My Heart Leaps Up ------by William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth (1770－－1850) William Wordsworth was born on April 7th, in Cockermouth, Cumberland and educated at Saint John’s college, University of Cambridge. He developed a keen love for nature as kid. Wordsworth was the leading figure of the Lake Poets and was later named the Poet Laureate(桂冠诗人) in the year 1843. Major works: The Lyrical Ballads 《抒情歌谣集》(Samuel Coleridge as the coauthor ) The Prelude 《序曲》

My Heart Leaps Up 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 natual piety.

This poem was written in 1802 and published in 1807. The original one did not have a title, however, it now takes the first line as its Title. In the poem, Wordsworth expressed his love for nature and his wish that the purity and naïf of a child would remain forever. Coleridge once wrote in his “Biographia Literaria”(《文学传记》): To carry on the feelings of childhood into the powers of manhood; to combine the child’s sense of wonder and novelty with the appearances which every day perhaps for forty years have made familiar, -- this is the character and privilege of genius. 本诗采用抑扬格，各行包含二至五音步不等，韵式为abccabcdd.

Metrical Pattern（格律型）: iamb（抑扬格） Rhyme-scheme(押韵格式): abccabcdd (1) My heart leaps up…in the sky:每当诗人看到天上的彩虹，他的心就无比激动，这或许因为彩虹使诗人想到《旧约·创世纪》（9：8-17）中所说的事，即在大洪水消落之后，神就把虹放在云彩中，象征神与诺亚（Noah）和他的后裔立约许诺不再使洪水泛滥毁坏一切有血有肉的活物。

（2）The Child is the father of the Man: 成年是由童年长大的结果，成年人心灵中保持着美好纯洁的部分是童年时期形成的。Milton在《复乐园》（第四卷220到221行）中也曾说： The childhood shows the man, as morning shows the day. 自此行起的最后三行诗作为篇首引语再次见于Wordsworth的《永生的信息》（Ode: Informations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood）中。

（3）natural piety: 自然的虔敬。今日的彩虹来自当初作为神与人立约标记的彩虹，它们之间有着连续性。看见彩虹时的激动或许出于《圣经》的虔敬情感。同样，成年来自童年，每一个人的今天来自昨天，它们也有着连续性；而崇敬自己的童年，并使自己的精神发展连贯一致，则是一种自然的虔敬情感。

Wordsworth is most celebrated for his poetry of nature Wordsworth is most celebrated for his poetry of nature. His love for nature is boundless. To him, nature has a moral value and has its philosophical significance. Nature is for him, the embodiment of the Divine Spirit. He believes that God and universe are identical, that God is everything and everything is God. To Wordsworth, nature is the greatest of all teachers, and those who are uncorrupted by urban society, esp. those simple rustic people, can communicate directly with nature which gives them power, peace and happiness.

Rainbow Parallelism “The Child is father of the Man.” :paradox Agreement “leaps up”

parallelism There is a large-scale parallelism containing 3 juxtaposed units in this poem, namely, “So was it when my life began; So is it now I am a man; So be it when I shall grow old.”. (P135)Firstly, the sameness of structure implies the sameness in meaning. This shows that the speaker hopes that his response to seeing a rainbow remains the same throughout his life. (P135)Secondly and more importantly, the emotional feeling expressed gets stronger after each juxtaposed unit, reaching its climax in the final parallel unit.(?) In a word, the parallelism here chiefly functions to bring about a climax which fully expresses the speaker’s strong wish to always retain his faith in nature.

paradox The Child is father of the Man. The device paradox can allow the writer to express a certain truth or message through apparent falsehood. This can leave a deep impression on the reader’s mind. By using paradox here, Wordsworth wants to emphasize his praise of children, ie the virtues one can find in children, instead of adults. He also capitalizes the initial letters of both “child” and “man” to arouse the reader’s attention.

agreement/accord My heart leaps up when I behold A rainbow in the sky … And I could wish my days to be Bound each to each by natural piety. In meaning, the first two lines and the last two lines accord with each other. The symbolic meaning of rainbow can be found in the expression “natural piety”, which refers to the author’s faith in nature, the theme of this poem. In structure, the two parts accord with each others, too.(…) “Agreement” is also the concept W. wants to express.

tense My heart leaps up… The morpheme “-s” here suggests the present tense, which indicates a habitual action. Thus, the first sentence can be understood as: My heart always leaps up as soon as I see a rainbow in the sky. The emphasis falls on the firm belief in nature on the part of the poet. His natural piety is unchanging through the use of the present tense.

Thank you! The End