The The Intelligible Ode : Intimations of Paradise - Intimations of Paradise

From its firstpublication, what is now known as the Immortality Ode has been praised for themagnificence of its verse and disparaged for its paucity of meaning - the''immortality'' of the subtitle unsubstantiated, and the ''recollections''insubstantial. Yet Wordsworth''s idea of immortality has clear precedents in theseventeenth century, and recollections of childhood are Traherne''s startingpoint for the recovery of a lost vision comparable to Wordsworth''s. Via thepower of the imagination, or reason, they believed they could experience arenewed vision that both termed variously Paradise, or infinity, orimmortality.