Wordsworth

NAVIGATION:

William Wordsworth (1770 - 1850)

ODE
Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood
(page 337)

From the Norton intro: "I used to brood over the stories of Enoch and Elijah [Genesis 5.22-24; 2 Kings 2.11], and almost to persuade myself that, whatever might become of others, I should be translated, in something of the same way, to heaven."

Genesis 5.22-24:
   22 And Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah three hundred years, and begat sons and daughters:
  23 And all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and and five years:
  24 And Enoch walked with God : and he was not; for God took him.

2 Kings 2.11
   11 And it came to pass, as they still went on, and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them [Elisha and Elijah] both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.

"Intimations" -- very cautious
The Epigraph: What is the resolution of the paradox? | "natural piety" -- true to universal human nature & validated by nature. What is an example of piety that is not "natural"?
Section 1 -- (See "glory" in religious imagery) | What's the problem?
Section 2 -- Beauty remains, but the problem is still there
Section 3 -- pumping himself up
Section 4 -- The willed joy fails him. | What is the "Tree" and the "Field"; and why should they speak of "something that is gone"? | The pansy | And in Ophelia's madness
Section 5 -- Wordsworth's Credo | Compare to Lowood (pp. 34 & 64)| Compare to Shakespeare's The Tempest | Do you believe it?
Section 6 -- homely Earth is not the equivalent of "Nature" in the previous stanza
Section 7 -- focuses on a child who exemplifies the conflict between Earth and Nature hinted at in the previous two sections -- the phrase "humorous stage" does appear in Samuel Daniel's Musophilus: Containing a General Defense of Learning; it's in the opening lines of the dedication to "Master Fulke Grevill": "I do not here upon this humorous stage / Bring my transformed verse, apparelled / With others' passions, or with others' rage . . . ." However, the note is too restrictive. It would be more appropriate to illustrate what Wordsworth is getting at by a reference to Jaques' famous "seven ages" speech (AYLI, 2.7.139-166).
Section 8 -- An Exhortation (in the form of a question) to the child of the previous section, urging him to cling to his "heaven-born freedom" (line 122).
Section 9 -- I think there's a jump from the previous section, as though Wordsworth is admitting that what he asks of the child is too much to ask for, so he takes another tack, and starts talking about how we can make the connection to the great beyond of nature via memory. --Notice the foggy quality of the "But for" (lines 141 & 148) sections. -- The last lines (163 - 167) are meant to be reassuring, I think, but I don't think they are.
Section 10 -- The first line refers back to the previous section, and to section 3, as though the problem has been solved. -- "We in thought" (line 171) implies a universality. -- "In the soothing thoughts that spring / Out of human suffering"; I don't know what those thoughts would be, but I suspect that there are none.
Section 11 -- "I only have relinquished one delight" (line 190): I don't know what the "delight" it is. -- "Another race has been, and other palms are won"; also puzzling.

The Valley of the River Wye