Over many centuries, the concepts of love and the discovery of "a higher being" have been mysteries to man. Both ideas have been discussed, analyzed, and disputed by various authors and philosophers. In the ancient past, love and discovery of a higher being have been thought to be primarily positive concepts, experienced only by those who are truly comfortable with their lives and situations. However, beginning in the mid- twentieth century, various poets, and other artists began expressing their emotions from a more vivid, realistic point of view. Love and the search for a higher self were found painful, and strange at times. Both concepts were achieved as a result of searching the soul and finding some type of truth concerning the individual. Various artists realized that in order to achieve or even experience these concepts, one must first experience negativity to grasp the depth of either. Throughout the poem "In a Dark Time" by Theodore Roethke and the song "I Want You" by Bob Dylan, one can easily recognize the paradoxical nature of both love and discovery of a higher self.

Throughout Bob Dylan's love song, "I Want You", there are two paralleled yet very dif

Throughout the last stanza of "I Want You", the author comes face to face with an underlying issue concerning his object of affection. Dylan perhaps hints at the fact that death is coming face to face with his love. He sings, "Now your dancing child with his Chinese suit,/ He spoke to me, I took his flute./ ...he lied/ Because he took you for a ride/ And because time was on his side" . Dylan leaves the key to his song at the end of the poem. The reason for the drastic comparison between that which is loved and that which is loathed is because the object of his affection has come face to face with death. The extreme differences between the two subjects fuse together at the end to form a full depiction of Bob Dylan's heart-felt situation regarding his love coupled with his loss.

Throughout "In a Dark Time", Roethke constantly compares and parallels various subjects with their antitheses in order to reach a higher understanding of life and the world around him. He states, "What's madness but nobility of the soul/ At odds with circumstance?.../I know the purity of pure despair.../ All natural shapes blazing unnatural light" . By positioning certain aspects of nature in a paradoxical light, Roethke tries to show the reader the drastic similar differences between good and evil in nature. One subject universally seen to be that of shame and confusion (madness) is compared with "nobility of the soul" or a truer understanding of the surrounding world. Roethke comes to believe that there is good in evil by analyzing "purity" in "pure despair" and natural characteristics in all that is "unnatural". By comparing circumstances with their opposites, Roethke is trying to grasp the true meaning of life in an unconventional manner.

The significance of death, as a part of the scheme of the world, is intensely stressed throughout "I Want You". Bob Dylan si

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Approximate Word count = 1258
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)