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The Genre and Place of the Intimations Ode

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Joseph C. Sitterson Jr
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Abstract

The Intimations Ode appears at the end of Wordsworth's collected poetry, and both the placement and the ending of the poem implicitly encourage us to expect an assured closure. I argue that Wordsworth deliberately suggests and then refuses such closure, that while the odic tradition generically warrants the attempt at closure, the Intimations Ode's refusal is unique. The overall temporal sequence that Wordsworth gives the poems and the frequency with which narratives and odes end groups of poems show that he consistently includes lyric in a larger narrative plot, an inclusion that also occurs within the Intimations Ode itself. Seeing Wordsworth's ode as a narrative and in relation to earlier English odes helps us understand that its uneasy coexistence of statement and uncertainty, which many critics consider its greatest weakness, is actually its greatest strength.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 101 , Issue 1 , January 1986 , pp. 24 - 37
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1986

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