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DOCUMENT

SCORE

Poet Research
Paper : A Cup of
Teasdale

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Poet Research Paper : A Cup of

Teasdale
Sara Teasdale's poems could just as easily be her therapist's
journal. Every emotion-filled poem 1 directly correlates with

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major interactions or events in her life. Teasdale's poetry

conveys her passion for nature, feminism, and music,2 while
taking the reader through her childhood, relationships,
emotional decline, and eventual suicide. While the subjects of
Teasdale's poetry include the typical love, life, death,
loneliness, and nature, her first-hand experiences add genuine
feeling to her writing and allow the reader to detect,
understand, and relate to the feelings of the narrator. Teasdale
was a modernist poet whose individual writings 3 may not
always seem to break with tradition in content or style.
However, these seemingly simplistic 4 poems, viewed together
as Teasdale's body of work, demonstrate a lyric feminist whose
difficult lifetime made her feel uncertain and lost. Like most of
us, Sara Teasdale experienced fluctuation and uncertainty
throughout her life. What sets her apart is her ability to use
poetry as a narration of her life and an outlet for her complex
emotions and passions.
Teasdale's emotionally unstable childhood sparked her
inspiration to write poetry. In a general biography about
Teasdale's life, Patricia Laurence states that Teasdale lived a

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sheltered childhood both due to her family's wealth/luxury and

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her constant health issues. The poet grew up as a spoiled

youngest child in a devout Puritan home (Laurence). St. Louis
was the home of the Teasdale family, a perfect combination of
their New England educational ideals and a newfound cultural
revival regarding art and music. Rebecca Phillips writes that
Teasdale's attendance at private schools near her home was
only one example of her coddling as a child. After graduating
at the age of eighteen, Teasdale befriended Williamina Parrish,
who was an artistic and intellectual young woman living in the
revitalized St. Louis (Phillips). These two women, along with
other poets and friends, formed a club known as "The Potters."
This group produced a literary magazine, The Potter's Wheel,
every month for two years, so many of Teasdale's first works
are found in this magazine (Phillips).5 Phillips also states that
Teasdale and her mother went on a trip to Europe in 1905.
Teasdale was saddened by the poverty in Palestine but fell in
love with Spain and France (Phillips). Much of her later poetry
related back to the beauty she found in Europe. In 1906,
William Reedy, a publisher of a weekly newspaper that
highlights rising artists, noticed The Potter's Wheel (Phillips).
He then published some of Teasdale's works, which was the
beginning of her professional career as a poet. This publication
also brought Teasdale to the attention of others, so the Poet
Lore company published her first book - Sonnets to Duse, and
Other Poems - the next year (Phillips). Teasdale's experiences
from her early life sparked her passion for writing, and her
abundance of relationships became the focal points of her

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poetry.

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Sara Teasdale's extensive and intense relationships were often

the cause of instability in her life, putting more strain on her
emotions. She was known for developing "strong and lasting
friendships with some of the most interesting writers of her
generation, many of them living in St. Louis, which in the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was an intellectual
hub" (Laurence). She remained close with The Potters, but
some other well-known Modern poets whom she was close
with include Amy Lowell, Marion Cummings, Marguerite
Wilkinson, and Margaret Conklin (Laurence). Additionally,
through her new membership in the Poetry Society of America
in 1911, Teasdale was introduced to other influential poets,
editors, and critics (Phillips).
Teasdale then fell in love with the poet John Hall Wheelock.
In fact, Wheelock became the "subject of many of her finest
lyrics of frustrated love" (Phillips). The two remained close
even though he "never reciprocated Teasdale's romantic
affection" (Phillips). As her life continued, Teasdale's other
male friend, Vachel Lindsay, even proposed to Teasdale,
falling madly in love with her, but Sara denied because
Lindsay was poor 6 and full of life and energy, while Teasdale
was wealthy, meek, and secluded (Laurence). Teasdale then
met Ernest Filsinger, "a man of her own 7 class and background
who would take care of her" (Laurence). Teasdale and
Filsinger got married in 1914, and, since he worked in
international trade, lived happily in New York City for a few
years. They resided in hotels 8 to prevent Sara from

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housekeeping and allow her to completely focus on her writing

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(Phillips). Teasdale won a Pulitzer Prize in 1917 for poems

involving fulfilled love and emotional independence from the
accident of life and love, questioning her Baptist upbringing
and "rejecting the notion of salvation through a personal god"
(Phillips). As a young and independent married woman,
Teasdale also published poems completely 9 written by women
regarding their response to men's love or lack thereof.
Traditional favorite poets that were featured 10 in this
anthology, The Answering Voice, wrote of women's themes of
entrapment in and escape from relationships (Phillips). Shortly
after, in the late 1920s, while Filsinger was away on a business
trip, Teasdale divorced him because of his constant traveling
and preoccupation with business (Laurence). Teasdale wrote a
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poem called After Love that can be interpreted to portray her

feelings about the divorce. Teasdale writes, directed to her exhusband, "You were the wind and I the sea." Therefore,
together they created passionate storms, but apart they
experienced bitter peacefulness. She blatantly states that there
is 11 no longer "magic" or feelings between them. This roller
coaster of emotions took a toll on Teasdale. As a young adult,
both her friendships with other poets and her romantic
encounters with Wheelock, Lindsay, and Filsinger were
prominent in her poetry and later life.
When Teasdale went through an emotional decline, her poetry
reflected her struggles. Initially, after her first works were
published 12, Teasdale became dissatisfied with her life in St.
Louis with her parents (Phillips). At this time, she began

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periodic "rest cures," which is a time of leisure

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improve mental and physical health. Teasdale then went

through a hard time in her life when both of her parents, her
brother, and her close friend Amy Lowell died within a fiveyear span (Phillips). She began writing poetry with darker
moods and themes, including death - which "is now a friend" -,

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former love (rather than current), and solitude (Phillips). In

life, Teasdale was no longer social, as she had "refused
speaking engagements" and "no longer attended meetings of
the Poetry Society" (Phillips). Additionally, Marguerite
Wilkinson, another close friend whom Teasdale contacted
daily, died in the late 1920s. However, Sara Teasdale's
freedom after her divorce and a new friendship with Margaret
Conklin brought her brief happiness, but her career was
unproductive. In the later years of her life, Teasdale's health
continued to deteriorate, and she no longer put effort into her
life (Laurence). During this emotional decline, Teasdale wrote
many dark poems, including Alone and Interlude: Songs Out
Of Sorrow. In Alone, Teasdale describes "love," "all I take and
give," and "all your tenderness" as everything that should be
good in life. However, she still feels alone and is still "not glad
to live." These four words demonstrate raw and honest
emotions that just punch the reader in the gut. This also 14
foreshadows her suicide. Teasdale then uses the "highest peak
of the tired gray world," "swirling snow," and "endless space
unfurled" to portray her feelings of endless 15 loneliness. Even
the dead are more peaceful and less lonely than her, but she
feels restrained from death: "only my own spirit's pride to keep

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me from the peace of those who are not lonely, having died"

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(Teasdale). Overall, multiple deaths of family members and

friends took a large 16 toll on Teasdale's emotional health, and
she, therefore, used her writing to convey her sad, dark
emotions and thoughts.
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Teasdale's emotional instability greatly 17 contributed to her

eventual suicide, which was foreshadowed 18 in much of her
later poetry. After Teasdale's divorce, her relationship with
Vachel Lindsay was rekindled (Phillips). Therefore, she was
extremely upset when he committed suicide: "John Hall
Wheelock, called by a hysterical Teasdale when she received
the news of the suicide, viewed Lindsay's death as the event
that inspired Teasdale to take her own 19 life a little more than a
year later" (Phillips). In the last years of her life, Teasdale
began writing more and even started a biography of her role
model, Christina Rossetti. However, she got pneumonia and
experienced depression and deep fear regarding her health
(Phillips). Overcome with sadness due to the deaths of friends
and family members, Lindsay's suicide, her divorce, and
pneumonia, Teasdale was found submerged in a bathtub
having committed suicide by overdose in 1933 (Laurence). Her
last book was published 20 after her death (Phillips). Teasdale
had written multiple poems, such as Since There Is No Escape,
that foreshadowed 21 this suicide. The beginning of this one
poem 22 is cynical as Teasdale describes her inevitable
destruction and feelings of entrapment: "Since there is no
escape, since at the end 23 my body will be utterly destroyed"
(Teasdale). However, she also seems to describe a disconnect

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between her mind/spirit and her body, while each loves and

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cares for the other. In Since There Is No Escape, Teasdale's

mind confesses, "This hand I love as I have loved a friend,
This body I tended, wept with and enjoyed." Teasdale also
writes something truly 24 interesting and profound in this

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This almost 25 uses her apparent love of life as a reason for her

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suicide. In this poem relating to her suicide 26, Teasdale

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suicide poem; contradicting the lack of love for life that she
describes in Alone, she claims in Since There Is No Escape
that she loves life "with a love too sharp to bear" (Teasdale).

actually 27 slightly embraces life:

Since darkness waits for me, then all the more
Let me go down as waves sweep to the shore
In pride; and let me sing with my last breath;
In these few hours of light I lift my head;
Life if my loverI shall leave the dead
If there is any way to baffle death. (Teasdale)
At the peak of Teasdale's emotional roller coaster, including
her having to deal with multiple deaths and health issues, this
poet uses her last words before committing suicide to express
her take on life.
Teasdale's content and style demonstrated her musicality,
feminism, and adoration for natural beauty. When referencing
Teasdale, Harriet Monroe claimed that her "songs" were "too
beautiful to perish, too profound in their revelation of noble
womanliness, of high 28 humanity, to be scarificed 29 to time."
Teasdale's poetry has true 30 purpose due to her deep thoughts
and personal experience, and her writing is simple yet

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developed through her studies and practice (Monroe). Monroe

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also stated that Teasdale experienced the "beautiful harmony of

growth never the violence of change." The subject matter of
Teasdale's poetry ranged from,31 but was always within the
lines of, love, nature, death, longing, and dreams. In her early
years, Teasdale eventually found her true 32 voice in poetry.
She experimented with free verse, and rather than her previous
girlish enthusiasm, her poetry was filled with drama, loves,
relationships from women's view, renunciation, solitude, and
natural beauty (Phillips). She then began to add ideas that love
fails to provide meaning into life, therefore abandoning

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romantic love and focusing on beauty. Due to Teasdale's

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personal experience, her later poetry primarily concerned death

and narrations from a "lover who is elusive and disembodied"
(Laurence). Therefore, restraint and renunciation were subtle
themes through Teasdale's poetry. These two focuses in most
of her poems are due to four things: The Romantic Traditions,
her devout Puritan upbringing, her health issues, and women in
the early twentieth century (Laurence). Although Teasdale's
religion is not obviously apparent in her poetry, she held a
strict moral code and was "shy, orderly, and restrained"
(Laurence). However, sometimes her religious and Puritan
beliefs conflicted with "her more pagan poetic self" (Phillips).
In general, though, her writing remained simple and easily
understood by all readers, while she wrote honestly about love
and despair, incorporating her spiritual view.
This honesty made Teasdale unique during her time period 33
because she wrote directly about personal experience and

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emotion. For example, her love of nature - flowers, birds, the

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wind, the sea, and the stars - was a constant topic in her poetry
(Monroe). Teasdale was taken 34 with the beauty in 35 nature, so
even when her life was falling apart, she always had one bit of
joy to turn to 36. Laurence even stated that Teasdale's "nature
poems are like gem-cut lockets holding precious snippets of
experience." Teasdale truly 37 relates to nature 38 in her poem
Leaves. Here, Teasdale compares herself to a tree. They both
lives in blind faith until "one by one, like leaves from a tree All
my faiths have forsaken me" (Teasdale). However, once the
leaves fall and she looses 39 faith, the "stars above and earth
below," having been seen for the first time, provide a new
hope. This idea of rebirth is common 40 relating to nature, but
Teasdale seems to truly 41 connect to the tree due to the
experiences that she has had in her lifetime.
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poems present the woman's point of view as authentically, as

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sincerely." Advice To A Girl is one example of Teasdale's

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Teasdale's poetry also constantly 42 focused on the "feminine

experience of love" (Laurence). It was important to her to
focus on women, although she depicted the relationship
between men and women only through romance rather than
any physical descriptions (Laurence). In her later poetry
especially, it is obvious 43 that Teasdale had strong feminist
ideals. Monroe even noted that "Sara Teasdale was feminine in
the highest sense of that much abused word" because "her

poetry that demonstrated her passionate feminism. In this

poem, anaphora is used to emphasize Teasdale's point of "No
one worth possessing Can be quite possessed." She encourages

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Will Be Rest (Cain). Cain highlights that Teasdale's poetry is

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traditional and formal, but had an extremely 53 simple form of

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other women to be strong and independent, claiming that even

when they are angry ("lay 45 it on your hot cheek"), sad ("hide
your tear"), or alone ("gaze into the icy stone") (Teasdale),
they should always remember their individuality, capabilities,
and personal importance to help them through.44
Natasia Cain has discussed the musicality of Teasdale's work.
Teasdale was a lyrical poet, so all of her poems have iambic
lines that sound musical and melodic. She would even refer to
her poetry as songs, and "frequently sang her poems to herself
while making up tunes to fit the words" (Cain). Teasdale's
poetry 46, like much great music, is full of deeply personal
emotions. Because of her poem's cadence of consonants,
pleasant-sounding 47 succession of vowels, persistent 48 rhythm
of stanzas, and simple diction, they have become common 49
writing used to form songs (Cain). Teasdale's various poetic
stages are obvious 50, and each of these collections have 51 been
put 52 to music. The most common of Teasdale poems to have
choral setting would be I Am Not Yours, Barter, and There

few stanzas, simple rhyme, and iambic pentameter. Her

beautiful writings read as lyrics due to their emotional content
yet technical simplicity and diction. In general, the central
purpose and content of Teasdale's lyric poetry was 54 her need
to express profound thought and deep emotions.
Teasdale's simple style and traditional content give her
readers a glimpse of raw and understandable feelings. From
her sheltered childhood to complicated romantic relationships

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to traumatic deaths and health issues to taking her
own 55 life,

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passionate female independence/power to endless loneliness to

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wanting to take her own 57 life. Teasdale's feelings of being

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lost,58 struggles with her religious beliefs, and strong feminist

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Teasdale was inspired to write poetry about her passions for

nature, feminism, and music as well as her struggles with
death, loneliness, love, and life. Looking at all of Teasdale's
poetry as a whole, her unstable emotions are obvious 56 from
the drastic differences between her poetic stages, ranging from
being in love to wanting a divorce to adoring natural beauty to

ideals make her one of the most influential modernist poets

even though her individual poems are simple in content and
style. After studying the life of Sara Teasdale, it is obvious 59
that writing can just be an extension of the author's genuine
feelings and experiences, allowing writers to further discover
themselves and their thoughts 60. Sara Teasdale used her
poetry, or songs, as a form of therapy for the terrible situations
that life handed her. Although, while writing may have helped
her cope for a while, ultimately it was "no escape even for
[her]" (Teasdale).

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