Poetry is a great achievement of mankind. Poetical words help people to relax, to think about some problems, which are discussed in the poem, to listen to the melody of rhymes and entertain. Different authors have different styles of writing, their themes and goals of the poems are different, but what unites them all is the desire to represent people with their ideas, with their souls (as every poem is the part of the author’s soul), with their vision and perception of life. Poets write about absolutely different things: nature, life, death, people and so on, and every poet tries to reach the reader, to implement his/her vision of all this on the reader.
William Wordsworth was an English writer, who specialized in writing Romantic poems. He was one of those who gave a start to the Romantic Age in English literature. Wordsworth showed his life in poems to reach the reader by familiar episodes in their lives, by the memory recollections from childhood, as people’s experience of life may be similar in some cases and Wordsworth’s poems remind them about it, recollecting some past events.
“My heart leaps up when I behold”, “Ode on Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood” and “Lines Written in Early Spring” are William Wordsworth’s poems that introduce events from common life. Considering them in a more detailed way, we are going to analyze what effects the author was seeking and what ideas he was promoted by the use of such events.
“My heart leaps up when I behold” is the poem that concentrates its attention on the childish perception of nature and the recollection of this perception in the adult age. The example of the rainbow was given to show people that they always keep something from childhood in their souls, even till death. The author is ready to give everything to keep this feeling in him forever:
So be it when I shall grow old Or let me die! (My heart leaps up when I behold).
The author also shows the circle of people’s lives and that they should not forget the time when they were children when their “heart leaps up” when they saw a rainbow. The line “The child is the father of the man” in the poem shows that both father and child may inherit the characteristics of each other, that fathers were children some time ago and that these processes will continue.
“Ode on Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood” is the presentation of the poet’s early life. The aim of it is to show that such thing as childish recollections is the thing which unites all people. By showing such common things which everybody should remember, the author evokes the most sensible and great recollections in people’s minds.
“But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home” (Ode on Intimations),
are the words which characterize the way of people’s birth. Mother and her womb are the words which should be inserted instead of “God” in this poem. Reading these words people are going to remember their early life, when they were children, they are going to think about their mothers and thank them for their lives. (Shengold 2007) Childhood is the most expressive and bright time in people’s life and people should remember about it as longer as they can, and to recollect these memories frequently.
“Lines Written in Early Spring” is the other Wordsworth’s poem which tries to attract people’s attention through the describing of common people’s life. Common situations, rural life, easy language of the poem all these aspects as if make people closer to the author, as if unites them by common interests. The descriptions in the poem make some people to think over their lives and consider their essence. (Analysis of Wiliams Wordsworth’s Lines Written in Early Spring 2007) The nature reminding turns people to romantic mood
And ’tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes. (Lines Written in Early Spring)
Nature has always attracted people’s attention by its infancy, pureness, and chastity. Nature is always sincere, and Wordsworth by his poems tries to show this to his readers in order to make them think over their lives and in some cases to change them. Nature allows people to push the world vanity and to look inside themselves.
To write about personal experience is both easy and complex. Personal experience is the most familiar, but the most difficult to express. People’s thoughts are very confused and Wordsworth’ literature help people to liner their thoughts in a raw and to compare them with his (Bromwich 2000). These three poems describe either people’s life or some situations in people’s life which can be considered as common for everybody.
The poems represent the reader with “the relationship between nature and human society” (Mckusick 2007). The events from life in Wordsworth’s poetry reach people’s minds as those events are familiar to everybody, all people are similar in their children recollections, in the nature accepting and other common notions. The author wanted to show that even every-day life may be described in bright colors and may bring joy to those who consider these common events as God’s gift.
Works Cited
Analysis of Wiliams Wordsworth’s Lines Written in Early Spring. 2007. Web.
Bromwich, David. Disowned by Memory: Wordsworth’s Poetry of the 1790s. University of Chicago Press, 2000.
Mckusick, James C. “The Return of the Nightingale.” Wordsworth Circle 38.1-2 (2007).
Shengold, Leonard. Haunted by parents. Yale University Press, 2007.
Wordsworth, William. “Lines Written in Early Spring”. Web.
Wordsworth, William. My heart leaps up when I behold. Web.
Wordsworth, William. Ode on Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood. Web.