Views on Childhood: My Heart Leaps Up by William Wordsworth

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Recommended: Childhood as a social construct

William Wordsworth once wrote a poem called My Heart Leaps Up in which he claims that “The Child is father of the Man;” this quote provides a basic understanding of his views on childhood (Allison 240). Wordsworth saw children having a close connection to both god and nature, this connection is explained by the theory of transmigration of souls (which claims that children experience preexistence; a period in which they share the company of god while waiting to be conceived). According to Wordsworth, children were also provided with insight into the world which was gradually lost as they matured into adults. Wordsworth’s poetry is key to understanding the romantic view of childhood as a period where the senses are heightened as well as the individual's connection to god and nature. Children in the romantic period were thought to be superior to the adults because of the latter characteristics, this popular romantic notion is most interestingly found in The Prelude Book I: Childhood and School-time (lines 301-475).
Within The Prelude’s first book, Wordsworth details his surroundings as gargantuan and out of proportion which is representative to a child’s view of the world. Children, in wordsworth’s verse, have a sense of wonder towards the world because it is so new and grand to them. This sense of wonder is lost to adults who have transcended childhood and are dependent on the spots of time (which are so often the subject of his poems). In the excerpt from the prelude, Wordsworth portrays himself rowing a boat and he describes the scene as “the summit of a craggy ridge,/ the horizon’s utmost boundary; for above/ was nothing but the stars and the gray sky” (Allison 236). As a young Wordsworth approaches the summit he is in awe at ...

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...ldhood is based on children having superior qualities such as feeling, thought, motion, and imagination. A child is closer to god and nature because they both serve as parent figures to children. Furthermore, children have a great sense of awe at the world because it is so new and grand to them. Only until they realize that death is applicable to their being do they begin maturing into adults. Finally, because of their superior qualities and relation to God and nature; the child is father of man.

Works Cited

Allison, Alexander W., and Arthur M. Eastman. "Prelude, Book I: Lines 301-475 ("Fair Seedtime Had My Soul, and I Grew Up")." The Norton Anthology of Poetry. Shorter Edition ed. New York: Norton, 1975. 234-40. Print.

Wu, Duncan. "William Wordsworth: On the Ode." Romanticism: An Anthology. 4th ed. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012. 595. Print.

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