Custom term paper on How the children are presented in the poems of William Wordsworth and Samuel Coleridge

Wordsworth wrote a lot of poems about children, and one of them is “Anecdotes for fathers”. The poem explains the Romantic beliefs on childhood and purity. The author shows those great things that grown-ups can learn from children, who probably have purer minds than adults. In the poem we see a father who wants a rational and logical answer as to why his son wants one place and not another. The father becomes quite agitated and repeats his question. The need for logical reasoning is also shown in the adult characterized in “We are seven”. In order to please his father, the son replies simply that, “there was no weather-cock”. In this scene, the author shows us the boy with a real sense of maturity because he answers just to satisfy his father. Here reader has doubts about the role of the adult and child. The author shows that child has more intelligence than his father, however, it is spiritual type intelligence and it can’t be studied from books: Sometimes the knowledge allows just accepting things, without need for rationalization.
This poem is a true representation of the type of poems to be found in the “Lyrical Ballads” both in subject theme and in the simplistic nature of its construction. It is not by a long way the best or most recognized piece in the collection, but is nevertheless a strong early poem which expresses much that Wordsworth was concerned with.
In the wider scheme of things it shows how the Romantic writers were keen on expressing the power of innocence, partly as a reaction against what they saw as the repressive nature of the Industrial Revolution, as well as the power of individuality over conformity. Adults’ learning from the innocence of the child is something which is found throughout the Romantic poets, but especially in Wordsworth. The child can also be taken as a symbolic representation of hope, hope in what must have been seen as a troubling time for lovers of the natural world and the old ways of living.custom term paper
Above all “Anecdote for Father’s” despite its simplistic tone, or indeed because of its simple, child-like construction, is able to convey to the reader a heartfelt moment in the relationship between parent and child. Wordsworth therefore helps to remind us of those little precious moments in our lives by allowing us a brief glimpse into his world, which he captures so effortlessly in this delicate but enduring poem. After all, we see that Wordsworth and Coleridge both used children in their poems in order to express their ideas.

References
Wordsworth, William. Bewick, Thomas. “We are seven”. 1970. pp. 3-12.
Wordsworth, William. “William Wordsworth: the major works”. 2000. pp. 81-98.
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. “The poems of S.T. Coleridge”. 1864. pp. 210-215.