"My Heart Leaps Up", also known as "The Rainbow", is a poem by the British

Romantic poet Romantic poetry is the poetry of the Romantic era, an artistic, literary, musical and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century. It involved a reaction against prevailing Neoclassical ideas of the 18th c ...

William Wordsworth William Wordsworth (7 April 177023 April 1850) was an English Romantic poetry, Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romanticism, Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication ''Lyrical Balla ...

. Noted for its simple structure and language, it describes joy felt at viewing a rainbow.

Writing the poem

Wordsworth wrote "My Heart Leaps Up" on the night of March 26, 1802. He was staying at

Dove Cottage Dove Cottage is a house on the edge of Grasmere in the Lake District of England. It is best known as the home of the poet William Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy Wordsworth from December 1799 to May 1808, where they spent over eight years of ...

in Grasmere with his sister, Dorothy. After he wrote it, he often thought about altering it, but decided to leave it as it was originally written. It was first published in ''

Poems, in Two Volumes ''Poems, in Two Volumes'' is a collection of poetry by English Romantic poet William Wordsworth, published in 1807. It contains many notable poems, including: * " Resolution and Independence" * "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" (sometimes antho ...

'' in 1807. The day after he wrote "My Heart Leaps Up", Wordsworth began to write his more ambitious " Ode: Intimations of Immortality". The last three lines from "My Heart Leaps Up" are used as part of the epigraph to "Intimations of Immortality". "My Heart Leaps Up" may indicate Wordsworth's state of mind while writing the larger poem and provide insight into interpreting the latter.

Critical analysis

Some commentators have speculated that Wordsworth felt such joy because the rainbow indicates the constancy of his connection to nature; he was 32 years of age when he wrote the poem. Others have said that it celebrates "the continuity in Wordsworth's consciousness of self". Other literary analysis draws parallels to the rainbow of Noah, and the covenant it symbolized, see Genesis 6:9–11:32. Wordsworth's use of the phrase "bound each to each" in the poem also implies the presence of a covenant.

Harold Bloom Harold Bloom (July 11, 1930 – October 14, 2019) was an American literary critic and the Sterling Professor of humanities at Yale University. In 2017, Bloom was called "probably the most famous literary critic in the English-speaking world". Af ...

expanded on the idea, suggesting that Wordsworth casts the rainbow as a symbol of the survival of his poetic gift, just as the rainbow symbolized to Noah the survival of mankind. In other words, Bloom suggests that Wordsworth's poetic gift relied on his ability to recall the memories of his joy as a child.

William Blake William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his life, Blake has become a seminal figure in the history of the Romantic poetry, poetry and visual art of the Roma ...

disliked Wordsworth's use of the phrase "natural piety". Blake believed that man was naturally impious and therefore Wordsworth's phrase contradicted itself. Because a rainbow is shaped like an arc of a circle, Fred Blick speculates that the word ‘piety’ at the end of the last line is a deliberate geometrical pun, signaled by the phrase ‘bound each to each’. It would thus symbolize continuity. Wordsworth loved geometry and may have been making the same

pun A pun, also known as a paronomasia in the context of linguistics, is a form of word play that exploits multiple meanings of a term, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from t ...

on ‘piety’ when he used the word at least twice elsewhere.

In popular culture

"The child is the father of the man" is the title of a chapter in

Machado de Assis Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis (), often known by his surnames as Machado de Assis, ''Machado,'' or ''Bruxo do Cosme Velho''Vainfas, p. 505. (21 June 1839 – 29 September 1908), was a pioneer Brazilian people, Brazilian novelist, poet, playwr ...

's 1881 novel ''

The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas ''The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas'' (, modern spelling ''Memórias Póstumas de Brás Cubas''), also translated as ''Epitaph of a Small Winner'', is a novel by the Brazilian writer Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis that is regarded as one of ...

''. The quote was also paraphrased by

Cormac McCarthy Cormac McCarthy (born Charles Joseph McCarthy Jr.; July 20, 1933 – June 13, 2023) was an American author who wrote twelve novels, two plays, five screenplays, and three short stories, spanning the Western, post-apocalyptic, and Southern Got ...

in the first page of his 1985 novel ''

Blood Meridian ''Blood Meridian Or The Evening Redness in the West'' is a 1985 epic historical novel by American author Cormac McCarthy, classified under the Western, or sometimes the anti-Western, genre. McCarthy's fifth book, it was published by Random Hou ...

'' as "the child the father of the man."

The Beach Boys The Beach Boys are an American Rock music, rock band formed in Hawthorne, California, in 1961. The group's original lineup consisted of brothers Brian Wilson, Brian, Dennis Wilson, Dennis, and Carl Wilson, their cousin Mike Love, and their f ...

' songs " Surf's Up" (1971) and "

Child Is Father of the Man "Child Is Father of the Man" is a song by American rock band the Beach Boys that was written by Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks. It was originally recorded for the band's never-finished album ''Smile''. In 2004, Wilson rerecorded the song for '' ...

" (2011) quote the poem.

Blood, Sweat & Tears Blood, Sweat & Tears (also known as "BS&T") is an American jazz rock music group founded in New York City in 1967, noted for a combination of brass with rock instrumentation. BS&T has gone through numerous iterations with varying personnel and ...

named their 1968 studio album ''

Child Is Father to the Man ''Child Is Father to the Man'' is the debut album by Blood, Sweat & Tears, released in February 1968. It reached number 47 on the ''Billboard'' albums chart in the United States. History As a teenager, Al Kooper went to a concert for jazz tr ...

''.

References

Bibliography

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External links