the child is father of the man?

Question

im referring to wordsworth's my heart leaps up when i behold

does the above statement mean that the man is too involved in wordly matters to remember true bliss and nature, and thus the child has this to teach the man, and is thus the father? verification please?

Answer 1

Gee, I think in this case that the poem is actually simpler than all of you are making it out to be.

It says that he felt inspired by the sight of a rainbow when he was a boy, he still does as a man, and he expects to feel the same way until his dying day.

In other words, his feelings as a man correspond to his feelings as a child. Who he was as a child foreshadowed ("fathered") who he was as a man.

He's asserting the continuity of identity. There is no disconnect between his childhood and his manhood. To generalize, you could say look at the child and you'll be able to see the man he will become.

He certainly is implying that being inspired by natural wonders is a good thing, but I don't see where he even hints that his adult self has deviated from that. Quite the contrary. It's the same for him now as then. So there is no need to be retaught by the child. The child is still present in the man.

Answer 2

I believe it refers to the fact that the child of today will grow up and be the father of the next generation.

Answer 3

It means the man thinks like a child, and the child is smarter than the man. Or the man learns something from the child.

Answer 4

I think he was referring to the premise in sci-fi novels where a guy goes back into time and hooks up with his grandmother and becomes his own grandfather by fathering his own father. He was very much ahead of his time as a sci-fi writer.