Question

Describe the dilemma that the poet goes through at the beginning of the poem “Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood”.​

Answer 1

Answer:

Wordsworth: “Ode: Intimations of Immortality”

Wordsworth: “Ode: Intimations of Immortality”Introduction

Wordsworth: “Ode: Intimations of Immortality”IntroductionWordsworth’s “Intimations Ode” or “Immortality Ode” (both abbreviations are in common use) has a rather ungainly but significant full title: “Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood.” The poem was written in two stages, and in a sort of slowly evolving poetic conversation with Coleridge’s “Dejection: An Ode.”

Wordsworth: “Ode: Intimations of Immortality”IntroductionWordsworth’s “Intimations Ode” or “Immortality Ode” (both abbreviations are in common use) has a rather ungainly but significant full title: “Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood.” The poem was written in two stages, and in a sort of slowly evolving poetic conversation with Coleridge’s “Dejection: An Ode.”In March of 1802, Wordsworth wrote a number of short lyrics, many of which were brief poetic celebrations or descriptions of natural phenomena. In the midst of this period, he also apparently felt that his poetic powers were waning and that he no longer felt the same spiritual connection to nature that had once been the essence of both his art and his view of the world. (See especially “Tintern Abbey” from 1798.) The sense of visionary loss became the subject of one of his short lyrics when he wrote the first four stanzas of the Intimations Ode which describe (1) the poet’s sense of lost vision, (2) an unexpected but short-lived return of his poetic enthusiasm, and (3) a series of troubling questions about the loss of his former “glory” and his poetic “dream.”

Wordsworth: “Ode: Intimations of Immortality”IntroductionWordsworth’s “Intimations Ode” or “Immortality Ode” (both abbreviations are in common use) has a rather ungainly but significant full title: “Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood.” The poem was written in two stages, and in a sort of slowly evolving poetic conversation with Coleridge’s “Dejection: An Ode.”In March of 1802, Wordsworth wrote a number of short lyrics, many of which were brief poetic celebrations or descriptions of natural phenomena. In the midst of this period, he also apparently felt that his poetic powers were waning and that he no longer felt the same spiritual connection to nature that had once been the essence of both his art and his view of the world. (See especially “Tintern Abbey” from 1798.) The sense of visionary loss became the subject of one of his short lyrics when he wrote the first four stanzas of the Intimations Ode which describe (1) the poet’s sense of lost vision, (2) an unexpected but short-lived return of his poetic enthusiasm, and (3) a series of troubling questions about the loss of his former “glory” and his poetic “dream.”Wordsworth read this fragment to Coleridge in April of 1802, and Coleridge immediately responded with a long verse-epistle that would, after a few months’ time and a good deal of revision, become “Dejection: An Ode.” As the title suggests, “Dejection” offers a rather bleak view of the fate of the poet’s lost visionary powers—in Coleridge’s view, once these powers are gone, they cannot be called back. Such a response—Coleridge’s answer to the questions posed at the end of Wordsworth’s fourth stanza—was apparently unsatisfactory to Wordsworth, and two years later in mid-1804 Wordsworth completed his Intimations Ode in roughly its present form.

Hope it helps you please mark me as the branliest answer