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Sylvia Plath, “Lady Lazarus”

Plath is often considered part of the literary movement known as “confessional poetry.” Though not often associated with that movement’s heyday in the 1960s and 1970s, Roethke’s poetry may be considered similarly confessional. This is particularly true of the poems, like “My Papa’s Waltz,” that are collected in his 1948 volume, The Lost Son.

Rudyard Kipling, “If—”

It would be valuable to compare Roethke’s critique of patriarchal masculinity with the complex portrayal of masculinity in Kipling’s widely celebrated poem.

Herman Melville, Stories

Melville’s work has a lot to say about the formation of traditional masculinity in the United States. Though his great novel Moby-Dick may seem like the most obvious place to look for this theme, it may in fact be in his stories that he explores it most powerfully. In particular, consider his stunning 1853 story, “Bartleby, the Scrivener.”

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