My Heart Leaps Up
"My Heart Leaps Up", by William Wordsworth, is a poem that was written simply to express the poet's awe and reverence for the beauty of the world surrounding him. The tone of the poem is passionate; Wordsworth talks about how his heart "leaps" at the sight of a rainbow and exclaims how he would prefer death to losing his appreciation for the beauty of nature. Wordsworth uses various rhythmic and stylistic techniques and figurative images in this poem to convey his exuberant love of nature. The rhythm, language and imagery of the poem help the reader to understand its message. The poem begins with a pleasant flowing rhythm in the first five lines. The poet uses certain words and phrases in the first two lines to uplift the reader's thoughts and emotions. Phrases such a "My heart leaps up" and "Rainbow in the sky" are meant to cause the reader's emotions to soar upward w
In the fifth and sixth lines, the gentle and uplifting flow of the poem changes abruptly when the poet vows to retain his love of nature even in his old age. The words Child, Father, and Man are also capitalized. Each of the three lines starts with the word "So" and then uses the past, present, and future tense, respectively, to continue the thought- "So was it", "So is it", and "So be it". The reader is forced to wonder about the sudden end to the thought and carefully think about the poet's message. He capitalizes four key words to emphasize their importance and to alert the reader to the fact that they are symbolic. These terms are used in relation to each other in the seventh line in a way that turns around the usual description of the father-child relationship. ith the poet's as he describes his exuberant appreciation for nature. The abruptness and finality of this line mirrors the abruptness and finality of the death of which he speaks and brings the reader up short without any warning. He capitalizes the word Rainbow to show that it represents not only a single rainbow, but all of nature. He says, "So be it when I shall grow old, Or let me die!" The abrupt language, the use of the exclamation point, and the indentation of this line give the reader a vivid picture of how meaningless his life would be if the poet were to lose his appreciation for the beauty around him. ------------------------------------------------------------------------**Bibliography**. The adult can only achieve true wisdom or "natural piety" if he/she has learned the lessons of the father ("Child")--by getting in touch once again with the child's pure and innocent appreciation of the world. The use of the word Father in describing the relationship of the Child to the Man reflects the fact that the child in its purity and natural ability to appreciate the world's beauty is, in effect, wiser, like a father, than the Man. The use of similar language in each line gives the sense of continuity and sameness which the poet desires to have throughout his life in terms of his own appreciation of nature. The Child in this poem represents each of us when we are very young, innocent, and able to take a natural delight in the world around us before we are corrupted and jaded by life.
Common topics in this essay:
William Wordsworth,
Child Father,
heart leaps,
Heart Leaps,
appreciation beauty,
relationship child,
abruptness finality,
reader's emotions,
love nature,
lines poet,
appreciation nature,
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Acceptance Essays
