Ode: Intimations of Immortality

[Kylekyrou]

In Ode: Intimations of Immortality, Wordsworth is describing how he has changed his perception based on how his own view of nature has changed. In the first stanza, he starts off by saying, "There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, / The earth, and every common sight, / To me did seem / Apparelled in celestial light, / The glory and the freshness of a dream." By describing nature in the first part, and then following with the "freshness of a dream," he is describing a reawakening of his inner element of himself in nature. He also describes a release of ones domesticated self, into nature. For instance, in stanza 6 he describes, "Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own; / Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind, / And, even with something of a Mother's [mother nature's] mind...Forget the glories he hath known [nature can sweep anyone up and make someone forget all the created troubles of humankind through it], / And that imperial palace whence he came [city, township, etc., an exodus from the city into nature has more revealing effects about someone than the domesticated human version]. These are all seen throughout the poem, but there is one more that may be broader than expected. In stanza 4 near the end he states "Whither is fled the visionary gleam? / Where is it now, the glory and the dream?" Could Wordsworth be referring to the French Revolution? The glory and the dream could describe the new face of France after the Estates-General and the rest of the war broke out, and the way he states the "visionary gleam" may carry more concrete detail than expected. Wordsworth had a daughter in France during that time, and changed his opinion on the war near the end as it became a bloodbath. Nevertheless, the poem in its entirety focuses on man's interaction and change through nature, because nature carries a revealing and fresh effect on the human soul. What do you think?

[Dipen Guha]

In the first stanza , there is painted a word-picture of the glories of Nature . There is a hint of nostalgia in the opening line. Wordsworth tells, "There was a time " when the earth and every sight appeared to be clothed in an extra-ordinary or special light. He calls it celestical light, perhaps to differentiate the light from the ordinary or scientific light. Perhaps, this may be compared to the light which is praised in the Invocation to Book IV of Paradise Lost of Milton. All around him the sights of Nature had seemed to be glorious and fresh as captured memories of a dream. But now, as he looks around him he senses a change ; all that he had seen and enjoyed appear to be absent.

[Dipen Guha]

The Ode begins with an epigraph of three lines taken from an earlier poem, " My heart leaps when I behold..." The epigraph is of great significance in proper interpretation of the poem . According to Wordsworth, the child is Father of Man, i.e childhood is only a necessery first stage, a phase that is absolutely essential for the evolving of the mature man. There need be no regrets about the changes that a Man has to undergo through childhood to reach maturity of manhood. Wordsworth sees the changes as links in the chains of human existence, each moment of life a forerunner or stepping stone for the next stage . If there be no change from childhood, Man's life will become stagnated with no progress or fulfilment.

[Dipen Guha]

In the second stanza Wordsworth clarifies the statement he has made in the first. He confesses that the beautiful items of Nature's beauty--the colorful rainbow, the beautiful rose, the enchanting moon in a cloudless sky, waters reflecting the myriad stars---al these are still present. The change that has come is in him. For though all the alluring scenes in Nature were still very much present, Wordsworth was unable to look at them with a similar kind of emotions as he had earlier.
In consequence, he feels that the earth has lost its glory for him.

[Dipen Guha]

In the third stanza, Wordsworth tries to recapture those days of joy by looking around him, seeing all the joyous scenes around him. The birds are trilling in great happiness, while the young the lambs frisk gaily, dancing as it were to the tabor's sound. Amidst all these happiness to Wordsworth comes a sad thought that deprives him of all joy.

[blazeofglory]

I am a tireless reader of Wordsworth. No poetries were better written than they were during the era of him, along with Shelley, Keats, Byron, and Arnold. They were the real poets and the rest, even modern poets T.S. Eliot are not worthy of appraising compared with them. These poets, particularly during the age of romanticism are immortal and we immortalized them by reading and enjoying their immortal lines. They are matchless, unparalleled and I always become emotional and I feel like weeping too becoming nostalgic about these great poets. They are timelessly great.

[Dipen Guha]

The essence of Shelley's poetic creed about Nature is that the Universe is vitalized by a brooding spirit which makes it real. The spirit of Nature is conceived of as more than life. To adore it, to clasp it with affection, and to blend with it is true object of man. It is this spirit that unifies everything in the universal Sun. Unlike Wordsworth, Shelley does not believe that the contemplation of Nature's works in a wise pensiveness would strengthen and reform the soul. He is indeed attracted not so much by Nature's works as by her forces. For him, the wind is alive. Shelley is fond of the indefinite, changeful and dynamic aspects of Nature. Shelley had a metaphysical theory of the universe which led him to say that the whole world was the apparent form of supreme Love and Thought. The Ode to the west Wind best illustrates Shelley's attitude to Nature. He imagines the West Wind as a wild spirit in the Aryan or Greek way. But he makes the West Wind visible only by the effects it produces on the Earth, in the Sky, in the Sea and in the poet's mind.
Like a helpless child Shelley cries out , " I fell on the thorns of life! I bleed!" Shelley is concerned with the poetic and spiritual regenaration of himself and the political transformation of Europe. He regards the West Wind as the instrument to effect his desired change. He was deeply interested in politics, coming early under the spell of the anarchistic views of William Godwin, whose Enquiry concerning Political Justice had appeared in 1793. Shelley's revolutionary ardour, coupled with a zeal for the liberation of mankind and passion for poetry, caused him to claim in his critical essay, A Defence of Poetry, in which he writes..." the most unfailing herald, companion, and follower of the awakening of a great people to work a beneficial change in opinion or institution, is poetry".