Wordsworths Immortal Ode

Childhood Immortalized in Wordsworth 's Ode

William Wordsworth 's Ode : Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood ' is a poem that explores childlike joy and sense of wonder juxtaposed with its complexity of thought , quite unlike the words of a child but still similar in its honesty and rawness . The poem is written in eleven stanzas , with varying rhyming schemes organized into iambic form . It is regarded as Wordsworth 's most persistently elusive poem ' whose difficulties .seem to stem not from the complexities or imprecision of its surface but from [a]

br sense that mastery of the surface leaves .an elaborate metaphor which depends for its final meaning some referent outside the poem (Grob March 1965 ,

. 32 . In fact , some professors who teach the poem even let students read it to the class in for the poem to seem less intimidating , giving the class confidence to tackle its intricacies (Dean , May 1937 ,

. 404 . However , it does reflect how children can sometimes say things that are both wonderful and unfathomable

The opening stanzas of the ode reflect the sense of wonder experienced by children who welcome everything they see as beautiful and new Indeed , the Wordsworthian view ' is that every child is born with a marked susceptibility to nature (Angus , October 1941 ,

. 506

However , according to the poet the things which I have seen I now can see no more (Wordsworth , line 9 , for adulthood has brought about a change in how people view the world . There are more earthly matters that occupy the adult mind , thus separating it from the simplicity of their childhood days . Nevertheless , man is not prevented from dwelling in some pleasant memories that immortalize childhood . And again I am strong / the cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep (Wordsworth lines 24-25 . Even in old age , when it is mere memory that connects the adult to childhood , those better days give strength that transcends physicality

The concluding stanzas of Wordsworth 's Ode on immortality reflect about death 's inevitability and its end to man 's mortal body . In this poem which is thought by some as an ode to growing up and for some , an ode to becoming young again (Grob , March 1965 ,

. 32 , man 's way of becoming immortalized despite a body susceptible to decay is the ability to be a child again . Humanity has resilience in spirit that overcomes the weaknesses of the body . Thanks to the human heart by which we live Thanks to its tenderness , its joys , and fears / to me the meanest flower that blows can give / Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears (Wordsworth lines 205-208 . Such is the way the ode ends , in turns wistful and still somehow hopeful . Man hopes for immortality in to continue experiencing the joys brought to him by nature especially during moments when his eyes are as wide open as a child 's . The speaker does recognize that although his thoughts are not that of a child...