Ode on Intimations of Immortality
Introduction and Appreciation
Wordsworth’s celebrated Ode on Immortality has been widely praised by critics. Emerson, the American critic, for example, regards it as, “the high watermark of poetry in the 19th century.” Wordsworth himself attached great importance to it. He positioned it at the end of his collected poems as if it were the roof and crown of his works and his last word on the central problems of his creative life. Its full title, “Ode on Intimations of Immortality from the Recollections of Childhood,” indicates its subject matter i.e. memories of childhood visions and experiences are an indication of the immortality of the human soul. Wordsworth began writing it in the spring of 1802 when he was at the height of his power and prosperity. By summer the first four stanzas were completed and the main design conceived. Then, however, there was a break of two to four year; the rest of the poem was completed about the years 1805-1806 and it could be published only in 1807. This long gap explains the abrupt beginning of the 5th stanza:
“Our birth is but asleep and a forgetting.”
Its Three Parts: Development of Thought
The plan of the Ode is simple but majestic. Its thought can easily be divided into three parts. In the first four stanzas, the poet tells of a spiritual crisis which faces him; in stanzas from V to VIII he states the possible causes of that crisis; in the last three stanzas he points out the sources of consolation that still remain open to him. Let us now examine the leading thought of the three parts in some detail.
The Crisis
In the first part (1-4) he tells us that a change has come over his approach to nature and his relations with her. In childhood, every common scene and sight of nature seemed to him, “apparelled in celestial light.” But now in manhood, though nature remains the same as before, he tells us that some glory has gone out of her. The things which he had seen in childhood, he can see now no more. What he finds missing is described as, “celestial light,” “visionary gleam,” etc.
Everything around him is gay, but the poet is sad at heart. The tree, the field, and the flower at his feet, which had played so large a part in his life, are suddenly changed. In poignant, moving tones he asks the question,
Whither is fled the visionary gleam?
Where is now, the glory and the dream?
The language used makes it plain that spiritual crisis which the poet faced was a grave one and caused him much suffering.
The Ode has far-reaching autobiographical significance. C.M.Bowra writes, “At the height of his career Wordsworth discovered that nature, in which he had put an unquestioning trust as the inspiration of his poetry seemed to have abandoned by him and this deprived him of his most cherished strength.”
