College of Education

ENG 118- SURVEY OF ENGLISH & AMERICAN LITERATURE

NAME: VERONICA O. FIEDACAN YEAR&SECTION: BSED- ENGLISH 3B
Topic 12
Psychoanalytic Criticism to “Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early
Childhood” by William Wordsworth
Psychoanalytic criticism allows the critic to see how the mental state of the author affect
the flow of the literary text, it determine the different desires and emotions that transcends on the
literary text. Also, it help us to understand and deeply analyze a certain literary text to know the
message of the text. Through this criticism we would be able to know the unconscious desires and
vision of William Wordsworth in the poem “Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections
of Early Childhood”.
The poem shows the memories of a child and how the mind of a child is different to the
mind of an adult. The poem stated that the mind-set of a child is more focused on enjoying their
life as a child, enjoying the time while they are still innocent and still unaware to adult’s life. The
behaviour and mind of the child is set on how they will won a games, they just want to play all
day with their playmates without any worries, they think that the world they are living is paradise,
they are still innocent to know the reality of the world. However, while a child is growing and
reach the stage of adulthood they were slowly realized that life is not always about enjoyment,
they will soon face hardship and challenges that would destroy their innocence and change their
mind-set into setting their full attention on how to survive on this reality and how they will be able
to overcome every problems that they’ve face every day. Also, the poem shows us that while we
are reaching adulthood it slowly get the light that we have when we are still a child, that made the
author to desire to go back on his childhood, where he wanted to enjoy all the day the he is still
unaware on his environment and innocent to everything, he wanted to cherished his childhood
days, this simply shows the desire of the speaker to escape from the reality and life of an adult,
that made him give an advice to all the kids who were still enjoying their childhood life that they
should not rush their childhood because being a child is an opportunity because they have a unique
mind-set that are different to adult.
In conclusion, the Psychoanalytic Criticism reveals the desire of Wordsworth to go back
on his childhood and enjoy the time that he is still innocent on the world and the time he is still be
able to see the light and living his life in peace without any worries.

Readers Response Criticism to “Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of

Early Childhood” by William Wordsworth

Readers Response Criticism allows the readers to analyze and interpret a certain literary
text through their own understanding and how they view the literary text, meaning the literary text
has different meaning depends on how the readers understand the text. This criticism will show or
reveals the interpretation of the poem “Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of
Early Childhood” by William Wordsworth.
“Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood” by William
Wordsworth, tells the life of being a child and how they will view things differently, unlike to
adult. The poem made us realized the beauty of being a child, it tells us that being a child is an
opportunity for us to enjoy and living our life with peace without thinking any worries or problems
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to solve, where we only think on how to win a games and play all day with our friends. The poem
gives us the message to cherish the time that we are still a child because if we reach adulthood we
won’t be able to enjoy life the way we enjoy life when we are still a child. This shows us that
becoming an adult is like becoming a soldier where we don’t fight for a game to win but we are
fighting for a war to get our victory. While we are reaching the stage of adulthood our focused in
life changes, our thinking become more practical and logical, and we become more matured in
terms of making decisions. The poem shows us the difference on how a child think and how an
adult think.

Overall, the Readers Response criticism unlock the hidden ideas and views of the readers
to the poem of “Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood” wherein
it tells us that we don’t stay being a child, soon we will all experience being an adult where we
don’t think childish things anymore, but for those who are still in the childhood, don’t rush to
become an adult immediately but enjoy the time that we are still in the stage where we can still
live a peaceful life.