英文学研究
Online ISSN : 2424-2136
Print ISSN : 0039-3649
ISSN-L : 0039-3649
THE 'IMMORTALITY' ODEにおける'A TIMELY UTTERANCE'とは何であったか
原 一郎
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ジャーナル フリー

1961 年 37 巻 1 号 p. 35-51

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As to what is meant by those puzzling words 'A timely utterance' in 1. 23 of Wordsworth's "Immortality Ode", there have hitherto been presented three or four hypotheses. The first of them, and this seems to be almost the established one, is the theory, originally presented by H. W. Garrod, which identifies the 'utterance' in question with that famous poem "The Rainbow," written on March 26, 1802, just one day before the Ode was begun to be written. The weakness of this theory is the fact that the Rainbow poem, though a high-strung lyric, is too meditative or philosophical to be a sudden, strong stimulant or impulse which was able to 'relieve' Wordsworth from 'a thought of grief.' The mysterious and abstruse five lines, "The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep; etc." must be interpreted to show us the visionary scenery which was suddenly revealed to the poet's mind by the experience of 'relief,' and the Rainbow poem is deemed, not the cause, but the effect or afterthought, of that visionary experience. The second hypothesis identifies the 'utterance' with the poem "Leech-gatherer", or "Resolution and Independence", which was begun on May 3rd, 1802, and finished on May 7th. This theory was advocated by Lionel Trilling, and endorsed by F. W. Bateson. They say the 'thought of grief' in the Ode is nothing but the 'dejection,' 'Dim sadness', 'blind thought,' etc. in the "Leech-gatherer." But this interpretation brings in an entirely irrelevant matter into the Ode, because the problem of the Ode is the poet's loss of 'visionary gleam' while that of the "Leech-gatherer" his 'sullenness.' The third hypothesis was presented by W. T. Webb (Selections from Wordsworth, Macmillan, 1915) and E. D. Hirsch (Wordsworth and Schelling, Yale, 1960). They regard the 'utterance' as nothing less than stanzas 1 and 2 of the Ode. Hirsch says, "The poet uttered that melancholy feeling: 'It is not now as it hath been of yore.' The timely externalizing ("utterance") of the thought of grief has had a cathartic effect." But stanzas 1 and 2 are merely ineffectual laments of the poet in a reverie, and do not seem to have been able to give 'a cathartic effect' on him. The fourth and last hypothesis is a very suggestive, though not perfectly satisfactory, one, presented by Geoffrey H. Hartman in his essay on Wordsworth in The Unmediated Vision (Yale, 1954). Regarding the 'utterance' in question, not as a poetic utterance made by Wordsworth, but as an utterance made by some (perhaps invisible) natural thing, Hartman connects it with the trumpet-like sound of the cataracts stated in 1. 25. He says, "The timely utterance, then, may perhaps be the sound of the cataracts, or of the same origin as this sound." This seems to me a very suggestive theory, because Wordsworth often used the word 'utterance' to denote a 'sound' or 'voice' of natural things, both animate and inanimate. (For example: The Prelude, I, 337; Vernal Ode, 98; The Excursion, IV, 1169-1187, etc.) But the tenses of the verbs used in the lines in question show us that the sound of the cataracts must be regarded, not as the 'timely utterance,' but as its effect-the visionary sounds produced in the poet's mind by an utterance of some natural thing. Then, what natural thing could it be that gave such a strong stimulus or impulse to Wordsworth by its 'utterance'? Searching among William's poems or Dorothy's entries in her Journal, written immediately before the beginning of composition of the Ode, I conclude: the 'wandering Voice,' 'an invisible thing, A voice, a mystery,' chanted in the

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© 1961 一般財団法人 日本英文学会
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