The final poem in the 1807
Poems, in Two Volumesis the one that made William Wordsworth’s reputation for the nineteenth century. First published simply as “Ode”, Wordsworth later gave it the title “Ode. Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood” for his 1815 collections. Sometimes referred to as “the Intimations Ode”, “the Immortality Ode”, or even “the Great Ode”, this poem is notoriously difficult but impossible to ignore. Wordsworth’s friend Henry Crabb Robinson, for example, remarked that the poem made him feel “ridiculous” because he was “unable to explain precisely” just what he liked about it (quoted in Gilchrist 386). And yet, in 1856, Ralph Waldo Emerson called the poem “the high-water mark which the intellect has reached…
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Citation: Robinson, Daniel. "Ode. Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 06 January 2013 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=34202, accessed 21 November 2024.]
