I need any analysis of My Heart Leaps Up... I have to give a presentation on it and can use any insight into the poem I can get...

Hockey, go here:

[tinyurl.com]


lLes



Post Edited (11-12-04 00:28)

>can use any insight


MY heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began,
So is it now I am a man,
So be it when I shall grow old
Or let me die!
The child is father of the man:
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety


Personally, having mentioned that it is a nature poem, as Les suggests, I would target the line,

The child is father of the man

Take a trip over to this rhetoric site and click on Paradox in the far right column, and work your way around the various examples. See if you can find out what specific figure of speech this represents. Plus, look up 'chiasmus' and 'antimetabole'. Sure, bring in 'metaphor' as well.

[humanities.byu.edu]

"The bird is on the wing" from the Rubaiyat might be another example to compare. Clearly the wing is actually on the bird (as poets have pointed out) but it makes sense the other way around too.

You should also point out the rhyme scheme and the meter used. Determine these yourself if possible. Return here to the well if you must.

You might also lookito Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood for the context Wordsworth himself provides these line, especially as regarding the idea the we grow away from our inborn wisdom as we get older.

Peter