Anecdote for Fathers: The Epitome of Romanticism

This poem explores several of Romanticism's core ideals; glorification of innocence/childhood, condemnation of reason, and love for an unconfined nature. The poem follows a walk between a father and son at their house on a farm. The father wants to know whether the boy prefers the farm or their other house by the "green sea." The child responds, saying the shore house at Kilve. When he cannot/ chooses not to articulate why he prefers Kilve the father pushes and pushes for a defined answer. The boy ignores the father's incessant questions, ("my boy... hung down his head, nor made reply; and five times did I say to him, "Why? Edward, tell me why?"" 46-48). Finally, upon spotting a weather vane the child replies "At Kilve there was no weather-cock, And that's the reason why." (55-56). The vane, the weather-cock, is a logical, quantifying machine that attempts to measure the weather- reduce nature to numbers and units. This is what turns the boy off of Liswyn farm. By having the vane be the catalyst for the son's response, Wordsworth marries the unconfined nature of Kilve to the purity of childhood. This is a stark contrast to the father, who pushes and pushes for a logical explanation of the child's preference. As he is an adult, a member of society, a human tainted by experience, the father has become a weather vane himself, forcing something free (the boy in this case) into logic. At the poem's conclusion, the father recognizes the beauty in the five year old's simplistic response and sings, "oh dearest, dearest boy! my heart for better lore would seldom yearn, could I but teach the hundredth part of what from thee I learn." (57-60). This suggests that a return to innocence and purity is achievable even in adulthood. If as adults we listen to children, we can learn from them and return to the uninhibited, sublime state of innocence that they unknowingly occupy. There is no answer to every question and there is no need to question everything. To search for logic is to confine something into words and reasons and concepts. To leave it alone is to let it grow and exist in ways that we cannot touch.