa’s Waltz” was first published in 1948 in The Lost Son and Other Poems, outwardly is a simple poem; but this simplicity belies Roethke’s complex interweaving of desperate emotions and moods. (Ruby 190) A fond reminiscence of a comic dance of a father and his son, it is also a critique of the father’s coarseness and drunkenness. (Ruby 190) Roethke graduated from high school in 1925 and wanted to apply to Harvard, but his mother persuaded him to stay closer to the family, so he attended the University of Michigan School of law.
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