149041884

An in-depth look at the concept of Childhood: Wordsworth and Blake

When it comes to Romanticism, no one will call into question the importance of
childhood amongst the different Romantic authors. In fact, one of the current themes
that appear in most romantic works, together with nature, is the concept of childhood.
Childhood is one of the main literary characteristics of the Romantic period, seen as
pure and uncorrupted by the standards of society. According to Rousseau, children
should learn by experience, and the school of life is more important than any other
school. Nature purifies corrupted civilization and childhood hadnt been corrupted yet.
This view is shared to an extent by the majority of romantic poets. The reader is then
able to see the appearance of childhood in a lot of romantic works, from William
Blakes Songs of Innocence, passing through Wordsworths ode Intimations of
Immortality from recollections of early childhood and The Prelude, to Coleridges
works as well. Most of the times, this concept of childhood is directly interrelated with
well-known themes of Nature, imagination, or even the vision of the poet as well as
poets vision of life, depending on the different authors views. Along this essay, the
different perceptions about Childhood according to two romantic authors from the first
generation such as Wordsworth and Blake will be discussed. This essay aims to analyse
and discuss the different views and perspectives on the concepts of childhood in
Wordsworths and Blakes works.
First of all, the paper will engage in a brief introduction about one of the
influences of the romantic authors and contextual background interrelated with the
different notions of childhood. The analysis will then move on to explore how each of
the different authors deals with the mentioned concept, and how it appears in their
works, commenting upon some characteristics that can be directly related to this

149041884

concept of childhood. This will lead to the conclusion of the topics essay, giving
eventually a summary of the ideas discussed.
As it has been mentioned before, Rousseau stated that children should learn
through experience, that is, learning through the means of exploring the natural world. 1
When it comes to influence, both Williams Wordsworth and William Blake were really
influenced by Rousseaus view of child. Rousseaus greatest success was that of
drawing attention to childhood as a period of life in which mankind is very close to the
natural state.In this way, the perception of the child should be as a being in itself and
not as a small adult. The most fundamental quality regarding Rousseaus view of
childhood was that of innocence, and therefore they should be nurtured as naturally as
possible.2 As Gillespie et al states in the same book:
Rousseau maintains the childs natural innocence and kindness, which is menaced by
social institutions like family, school, church and state. This view of childhood drew
upon the cult of the noble savage in the eighteenth century and was adopted by the
Romantics. From then on children were regarded as unknown beings. Adults have to
take up an observers position towards them in order to fathom their character.3

Thus, for the Romantics, the power of imagination and vision was crucial, and children
were the main carriers these elements, so they would be more prone to experience
nature in the best form, as their minds lack the intellectual and rational capacities of
adulthood. The Industrial Revolution was another reason that originated an increasing
concern in childhood, as it could be seen the constant and miserable conditions of the
1 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. Emile, Julie and Other Writings. Ed R. L. Archer.(New York:
Barron, 1964) pg 54.

2 Gerald Gillespie, Manfred Engel and Bernard Dieterle, Romantic Prose

Fiction (Amsterdam: J. Benjamins Pub. Co., 2008), pg. 184.
3 Ibid. ,pg. 185.

149041884

working-class children in the period. This was one of the consequences of the Industrial
Revolution, and many authors criticised it and shaped it into their works. However, as
Kitab maintains:
The main contribution which the Romantics made with regard to the child motif in
poetry was the association of childhood with wisdom. In this respect they provided a reinterpretation of the theme of childhood. To them, childhood constituted the period of
visionary experience during which the mind is most capable of accepting an
imaginative and animated concept of the universe. 4

This importance of the child can be seen clearly in Wordsworths The Prelude:
Our childhood sits,
Our simple childhood, sits upon a throne
That hath more power than all the elements.
I guess not what this tells of being past,
Nor what it augurs of the life to come,
But so it is, and in that dubious hour,
That twilight when we first begin to see
This dawning earth, to recognise, expect.5

Childhood, as Wordsworth quotes, is the seed-time of the soul6. He had the vision
about the improvement of the human mind as natural through early stages and youth to
development into maturity. The connection of the Child to Nature is basic to his idea of
the development of the moral identity and development. The child is actually a crucial
4 Athraa Kitab, The Concept Of Childhood As Implied In The Poetry Of Blake,
Wordsworth And Coleridge, 1st edn (University of Baghdad, 2002)
<http://www.iasj.net/iasj?func=fulltext&aId=79810> [accessed 13 January
2015], pg 9.
5 Wordsworth, William, The Prelude Of 1805, 1st edn (DjVu Editions, 2001)
<http://triggs.djvu.org/djvueditions.com/WORDSWORTH/PRELUDE1805/Download.pdf> [accessed 11
January 2015] V.533-40
6 Ibid. I.308

149041884

piece of the "wisdom" he tried to pass on. This said, Wordsworth reminisces his
childhood memories, proclaiming those childhoods virtues he had when younger,
qualities that in adulthood he is not possessing anymore. These qualities were what
made the child such a prominent and important figure for Romantics. But those qualities
are not referred just to his own childhood experience, but also in general terms, to the
rest of peoples own childhoods. In Coveney words, his concern with his own
childhood became the means of establishing general truths about childhood itself, and
that, in turn, only for establishing truths about the whole nature of Man.7
And thus the common range of visible things
Grew dear to me: already I began
To love the sun, a Boy I lovd the sun,
Not as I since have lovd him, as a pledge
And surety of our earthly life, a light
Which while we view we feel we are alive;
But, for this cause, that I had seen him lay
His beauty on the morning hills, had seen
The western mountain touch his setting orb,
In many a thoughtless hour, when, from excess
Of happiness, my blood appeard to flow
With its own pleasure, and I breathd with joy.(II, 183-94)

This common range of visible things (II, 183) is shaped by the elements of nature as
the sun or the hills so profound, that it becomes as sources of joy and pleasure in the
boy.8 This supports the constant notion of the child as carrier of qualities which are not

7 Peter Coveney, Poor Monkey (London: Rockliff, 1957), pg 31.

8 Stephen Charles Gill, William Wordsworth-The Prelude (Cambridge
[England]: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pg 58.

149041884

only mostly found in Nature, but also qualities in which Nature plays a key role in its
development; a qualities that no longer appear in adulthood.
Amongst his several poems, My heart leaps up when I behold, or most commonly
known as The Rainbow, is a very notorious one:
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 natural piety.9

Here, the notions of childhood and nature are at hand. Nature is very present throughout
the poem through the image of the rainbow in the sky(2). This figure of the rainbow
was one of the natural elements by excellence for the romantics. It is the combination of
two different even contradictory elements, the sun and the rain. What is experienced in
the poem by the lyrical subject is the beauty of contemplating nature, and that beauty is
the outcome of the integration of two opposites, water and fire. The shape of the
rainbow is a semi-circle, a figure empty in its significance if the contemplation is not
seen from the child-like mind, which can complete the form of the circle. This circle is
what illustrates the notion of life and beauty, as pure movement, a circular never-ending
process; and thats what the child state of mind is no longer in the adulthood, its power
of imagination. That is the reason why the author eventually evokes the presence of
9 Wordsworth, William. The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, ed by Thomas
Hutchinson. (London: Oxford University Press, 1950), pg 62. All subsequent
references will be in parentheses.

149041884

childhood just with a line in the poem: The Child is father of the man(7). This is one
of his most famous quotes regarding concept of childhood in his poems, which can be
due to the ambivalence and the comprised meaning just in a few words. Many authors
have tried to explain that compressed meaning in their own words. Fotheringham
quotes:
He (Wordsworth) came to understand that not only is the child, by the laws of growth,
and by the very quality of life, father of the man, but that only as the man is loyal to
the principles of his childhood does he reach wisdom and power.10

Thus, this reinforces the vision of childhood through imagination. Then, Wordsworth
calls the child father of the man (7), for children own the power of imagination which
fades in adulthood.11 Another view is one of the child seen as an adults teacher, as
something to follow in adult texts, in which the child
has something to teach the adult[...] but the adult has the potential to tyrannize. The
law of the father as it derives from the child is a law even in its perceived benignity. The
child is inextricably ironic. The child is that which we both desire and fear .12

In addition, the concept of childhood also appears in his ode Intimations of

Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood (1807). According to the
Cambridge Dictionary (2015), the term ode is defined as a poem expressing the
writer's thoughts and feelings about a particular person or subject, usually written to

10 James Fotherington, Wordsworth's "Prelude" As A Study Of

Education (London: H. Marshall, 1899), p. 27-28. Google ebooks.
11 Mohammadreza Rowhanimanesh, 'British Romantic Poetry And The Concept Of
Childhood', Studies in Literature and Language, 2 (2011), 179-184.

12 Adrienne E Gavin, The Child In British Literature (Palgrave McMillan, 2012)

University of Leicester Online Library, p. 103.

149041884

that person or subject.13 In this case, it is written in praise of childhood and immortality,
although it summarises the authors main concerns as well.
There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight,
To me did seem
Apparelled in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream.
It is not now as it has been of yore;
Turn wheresoe'er I may
By night or day
The things which I have seen I now can see no more. 14

As it can be seen in this first stanza, the lyrical subject is talking about the past, its
attitudes mood is hopeless, and possess a feeling of nostalgia given that he is not a
child any longer, and it is for this reason that he wont be able to appreciate nature in its
wholeness as a child can do. Therefore, the speaker is aware of a feeling of loss. He is
talking about how every object coming from Nature appareled in celestial light(4),
how it seemed to him in a time when he was younger. However, it just just once upon a
time, but no more, and the imaginative power that once ago had possessed is not there
anymore, as it says in the end of the stanza: the things which I have seen I now can see
no more(9); his mind is not as powerful as it was.
In the last stanza, the speaker does not have any choice but to accept his human
condition as an adult, the ending mood is that of gratitude, for he still has joy.
13 ode n1, in Cambridge Dictionary Online, ed. by Cambridge University Press
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015) <http://dictionary.cambridge.org/>
[accessed 16 January 2015].

14 Wordsworth. The Poetical Works.p.63

149041884
Thanks to the human heart by which we live,
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,
To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.15

In spite of the fact that his/her mind is not as powerful as it was in the past, he still
enjoys contemplating nature because his mind reminds him. The four last lines are the
compensation that he has received with the passing of time. Now he knows about the
meaning of suffering, deathand that makes him wiser than before.
Unlike Wordsworth, who had expressed his desire to recuperate his visions of
early childhood without being able to succeed in completing his wish, Blake succeeded
in re-entering the visionary state of childhood.16 Blakes childhood is characterised by
his visions and imagination. His concept of childhood is one of innocence, which needs
of experience to be complemented with, that is for him childhood, two contrary states
of human soul as it appears in his combined title-page of his songs. 17 This is strongly
related to his own childhood, but what is original about Blake that is not in
Wordsworths concept is the critique to the society through the figure of the child. One
clear example of this is the poem The Chimney Sweeper, from his Songs of
Innocence. It talks about the harsh conditions of lower-class children, and it is criticised
the abuse which they suffered. The speaker is a lower-class boy, who actually is being
sold by his father; it can be shown in the first lines of the poem:

15 Ibid., p.68
16 Kitab, The Concept Of Childhood pg. 14.
17 William Blake and Andrew Lincoln, Songs Of Innocence And Of
Experience (London: The William Blake Trust/The Tate Gallery, 1991), p. 27.
[plate 1]

149041884
When my mother died I was very young,
And my father sold me while yet my tongue
Could scarcely cry 'weep! 'weep! 'weep! 'weep!
So your chimneys I sweep, and in soot I sleep.18
It continues describing a little (boy called) Tom Dacre (5) who is crying because his head was
shavd(Ibid). He is dreaming while sleeping of joyful things, escaping out of his reality.
However, the last stanza asserts the crude critique made by the author, in which little Tom
awoke and we rose in the dark/ and got with our bags & our brushes to work (21-22). But the
ending for the boys is not as bad, as the child was happy & warm,/So if all do their duty, they
need not fear harm.(23-24). This reinforces the notion of the child as full of joy, and through
the childs imaginative powers hope is able to remain within him.
According to Gillespie, Blakes concept of childhood can be presented itself as a
heavenly state some times, as in The Echoing Green and Laughing Song, but innocence
and experience as points of view are incomplete unless they complement each other in
Imagination.19 Apart from this notion, Blake highlights also the theme of education in some
of his Songs, as a critique in which the speaker mentions that that kind of education is useless,
as in his poem The Schoolboy is shown: how can the bird that is born for joy/ sit in a cage
and sing?20 being the bird that is born for joy the children and the cage the society and
useless schools. This concept of education will evolve

lately with the period of the

utilitarianism by authors as Charles Dickens as one of the main themes for his works.
As a way of conclusion, it should be highlighted the Romantic idea of childhood related
to notions of change, growth, and continuity that were also taken by the contemporary authors at

18 Ibid., p. 151.[plate 12] All subsequent references will be in parentheses.

19 Gillespie, Engel and Dieterle, Romantic Prose Fiction, p. 185.

20 Blake and Andrew Lincoln, Songs Of Innocence And Of Experience, p.
202.

149041884
the time and autobiographers, being regarded as a nave and spontaneous concept. 21 After that
period, the term Romanticism prevailed as myth, especially in the identification of Nature and
children. The idea of Nature, a Romanticized nature, offered an acceptable critique of
industrialized society and search for utopia. 22 Thus, despite most romantic authors highlight the
concept of childhood and innocence, each one of them does it in its own particular form that
leads to a variety of notions about the said theme, and that is what could lead to an in-depth
study of any of the authors to realise the underground layers of each one of the different visions
from the authors. In this particular case, Wordsworth and Blakes vision of childhood help for a
better understanding in the attempt of the romantic poets to depict the question of childhood as
one of the major themes in their works. Whereas Wordsworth deals more with the perception of
qualities of children that allows them to be set up in a world of joy and beauty through nature
that individuals in adulthood are not allowed, Blake highlights the mixture of Innocence and
experience as the potential factor to enjoy Natures pleasure. As a consequence, these poets, as
well as others of their time, managed the idea of childhood in different ways so as to make of it
one of the major themes in Romantic poetry.

Bibliography
Primary:
Blake, William, and Andrew Lincoln, Songs Of Innocence And Of Experience (London:
The William Blake Trust/The Tate Gallery, 1991).
Cambridge Dictionary Online, ed. by Cambridge University Press (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2015) <http://dictionary.cambridge.org/> [accessed 16
January 2015].
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. Emile, Julie and Other Writings. Ed R. L. Archer.(New York:
Barron, 1964).

21 Thomas Van der Walt, Felicite Fairer-Wessels and Judith Inggs, Change
And Renewal In Children's Literature (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2004), p.92
22 Anne Lundin, Constructing The Canon Of Children's Literature: Beyond
Library Walls And Ivory Towers(Routledge, 2004), p.5.

149041884

Wordsworth, William. The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, ed by Thomas

Hutchinson. (London: Oxford University Press, 1950).
Wordsworth, William, The Prelude Of 1805, 1st edn (DjVu Editions, 2001)
<http://triggs.djvu.org/djvueditions.com/WORDSWORTH/PRELUDE1805/Download.pdf> [accessed 11 January
2015].
Secondary:
Coveney, Peter, Poor Monkey (London: Rockliff, 1957)
Fotherington, James, Wordsworth's "Prelude" As A Study Of Education (London: H.
Marshall, 1899). Google ebooks.
Gavin, Adrienne E, The Child In British Literature (Palgrave McMillan, 2012).
University of Leicester Online Library.
Gill, Stephen Charles, William Wordsworth-The Prelude (Cambridge [England]:
Cambridge University Press, 1991)
Gillespie, Gerald, Manfred Engel, and Bernard
Fiction (Amsterdam: J. Benjamins Pub. Co., 2008)

Dieterle, Romantic

Prose

Kitab, Athraa, The Concept Of Childhood As Implied In The Poetry Of Blake,

Wordsworth And Coleridge, 1st edn (University of Baghdad, 2002) pp.9-19.
Lundin, Anne, Constructing The Canon Of Children's Literature: Beyond Library Walls
And Ivory Towers (Routledge, 2004)
Rowhanimanesh, Mohammadreza, 'British Romantic Poetry And The Concept Of
Childhood',Studies in Literature and Language, 2 (2011), 179-184
Van der Walt, Thomas, Felicite Fairer-Wessels, and Judith Inggs, Change And Renewal
In Children's Literature (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2004)