Exploring the Text

1. What are two different ways you can read the poem’s first line: “I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow”?

   Question

   ALMF/kS1zzW73MouRsoXk1h0lKY=

   Exploring the Text: - What are two different ways you can read the poem’s first line: “I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow”?
2. What do the poem’s first and third lines have in common? Do their meanings change as they are repeated as the last lines of the following tercets (three-line stanzas)? Why do you think Theodore Roethke tweaks the line about learning but leaves the line about waking intact? How do those slight changes affect the meaning of those lines?

   Question

   ALMF/kS1zzW73MouRsoXk1h0lKY=

   Exploring the Text: - What do the poem’s first and third lines have in common? Do their meanings change as they are repeated as the last lines of the following tercets (three-line stanzas)? Why do you think Theodore Roethke tweaks the line about learning but leaves the line about waking intact? How do those slight changes affect the meaning of those lines?
3. “The Waking” is a villanelle, a poetic form of five tercets and a quatrain (four-line stanza). It is built on two rhymes: the two key lines of the first stanza are repeated, alternately, as the last line of each tercet and joined together in the closing quatrain. What effect does this form have on the meaning of the poem? Hint: consider its circular effect.

   Question

   ALMF/kS1zzW73MouRsoXk1h0lKY=

   Exploring the Text: - “The Waking” is a villanelle, a poetic form of five tercets and a quatrain (four-line stanza). It is built on two rhymes: the two key lines of the first stanza are repeated, alternately, as the last line of each tercet and joined together in the closing quatrain. What effect does this form have on the meaning of the poem? Hint: consider its circular effect.
4. A 1992 essay by Susan Pinkus on “The Waking” begins, “When a poem takes dead aim on the eternal, we should not be surprised that it draws many interpretations.” Explain what you think she means by “the eternal.” What is your interpretation of the poem?

   Question

   ALMF/kS1zzW73MouRsoXk1h0lKY=

   Exploring the Text: - A 1992 essay by Susan Pinkus on “The Waking” begins, “When a poem takes dead aim on the eternal, we should not be surprised that it draws many interpretations.” Explain what you think she means by “the eternal.” What is your interpretation of the poem?
5. What argument does “The Waking” make?

   Question

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   Exploring the Text: - What argument does “The Waking” make?
6. In what ways does “The Waking” create a sort of harmony of form and content? Critics have suggested approaching it as a piece of music before trying to figure out what it means. What happens when you try that approach?

   Question

   ALMF/kS1zzW73MouRsoXk1h0lKY=

   Exploring the Text: - In what ways does “The Waking” create a sort of harmony of form and content? Critics have suggested approaching it as a piece of music before trying to figure out what it means. What happens when you try that approach?