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william wordsworth
3
William Wordsworth
1770-1850
1802
My Heart Leaps Up
The poem
My Heart Leaps Up
My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.
Analysis
Analysis
- ‘My heart leaps up’ is perhaps Wordsworth’s shortest great poem;
- in just nine lines, Wordsworth expresses several Romantic themes;
- focuses on Nature: Wordsworth declares how he is moved by nature and the beauty of it; he would rather die than live without it;
- meaning of the poem:
(lines 1-2) he becomes happy after he sees a rainbow in the sky;
(3-4) he has had the same feelings since he was child and now that he is a man, he still feels them;
(5) he wants to have this kind of joy even when he grows old;
(6) if he doesn't he'd rather die;
(7) this paradox means that our childhoods shape our adulthood: the inversion of the usual idea of things neatly embodies Romanticism’s desire to shake up the way we view ourselves;
(8-9) he wishes he can spend all his life being devoted to Nature.
Reflctions
Wordsworth expresses a number of the several features of Romanticism:
- a love of nature;
- the relationship between the natural world and the individual self;
- the importance of childhood in making the poet the man he becomes,
expressed by Wordsworth’s statement that ‘The child is father of the man’.
He explains that his love is so great for nature, that his heart leaps when he sees the rainbow;
Symbolism: the rainbow symbolizes the beauty of nature and so the joy and happiness of the author.
- pantheistic view of nature;
- man and nature are inseparable, man doesn't exist outside the natural world;
- nature is a source of pleasure and joy, it teaches man to love, to act in a moral way;
Style and thought
- imagination allows him to communicate his knowledge and feelings;
- his attention is to the ordinary and simple things of life;
- nature comforts man in sadness;
- imagination=intuition.