Ode Intimations of Immortality by William Wordsworth

832 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Wordsworth's poetry

Ode Intimations of Immortality by William Wordsworth

In Ode: Intimations of Immortality, William Wordsworth explores the moral development of man and the irreconcilable conflicts between innocence and experience, and youthfulness and maturity that develop. As the youth matures he moves farther away from the divinity of God and begins to be corruption by mankind. What Wordsworth wishes for is a return to his childhood innocence but with his new maturity and insight. This would allow him to experience divinity in its fullest sense: he would re-experience the celestial radiance of childhood as well as the reality of his present existence. Wordsworth wants to have the better of the two conflicting worlds: childhood and maturity, divinity and knowledge; but these two existences are antitheses and the source of the irony behind Wordsworth's utopian dream.

In stanza one and two the speaker is recalling his childhood perception of nature. The speaker perceived nature idealistically as a child and still as an adult recalls the perception and briefly experiences his childlikeness through the memories.

THERE was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,

The earth, and every common sight,

To me did seem

Apparell'd in celestial light,

The glory and the freshness of a dream.

In stanza two "Wordsworth not only confirms his senses but he also confirms his ability to perceive beauty"(Davis 145). He explains his reactions to loveliness of the rose and the moon. Stanza three the speaker expresses his grief: "to me alone there came a thought of grief (1481)."

In stanzas three and four, the speaker is attempting to relive his childhood splendor, but it is a useless effort; and the reader senses that it is forc...

... middle of paper ...

... simplest flower blowing in the wind can raise in him "thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears."

The paradox of man's existence is that he appreciates this childhood perception only when this time in his life has passed. What the speaker wants is to live in a state of innocence and to be experienced so that he can appreciate his virtue and celestial-like existence: he would be aware of his divinity. The speaker believes that neither childhood nor adulthood is superior to the other. The child is ignorant to many facets of their existence but the adult has forever lost the characteristics of their youth. The perception of nature, although virtuous and innocent during childhood, is most greatly appreciated in adulthood. Ideally, nature will be experienced with the idealism of a child through the adult's memory as the adult connects with their youthful divinity.

Show More
Related

  • Remembered Morning

    419 Words  | 1 Pages

    The title of this piece, “Remembered Morning,” establishes what the speaker describes in the stanzas that follow as memory; this fact implies many themes that accompany works concerning the past: nostalgia, regret, and romanticism, for instance. The title, therefore, provides a lens through which to view the speaker’s observations.

    Read More

  • Love In The Sonnet By Edna St. Vincent Millay

    973 Words  | 2 Pages

    In romantic words, the poet expresses how much she does think of love. She state it clear that she will not trade love for peace in times of anguish.

    Read More

  • Two Windmills Essay

    538 Words  | 2 Pages

    The poet begins by describing the scene to paint a picture in the reader’s mind and elaborates on how the sky and the ground work in harmony. This is almost a story like layout with a beginning a complication and an ending. Thus the poem has a story like feel to it. At first it may not be clear why the poem is broken up into three- five line stanzas. The poet deliberately used this line stanzas as the most appropriate way to separate scenes and emotions to create a story like format.

    Read More

  • Comparing My Papa’s Waltz and Listening to grownups quarrel

    1900 Words  | 4 Pages

    Poems are often designed to express deep feelings and thoughts about a particular theme. In Theodore Roethke’s poem, My Papa’s Waltz, and Ruth Whitman’s poem, Listening to grownups quarreling, the theme of childhood is conveyed through their details, although we can neither see a face nor hear a voice. These poems are very much alike in their ideas of how their memories pertain to the attitudes of their childhood; however, the wording and tones of the two poems are distinct in how they present their memories. The two poems can be compared and contrasted through the author’s use of tone, imagery, and recollection of events; which illustrate each author’s memories of childhood.

    Read More

  • Summary Of The Songs Of Innocence

    815 Words  | 2 Pages

    Childhood is a time in one’s life where innocence and experience are seemingly two separate worlds. Only when one becomes an adult, and has been thoroughly marked by experience, one realizes that innocence and experience resides in the same world. Innocence and experience are equivalent to the flipsides of a single coin. William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience demonstrate that religious doctrine and experience are responsible for destroying and understanding innocence in childhood.

    Read More

  • The Poet With His Face In His Hands By Mary Oliver Analysis

    991 Words  | 2 Pages

    Therefore, Oliver’s incorporation of imagery, setting, and mood to control the perspective of her own poem, as well as to further build the contrast she establishes through the speaker, serves a critical role in creating the lesson of the work. Oliver’s poem essentially gives the poet an ultimatum; either he can go to the “cave behind all that / jubilation” (10-11) produced by a waterfall to “drip with despair” (14) without disturbing the world with his misery, or, instead, he can mimic the thrush who sings its poetry from a “green branch” (15) on which the “passing foil of the water” (16) gently brushes its feathers. The contrast between these two images is quite pronounced, and the intention of such description is to persuade the audience by setting their mood towards the two poets to match that of the speaker. The most apparent difference between these two depictions is the gracelessness of the first versus the gracefulness of the second. Within the poem’s content, the setting has been skillfully intertwined with both imagery and mood to create an understanding of the two poets, whose surroundings characterize them. The poet stands alone in a cave “to cry aloud for [his] / mistakes” while the thrush shares its beautiful and lovely music with the world (1-2). As such, the overall function of these three elements within the poem is to portray the

    Read More

  • Language And Diction In Barbie Doll, By Marge Piercy

    1096 Words  | 3 Pages

    The speaker reflects on the teenage girl’s childhood as she recalls the girl played with “dolls that did pee-pee” (2). This childish description allows the speaker to explain the innocence of the little girl. As a result, the reader immediately feels connected to this cute and innocent young girl. However, the speaker’s diction evolves as the girl grew into a teenager as she proclaims: “She was healthy, tested intelligent, / possessed strong arms and back, / abundant sexual drive and manual dexterity” (7-9). The speaker applies polished language to illustrate the teen. This causes the reader not only to see the girl as an adult, but also to begin to grasp the importance of her situation. The speaker expresses what the bullies told this girl as she explains: “She was advised to play coy, / exhorted to come on hearty” (12-13). The sophisticated diction shifts towards the girl’s oppressors and their cruel demands of her. Because of this, the reader is aware of the extent of the girl’s abuse. The speaker utilizes an intriguing simile as she announces: “Her good nature wore out / like a fan belt” (15-16). The maturity of the speaker’s word choice becomes evident as she uses a simile a young reader would not understand. This keeps the mature reader focused and allows him to fully understand the somberness of this poem. The speaker concludes the poem as she depicts the teenage girl’s appearance at her funeral: “In the casket displayed on satin she lay / with the undertaker’s cosmetics painted on” (19-20). The speaker elects not to describe the dead girl in an unclear and ingenuous manner. Rather, she is very clear and

    Read More

  • Analysis of e.e. cummings' since feeling is first

    1084 Words  | 3 Pages

    The poem says that "since feeling is first" (line 1) the one who pays attention to the meaning of things will never truly embrace. The poem states that it is better to be a fool, or to live by emotions while one is young. The narrator declares that his "blood approves" (line 7) showing that his heart approves of living by feeling, and that the fate of feeling enjoyment is better than one of "wisdom" (line 9) or learning. He tells his "lady" (line 10) not to cry, showing that he is speaking to her. He believes that she can make him feel better than anything he could think of, because her "eyelids" (line 12) say that they are "for each other" (line 13). Then, after all she's said and thought, his "lady" forgets the seriousness of thought and leans into the narrator's arms because life is not a "paragraph" (line 15), meaning that life is brief. The last line in the poem is a statement which means that death is no small thi...

    Read More

  • William Blake's Songs Of Innocence And The Garden Of Love

    617 Words  | 2 Pages

    When reading the two poems the reader can easily see that as a child the speaker was carefree, innocent, and oblivious to the outside world. As an adult the speaker realizes that the world is a different place. The speaker carefree innocence has now been corrupted. William Blake uses imagery, tone, and diction to validate his theme of man being born innocent and is corrupted through

    Read More

  • A Critical Analysis of Judith Wright's 'the Killer'

    913 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the first stanza, the poet seems to be offering a conventional romanticized view of Nature:

    Read More

  • Childhood

    1788 Words  | 4 Pages

    In the William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience, the vision of children and adults are placed in opposition of one another. Blake portrays childhood as a time of optimism and positivity, of heightened connection with the natural world, and where joy is the overpowering emotion. This joyful nature is shown in Infant Joy, where the speaker, a newborn baby, states “’I happy am,/ Joy is my name.’” (Line 4-5) The speaker in this poem is portrayed as being immediately joyful, which represents Blake’s larger view of childhood as a state of joy that is untouched by humanity, and is untarnished by the experience of the real world. In contrast, Blake’s portrayal of adulthood is one of negativity and pessimism. Blake’s child saw the most cheerful aspects of the natural wo...

    Read More

  • Comparison of the Use of Nature by Shelley and Wordsworth

    1194 Words  | 3 Pages

    I can picture him seeing life and feeling it in every flower, ant, and piece of grass that crosses his path. The emotion he feels is strongly suggested in this line "To me the meanest flower that blows can give / Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears." Not only is this showing the kind of fulfillment he receives from nature, but also the power that nature possesses in his mind.... ... middle of paper ... ...

    Read More

  • The Role of Nature in the poetry of William Wordsworth

    1355 Words  | 3 Pages

    In William Wordsworth’s poems, the role of nature plays a more reassuring and pivotal r ole within them. To Wordsworth’s poetry, interacting with nature represents the forces of the natural world. Throughout the three poems, Resolution and Independence, Tintern Abbey, and Michael, which will be discussed in this essay, nature is seen prominently as an everlasting- individual figure, which gives his audience as well as Wordsworth, himself, a sense of console. In all three poems, Wordsworth views nature and human beings as complementary elements of a sum of a whole, recognizing that humans are a sum of nature. Therefore, looking at the world as a soothing being of which he is a part of, Wordsworth looks at nature and sees the benevolence of the divinity aspects behind them. For Wordsworth, the world itself, in all its glory, can be a place of suffering, which surely occurs within the world; Wordsworth is still comforted with the belief that all things happen by the hands of the divinity and the just and divine order of nature, itself.

    Read More

  • Nature in "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" by William Wordsworth

    867 Words  | 2 Pages

    Figurative language is used by William Wordsworth to show the exchange between man and nature. The poet uses various examples of personification throughout the poem. When the poet says:”I wandered lonely as a cloud” (line 1),”when all at once I saw a crowd” (line 3), and “fluttering and dancing in the breeze” (line 6) shows the exchange between the poet and nature since the poet compares himself to a cloud, and compares the daffodils to humans. Moreover, humans connect with God through nature, so the exchange between the speaker and nature led to the connection with God. The pleasant moment of remembering the daffodils does not happen to the poet all time, but he visualizes them only in his “vacant or pensive mode”(line 20). However, the whole poem is full of metaphors describing the isolation of the speaker from society, and experiences the beauty of nature that comforts him. The meta...

    Read More

  • William Wordsworth's Use of Nature

    1393 Words  | 3 Pages

    Wordsworth is deeply involved with the complexities of nature and human reaction to it. To Wordsworth nature is the revelation of god through viewing everything that is harmonious or beautiful in nature. Man’s true character is then formed and developed through participation in this balance. Wordsworth had the view that people are at their best when they are closest to nature. Being close creates harmony and order. He thought that the people of his time were getting away from that.

    Read More

More about Ode Intimations of Immortality by William Wordsworth

Open Document