Group Study Questions: Wordsworth “Intimations and Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood”

Also see: "Preface"

What role does childhood play in this poem, beginning not only in the first lines, but with the title and epigram.  How is this role “Romantic”?  Cite an example or two.

What role does nature play in this poem? How does this fit with specific elements outlined in Wordsworth’s Preface?  How is this role “Romantic”? Cite an example or two.

Chart the emotional mood of each stanza (how does the narrator feel? Also note whether that feeling continues or changes throughout that stanza).  Then note what seems to be the cause each emotion.

What role does “reflection” or “emotion recollected in tranquility” play in both the larger themes of this poem and the narrator’s emotional state?

Now, taking all of your answers, above, into account, what is the overarching or central theme of this poem? That is, what is its “argument” or take away message?  Can you locate a single line (or more) that summarize or encapsulate this theme?

How does this theme explain the poem’s title?

How does this fit with specific elements outlined in Wordsworth’s Preface?

How is this theme essentially Romantic or Rousseau-an?

Would you say this poem has a Neo-Platonic or an Aristotelian theme and approach to knowledge?  Why? Cite examples.