| dc.description.abstract | Struggling to discover the truth of his identity--of self--of life, and of God, Theodore Roethke turned to mysticism for, if not answers, at least approaches to answers. An important influence on his perception of mysticism, and subsequently his poetic perception, was Evelyn Underhill's Mysticism. In his poetry Roethke strives as the mystic does to transcend earthly reality and apprehend a higher reality--to achieve a state of illumination. The first step toward illumination is awakening, which for Roethke means turning within, seeking the unconscious self. Roethke often begins this awakening by returning to the world of the child, even to that of the fetus--the womb. But the unconscious self is not the only avenue to awakening, hence to illumination. Immersion in the real world, in otherness--in stone and plant and animal and lover--also brings awakening. Awakening is, however, only the first step of this search for truth, this religious quest. Purgation also precedes illumination. Purgation is a frightening state, a plunging into the abyss, often resulting in loss of identity, loss of self, but this loss is liberating when exchanged for oneness, when emergence from purgation brings a feeling of union with All. Oneness--the transformation of self into other and ultimately into All--is achieved through love, the great energy and force of life. In loving All, one loves the self as well and finds illumination. For Roethke, then, illumination is oneness not with God, as the mystics would have it, but with creation, with All. Roethke's religious quest, finally, is a celebration of life, of all things energized and united by love--self and other and God insofar as He is the Creator and visible in all things. | en_US |
