Simple Innosance
William Wordsworth, a true poet of the Romantic period, wrote his lyrical poems with and insight into a world that was created by feeling and sensation. In his work “We Are Seven” he explores the concepts of life and death, simplicity and innocence. Wordsworth based this poem on an actual meeting with a young country girl, and it brought forth an ironic new perspective on what makes a person innocent and what makes a person simple, and how they are not one and the same, as it is often thought.
The ironic tone of the poem is set up within the first stanza, culminating in the last line where Wordsworth asks “What would it know of death?” (Wordsworth, line 4). Throughout the rest of the poem that question is answered ingeniously as the reader comes to understand that while the girl is a child and has a look of innocence about her, she has seen two of her siblings buried, and so knows quite a lot about death (in response to line 4).
The conversation between the two carries on and Wordsworth finds himself at an impasse as the girl refuses to concede that there are only 5 brothers and sisters, still insisting that her deceased siblings are part of the family. Here the reader could easily assume that in her simplicity she is ignorant and in denial of the deaths, but never does she waver in her assertion.
Through her relentless declaration that “we are seven” the reader comes to understand that her so-called “defenses” against the pain comes from simple, eternal love for her deceased brother and sister. Wordsworth still does not comprehend that in her love they live on and are still part of her family by the end of the poem. In the final stanza of the poem he declares, unwilling to accept her pronouncement, “They are dead; those two are dead!” (Wordsworth, line 65). And in his staunch refusal we come to understand that his stance is too simple to appreciate the girl’s continuing acknowledgement of her buried siblings....
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