Sunday, June 5, 2011

William Wordsworth There Was a Boy

I must have read this poem at least a dozen times and every time I found something different in the text, but the one thing that I kept coming back to was the impression that the boy was somehow connected to nature. In the poem it describes how he mimicked owl sounds:
And there, with fingers interwoven, both hands
Press’d closely palm to palm and to his mouth
Uplifted, he, as through an instrument,
Blew mimic hootings to the silent owls.
I got the feeling that for child to do this he must have a love and a connection the natural world around him. He felt comfortable talking to the birds, and knew that they would not only answer him but to “shout” their response:
That they might answer him. And they would shout
Across the wat’ry vale and shout again
Responsive to his call, with quivering peals
And long halloos, and screams, and echoes loud.
I think the poem gives the impression that this boy comes and talks to the owls on a regular basis. When Wordsworth describes him as a boy that was known well was he talking about other people knowing him or was he suggesting that he was well known by the animals in the countryside? At the end of the poem the boy is said to have died, but I am not sure he meant it in the physical way. I think that what dies is the boy’s childhood. We all grow up and the things we do as children are no longer appropriate to do as adults, and he going to the cliffs and calling to the owls may be what was left behind in the boy’s childhood.

1 Comments:

At June 6, 2011 at 4:52 PM , Blogger Jonathan said...

Jim,

Very good focus and speculation on Wordsworth's short but complex poem. I think you effectively alternate quotations and exploration of the text here, and venture some interesting questions at the end. I have read that the boy in the poem is based closely on Wordsworth's own childhood activities, and so he did not die or lose his love of nature. It is interesting to wonder why Wordsworth would make up a story of a dead child rather than admit he did these things; perhaps he wanted to tug at the readers' emotions, for greater effect.

 

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