![]() ![]() As a Romantic figure, the child acknowledges the that her siblings are dead as she says, “two of us in the churchyard lie, Beneath the churchyard tree,” but her belief in the power of transcendence keeps the thought of her siblings alive and part of the family long after their physical departure from this earth (Greenblatt 279). The child in the story represents the Age of the Romantics because, as previously noted, her words and actions embody the ideals of nature, supernatural, transcendence, and mortality. The adult insists, through the Enlightenment ideals of logic and reason, that there are only five children in the family because as he states, “you run about, my little maid, your limbs they are alive if two are in the churchyard laid, then ye are only five” (Greenblatt 279). The adult represents the Enlightenment as he is the older, established figure in the story, much like the Enlightenment was the older, established way of thought at the time the poem was written. While the romantic themes permeate the Woodsworth’s poem, the emergence of this piece as the transition between the Age of Enlightenment and the Age of Romanticism is evident in the conversation between the adult and the child. In addition, the child in the poem believes that the lives and spirits of her two siblings continue to live on after the death of the physical bodies which is why she continues to insist on their presence and interact with them at their gravesites. “Their graves are green, they may be seen,” says the child, tying in both the natural theme of earth and grass with the supernatural belief of the child that because she can see the graves, her siblings do still exist (Greenblatt 279). The line “she had a rustic, woodland air, and she was wildly clad” in the third stanza of the poem draws the reader to envision a simple child of the forest, far away from the clutter and industry of the cities (Greenblatt 278). Just as the Romantic ideas of mortality and supernatural are evident in the piece, so is the idea of nature and transcendence as major themes. To the child in the poem, her brother and sister are not present but ever alive and part of her family. ![]() She even sings to the children in the graves, keeping the thought of her siblings alive and a place in her heart. The poem continues the emotive content as the child describes sitting by the gravesides of her departed brother and sister to eat her porridge and work on her knitting. This theme is consistent with the Romantic theme of mortality and the supernatural. The speaker thinks of the child as an innocent, incapable of understanding the permanence of death and not accepting the fate of her siblings. The poem begins by posing the question of the child “what should it know of death?” (Greenblatt 278). Romanticism is rampant in this work by Wordsworth and evidences many of the Romantic themes. The themes that permeated writings from this time period addressed nature, mortality, transcendence and the supernatural. The Age of the Romantics countered the intellectual dryness of the Enlightenment and brought the emotion and imagination back into the circles of literary discourse. ![]() At the time Wordsworth wrote this piece, Enlightenment thinking dominated the intellectual landscape in Europe. In addition, the Enlightenment grew as Europeans began to travel and question both societal norms and the influence of the church. This era swept through much of Europe from 1650-1800 and propelled discourse based on reason, logic, and structure through the writings of great thinkers like Humes and Rousseau. The Age of Enlightenment dominated the 18th century. While a simple reading of the poem enchants the reader, the deeper complexities of the poem speak to the emergence of the romantic period and the decline of the champions of enlightenment. The child is equally adamant that she has six siblings regardless of their earthly status. The adult is adamant that the child only has four siblings because the other two are dead. The poem tells the story of a conversation between an adult and a young girl over the question of the child’s siblings. The lyrical poem We Are Seven by William Wordsworth was a controversial poem published as part of a collection in 1798. ![]()
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