Literary Appreciation: Poetry and Multiple Interpretations

My Heart Leaps Up When I Behold

By William Wordsworth

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

Round each to each by natural piety.

Suggested Interpretations:

• The poet hopes that the ability to appreciate the wonders of nature, which he had at his infancy and right up to adulthood, will continue to be a part of him even when he becomes elderly. He would rather die than have this sense of awe and wonder disappear as he ages. For to him, life becomes meaningless if he were to lose interest in the natural beauty around him.
• What does a Child have that he or she can teach a Man? A Child does not have a jaded view of life. He or she is filled with curiosity and fascination for the things he or she sees around him or her. Hence, these are qualities that the Child has are important in teaching an adult, who may have gradually lost this ability, to appreciate and be filled with wonder at all that surrounds him or her.
• One could go beyond a superficial interpretation and extend the meaning of the poem to include a person having an interest in what life has to offer. The person is still able to get excited instead of seeing life as being a routine of `yeah, been there, done that!'
• If a person gets excited, then he or she lives! Otherwise, he or she is just as good as a corpse, with no purpose left in prolonging one's existence.
• The Child comes before the Man. One has to be a child before he or she grows into adulthood. Hence, the Child has the basic DNA that is passed on to the Man and which, will aid him in defining his character and his response to life. If he forgets this `father' in him, then he is forgetting the root of his existence. What is this father? And here, as was mentioned earlier, lies the secret to existing: One has to continue to be imbued with the motivation and happiness that a child brings to his or existence.

Do take a second look at the highlighted verbs above. In the next post, we will be going over the tenses and subject-verb agreement.

Creativity in Writing: A Poet's Imagination

The Sick Rose

By William Blake

O Rose, thou art sick!

The invisible worm

That flies in the night,

In the howling storm,

Has found out thy bed

Of crimson joy,

And his dark secret love

Does thy life destroy.

What Blake writes about can be a simple illustration of a rose being attacked by a worm and in the process, eating away into the life of the rose. On the other hand, the poem can be a subtle enactment of a rape that occurs in the stealth of the night. The offender is unknown, preying on the victim that he chances upon. The consequences are dire for the act deals a fatal blow to the life of the victim, either in killing the victim literally or ruining the victim's life forever.

A simple illustration that can have several underlying meanings - yes, there is much we can learn from the poets' economic use of words which are at the same time graphic and layered with multiple interpretations.

Read the following poem and consider the multiple interpretations found therein.

My Heart Leaps Up When I Behold

By William Wordsworth

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

Round each to each by natural piety.

The Child is father of the Man. That verse sums up what Wordsworth is trying to get across his feelings at sighting the rainbow. What do you think the poem means? Are there multiple meanings? Our sample interpretations of the above poem will be offered at the end of this week. Do keep a look-out for the suggestions.

Using your Imagination in Creative Writing: Sample

At the end of the previous post, the following image was given:

Possible imaginative ways of viewing the above are given in The Pear Tree website.

Here, in this post, a short story based on the above is offered for your reading pleasure and as a sample of one way in which the image can lead to a creative piece of writing.

From the Frying Pan and Into the Fire!

My name is MacErBraun. I gave myself the name, and I think it was ingenious the way I came up with the name! I, along with my conjoined siblings, was perched on my banana pedestal with the help of the plastic hook protruding from the top of the two-footed stand when a paper bag, with MacDonald's printed across it, brushed against me. I could read by now, because, well, I told you I am smart! Anyway, I wanted something original; stealing wholesale from MacDonald's wouldn't do. Just then, I spied a beautiful lavender juicer to my right. I craned my stem as far back as I could to take a peek at the brand, and it was Braun. Hmmm, not a bad name, indeed! Right there and then, I baptised myself as MacErBraun! Clever, isn't it? If I could, I would give myself a pat on my back!

I was getting bored, dangling in the slight breeze that stole in from the kitchen window. I figured I was too smart to be dangling up there, and I waited for a chance to break free. I didn't have to wait long. One of my siblings, resting next to me, and no, it doesn't have a name because it is not as smart as me, was rudely yanked off from the rest of us. When it was severed from us, the top of my stem was cut too and there was just a flimsy lifeline left to keep me linked to my remaining siblings.

I jerked my stem as far back as I could, and believe me, it was not fun; I was getting a headache! Anyway, to make a long story short, I managed to free myself from the rest, but in the process, I found myself flung onto the kitchen floor. I landed like an athlete doing a couple of somersaults, except that I ended up with aches all over my body. Sigh! Who said freedom was going to given on a silver platter!

I crawled, inch by inch, to the living room and onto the carpet. However, the rough carpet made it more difficult for me to move. As I lay on the soft carpet, tickled by those woolly strands, I thought hard, fully confident that my intelligence would find a way out for me.

"Gary!" 

Oh no, that was the dreaded banana-lover! I had heard her voice in the kitchen all the time, and she was the one who always came for the bananas! 

"Gary, how did this banana get on the carpet?!" 

"Mum, it's not me! I tell you, it must be Suzy! But since it's already here, maybe I could have it?"

Five long, thin fingers circled me and choked me around the middle. Then, I felt sections of my skin being peeled off, one by one from the top. The pain was excruciating but I could do nothing. As my flesh touched Gary's palm, I could sense my smooth, blemish-less yellow skin landing softly on the carpeted floor. 

"Gary, pick that up, now!"