In which poem of Wordsworth, does the line, "Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting", occur?
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Option 4 : Immortality Ode
The correct answer is Immortality Ode.
- The full title of the poem is "Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood".
- The poem was completed in two parts: with the first part comprising of four stanzas about the innocence of childhood. When Wordsworth gave the first part of the poem to Coleridge for his perusal, Coleridge responded with a poem of his own, named "Dejection: An Ode".
- The full poem was finished in 1804 and published in a book named Poems, in Two Volumes in 1807.
- The fourth stanza of the ode ends with a query, and Wordsworth answers it with seven additional stanzas completed in early 1804.
- It is an irregular Pindaric ode where Wordsworth introduces readers to the idea of pre-existence, the idea that the soul existed before the body, and will continue to exist afterwards.
- In the given line, Wordsworth is attempting to suggest that our earthly existence is just a fraction of our immortal selves.
- Modern critics have referred to this poem as a "Great Ode" and have ranked it among Wordsworth's best.
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