“Ode, Intimations of Immortality”: Stanzas 8-11
For Monday’s class, choose TWO of the metaphorical
lines below (taken from the poem) below, and explain how Wordsworth uses it to
translate his philosophical musings into a comparison we can see, feel, and
understand. Also, how does this metaphor
build on some aspect of the poem from previous stanzas (as we discussed in
class on Friday)?
Stanza 8:
a. “thou Eye among the blind,/That, deaf and
silent, read’st the eternal deep”
b. “Thou, over whom thy Immortality/Broods like the
Day, a Master o’er a Slave”
Stanza 9:
c. “Those shadowy recollections,/Which, be they
what they may,/Are yet the fountain light of all our day,/Are yet a master
light of all our seeing”
Stanza 10:
d. “Though nothing can bring back the hour/Of
splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower”
Stanza 11:
e. “To me the meanest flower that blows can
give/Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears”
c. Wordsworth has come to a disdained understanding of his present state of mind, and he understands that his previous state of mind was clouding up the joy he momentarily felt. However, this doesn't send him back into a joyous frenzy within nature and the sublime. Instead, he begins to more deeply contemplate the way in which nature has worked around him. He realizes that the heavy shadows that weighed upon him are still a good thing to deserve to miss. He now seems to understand a souls destiny and takes, while making no apologies for his previous outburst, that with a bit more appreciation then he did before.
ReplyDeleted.) This line of Stanza X shoes even more how Wordsworth is allowing his mentality to grow and accept what he once was unwilling to understand. He knows that nothing in the world will bring back the imagination and wonder he had as a child, nor will he be able to truly bring back the feelings he had when he was young and saw nature. Instead, he resigns himself to say that he simply cannot grieve over what once was.
Great responses--I like how you understand that the poem is a kind of argument with himself, and he's coming to see ideas that he formerly refused or ignored. While he's saying he cannot grieve over what once was, it's actually through the sorrow that he finds it again. Regret, pain, loss, all of these are positive in that they make us aware of the evil which balances the good. We can only feel innocence now by its absence. Before, all we knew was innocence, so we never lacked it--or truly knew it, perhaps. With loss we gain experience and true understanding.
DeleteAshley Bean
ReplyDeleted. Wordsworth is finally able to remember his childhood splendor, yet he knows that a memory is nothing compared to the actual experience. Like the first time seeing a flower or the green grass, it's never the same when you look at it again later. As a child, it always seemed new and glorious, and while he's beginning to remember those emotions, he can't feel them or experience the awe he once felt. He uses the flower and grass as something we know to show this point, how we as adults pay no attention or mind to these daily objects of nature, when to a child they can be magical.
e. Wordsworth continues to use the flower in these lines to show his experience. In these final lines, he is realizing that nature can still affect him as an adult, and promote thoughts and critical thinking rather than just emotions alone. This poem was his midlife crisis and at the end he comes to terms that things are different but not hopeless in his poetry career.
That's a great point--we can never have the "first time" again, it goes away immediately. So we can lament losing that initial impression, or we can realize that the loss that follows helps us see it in a more complex light. It's an "evil" that helps us appreciate the "good." However, we miss it if we see anything as "mean" or insignificant. Enlightenment can exist in a blade of grass!
Deletec. “Those shadowy recollections,/Which, be they what they may,/Are yet the fountain light of all our day,/Are yet a master light of all our seeing” I think the shadowy recollections are our old memories from childhood. We discussed in class how important childishness and innocence is in this poem and it seems to stick out for me here. I think the other three lines are just suggesting that looking at things like a child, or approaching things innocently is the only way we can master adulthood. The shadowy recollections are ironically the light (memories of innocence) that get us through life.
ReplyDeletee. “To me the meanest flower that blows can give/Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears” I think the meanest flower is supposed to be a flower that can reproduce by wind--probably a dandelion. Even if he's not, I think he's saying this small insignificant thing can open up to big things when it's awakened. I think this is a metaphor. The flower reproduces when it's blown all over the place and creates a significantly larger population of flowers. Someone can use a small conversation to invoke a much larger emotional conversation.
Yes, that's a great way to look at the metaphor: even the meanest flower, like a dandelion, can create new life--it can be immortal. So, too, can our memories if we open our eyes to the sublimity of nature. Like Coleridge wrote, we have to love all things "both great and small," since size is relative--it all speaks of the divine to Wordsworth.
DeleteElyse Marquardt
ReplyDeleteb. "Thou, over whom thy Immortality/ Broods like the Day, a Master o'er a Slave" Wordsworth's meaning here is by no means foggy, for he has used very vivid imagery to convey his ideas. He is looking at the child and Immortality as fused together so strongly that the one is like the master of the other. The child knows nothing else BUT Immortality; therefore, he can do nothing else but abide by it. It is almost as if his life is dictated by Immortality, as a slave's life is governed by his master. This metaphor helps Wordsworth expand his meaning, for he has just spent previous stanzas explaining how youth is automatically captivated by Immortality by only the mere fact that youth does not question it. When one does not question something, one has no choice but to believe it so wholeheartedly that it enthrallingly becomes ones life.
d. "Though nothing can bring back the hour/ Of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower" Wordsworth uses these two lines to express how he no longer sees the magic that he used to see when he looks at a blade of grass or a flower petal. Whereas youth is able to view these things with pure wonder, Wordsworth - in his dusty, cynical older age - is unable to recreate that moment of unadulterated joy. This point that he is making coincides with his meaning throughout the entirety of the poem; past a certain point, youth is forever gone, and one should not aspire to bring it back. There is hope though; Wordsworth goes on to say that he will find "strength in what remains behind." He will go one in this new mindset to see what his new experiences can bring to the table.
Elyse Marquardt
Great responses--and yes, there is hope with "what remains behind." Also, despite his age (and he wasn't very old when he wrote this) he isn't cynical. He can feel cynicism creeping up on him, but he never gives into it. Indeed, this poem is written largely as a way to exorcise cynicism and maintain his Romantic view of the world even as he's losing it. He also hopes reading it can do the same for someone else.
DeleteStanza 10: This metaphor is perfect because it’s addressing the issue of never being able to go back to the state of innocence. I think it’s a sort of dark way to say that our imagination can never go back. However, I do believe it is a beautiful way of transforming our ideas of grass and flowers. Yes, we may never be back to that innocence where flowers and grass are more than just flowers and grass; but we have the opportunity to look at them in a new light. I think it’s just reminding us to cherish what we have in the moment as well.
ReplyDeleteStanza 11: When I first read this I was very confused. I did not quite understand it, and still don’t. It does incorporate a beautiful thought though. Throughout the whole poem, flowers have been portrayed as beautiful and wonderful, now they’re mean. I find that confusing. I think it has something to do with the fact that growing up we lose the innocence and clarity. If tears bring clarity, sometimes looking at a flower your thoughts become too convoluted and unclear; but I think this is saying that it’s okay to have uncertainty. Nature is not suppose to be clear… just like this poem.
Great responses--but remember, the "meanest flower" doesn't mean the flower is mean or nasty. "Mean" also means "lowly, forgotten, insignificant," so in this case he's saying "even the smallest, most pitiful looking weed can show me the face of eternity." Nothing is too small--almost like Coleridge's line "all things both great and small."
Deletec. “Shadowy recollections” are bouts of nostalgia. Though this nostalgia may make us sad, it also helps us better appreciate the good things in life. It highlights Wordsworth’s point that even though we have lost our innocence and the joy it can bring us, we are still capable of happiness and our experience can be good.
ReplyDeleted. Wordsworth can recall the beauties of nature from his childhood, though he may never see them for himself every again no matter how much he tries. This ties into how once the innocence of childhood is lost it can never be reclaimed.
Great responses: innocence, once lost, is lost forever, but this loss breeds wisdom and true understanding (if we open our eyes to it).
Deletec. “Those shadowy recollections,/Which, be they what they may,/Are yet the fountain light of all our day,/Are yet a master light of all our seeing”
ReplyDeleteThe experiences we had as children paint all subsequent experiences we have as adults, and are still with us even as we mature and move past the intrinsic joy/innocence of childhood to the cultivated sadness/sorrow of adulthood. We are still, in part, the children we used to be even as we are also the myriad of others things we become throughout our lives.
This can be related back to Stanza IV, where the speaker can recollect, and, to some extent, feel the old joys of childhood, but they tinged with the enduring sadness of adulthood.
d. “Though nothing can bring back the hour/Of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower”
We can never go back and have experiences again for the first time. Simple things are no longer simple, and the depth and complexities of emotions we feel in adulthood cannot be divorced from how we perceive the world now.
This can be related back to Stanza V: "At length the Man perceives it die away,/And fade into the light of common day." The grass or the flower are no longer awe-inspiring.
Great responses: I love the idea that simple things are no longer simple, since even the "meanest flower" is complex and full of deep emotion. Only experience can show us this, so we have to lose it to gain it.
Deleted- He makes you feel all those great memories you had when you were a young child that you can never get back. This whole poem has this same theme for the most part. Great moments and wonderful memories you will never get to experience again.
ReplyDeletee- There is always something that can trigger deep memories. A smell, a location, a song. You can become so entranced in reliving the memory that even tears don't fall. You just kind of sit there off in space remembering the good times. It ties back in with all of the things he's remembering throughout his life in the poem.
Yes, good points...but of course, you can experience these events again through sorrow and loss. They come back to you in a more nuanced way than you first experienced them. In a way, you can't appreciate them the first time since you can't imagine losing them. Seeing them again incomplete makes you 'see' them clearer, and thus they end up meaning more to you. It's a paradox!
ReplyDelete