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Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood
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Literary Devices
Poetic Form and Structure
“Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood” consists of 11 stanzas of varied length, amounting to 203 lines, plus the three lines of the epigraph. The poem has no uniform meter (rhythmic structure) nor rhyme pattern, but several types of poetic meter and rhyme appear in various parts of the poem. Some lines are iambic pentameters, which consist of five iambs: metric units containing two syllables of which the second carries the stress (as in the word “be-yond”). Other lines are shorter, but largely maintain the iambic rhythm. Lines 1-4 present a strong example:
There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight,
To me did seem
Apparelled in celestial light
The first line is in iambic pentameter, with five iambic feet (metric units) where the stress falls on the second, fourth, sixth, eighth, and tenth syllable. The second and fourth lines are iambic tetrameters, with four iambic feet, while the third line is an iambic dimeter, with only two iambic feet. The rhyme pattern in this passage is ABAB (the first line rhymes with the third and the second with the fourth), but this changes and varies throughout the poem.
Alliteration
Alliteration—the repetition of the same letter or sound in adjacent or closely connected words—abounds in the poem. For example, “[f]resh flowers; while the sun shines warm” (Line 48) combines three alliterations: /f/, /s/, and /sh/ sounds. Likewise, “[s]hout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happy Shepherd-boy” (Line 35) alliterates the /sh/ sound as well as the diphthong /ou/. Alliteration creates a sense of poetic unity and density, strengthening a poem’s rhythm. At times, Wordsworth alliterates similarly positioned words in successive lines, such as “heavens,” “heart,” and “head” (Lines 38-40), which emphasizes the link between these concepts within the point that both the speaker’s feelings and his thoughts will join the holy celebration of nature he observes. The use of this literary device, therefore, reflects and supports the meaning of the passage.
Caesura and Enjambment
In a long and complex poem like this one, literary devices that break rhythmic monotony are especially important. Two such devices prominent in Wordsworth’s “Ode” are enjambment (French for “striding over”) and caesura (or cesura, from Latin for “cutting). Enjambment refers to the continuation of a clause or sentence beyond the line on which it began so that it concludes in the middle of the following line. Here are two successive enjambments in Lines 36-38:
“Ye blessed creatures, I have heard the call
Ye to each other make; I see
The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee;
Instead of explaining what the speaker hears in one line and then what he sees in another, the poet uses enjambments to carry the meaning from one line to the next, which gives the passage momentum and prompts the reader’s increased attention.
Caesura, on the other hand, jolts the reader’s attention with an abrupt punctuated break in the middle of the line: “The fullness of your bliss I feel—I feel it all” (Line 41). This line concludes a six-line sentence in which the speaker describes his recovered ability to empathize with natural joy, and the caesura marked by the hyphen (together with the repetition of the word “feel”) signals his decisive commitment to that empathy. It is as if he had paused for a moment to consider what he just said and then decided to reaffirm it. Again, the chosen literary device contributes to the meaning and emphasis in the passage.
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By William Wordsworth
