"Ode to Duty"

By prof. Abdelhamid Fouda 

The Duties of Adulthood -

 a Brief Analysis of Wordsworth's 

"Ode to Duty"

Upon first reading, “Ode to Duty” seems to conflict with the understood views of its author: it is difficult to attribute an appraisal of duty to a man who is well-known for lauding “the spontaneous overflow of emotion” (“Preface” 598) – spontaneity and duty seem at odds. However, upon closer consideration of the poem, one finds that Wordsworth does not necessarily suggest “duty” to be the adherence and conformity to an established religious or societal code, as one might understand the word today. Rather, “duty,” as Wordsworth describes, is a conscious devotion to the very things readers have overtime come to associate with him: childlike hope, joy, and an alignment with the natural world.

            The connection between Duty and nature is clear in the seventh stanza of the poem, where the speaker recognizes Duty's hand in all the natural world about him, from the flowers up to the stars. He connects Duty, furthermore, to divinity, naming her “the Godhead's most benignant grace” (50); the implication is, then, that the ordering of nature, maintained by Duty, is a reflection of God's will and benediction. This view is not unlike the view the child takes of nature, as Wordsworth describes in “Ode (‘There was a time’)”: “The earth.../To me did seem/Apparelled in celestial light” (2-4). In both cases, nature is recognized as infused with divinity. The difference between the child's view of nature, as remembered in “Ode,” and the adult's view, as expressed in “Ode to Duty,” is that, to the child, the world merely “did seem” heavenly. The adult speaker of “Ode to Duty,” on the other hand, recognizes that the natural world is heavenly because it is ordered on a set of natural laws which have their source in “the most Ancient Heavens” (“Duty” 56), which state, for example, that flowers shall bloom and “laugh” (“Duty” 53) or that stars shall be fixed in their positions. In other words, the child, in his interactions with nature, is filled with awe and thus implicitly aware of nature's divine source; the adult explicitly recognizes a government in nature, which he personifies as Duty, the “Daughter of the Voice of God” (“Duty” 1).

            In writing an “Ode to Duty,” then, Wordsworth is in part writing an ode to adulthood and “the philosophic [or, in other words, thoughtful] mind” (“Ode” 189) which consciously takes up what the child unconsciously carries out – that is, duty. In the poem in question, “Ode to Duty,” Wordsworth writes, “Youth/...without reproach or blot/...do thy work, and know it not” (12-14), indicating that Duty is not societal or religious conventionality or conformity – those are not things which children, purely in being children, adhere to. Thus, though he gives himself to Duty's “controul” (“Duty” 35), we may know that Wordsworth has not given up his childhood ideals; rather he has re-committed himself to them. As an adult, however, who can no longer “rely/Upon the genial sense of youth” (“Duty” 11-12), Wordsworth must consciously dedicate himself to Duty “in the quietness of thought” (“Duty” 36); that is, he must employ the “philosophic mind” (“Ode” 189) of his adulthood to dedicate himself, again, to the duties of his childhood years.

            Then, of course, the final question is that of his exact duties: what are they? What is a child's duty but to be carefree? As it turns out, this is precisely what Duty provides: freedom from “strife and from despair” (8). The poem suggests that children are free of “despair” because they are hopeful by nature:  they are the “blessed” (21) who “entertain” (22) a belief that “Serene will be our days and bright/And happy will our nature be” (17-18) – that is, a belief in a pleasant future. Because they have no doubts of “love” (23) or “joy” (24), children may “live in the spirit” (23) of faith. Adults, on the other hand, because they are aware that things “press/ Upon...present happiness” (29-30), must consciously “find that other strength” (24). That is, they must wilfully take up the duty to be faithful and thus free from “strife and despair” (8).

            As I have said, the duty to be hopeful and happy, which adults must undertake, is unconsciously performed by children. That is not to say, however, that the poet is unaware of duties particular to adulthood. In the middle of the poem, he at length discusses the concept of will in accepting one's duties; it is important to Wordsworth to clarify that he “still [acts] according to the voice/Of [his] own wish” (42-43). Thus the poem indicates that, as an adult consciously aware of him or herself, one has the duty to reconcile one's actions with one's desires and needs – that is, to be true to one's self. Again, children are, by nature, true to themselves; it is as they grow slowly into adults and take up, as Wordsworth writes in “Ode,” the “vocation/[of] endless imitation” (106-107), that it becomes a conscious duty to maintain individuality and free will. Thus, even in consciously exercising free will as an adult, one is merely continuing the work of the child.

            “Ode to Duty,” then, is not discordant with Wordsworth's ideals. Of course, as one might expect, duty is linked to adulthood; in the main, this poem is about the duty of being an adult, of taking responsibility through “the quietness of thought” (36). However, the responsibilities which Wordsworth outlines are essentially synonymous with the duties of a child; like the child, the adult has a duty to be free of “strife and from despair” (8), to live in hope, and to be true to one's self. However, while the child could carry out these duties and “know it not” (14), the adult is inevitably aware of himself and his actions. This does not much change things. Ultimately the adult's true duty is to consciously, thoughtfully, and wilfully do that which he had done unconsciously since birth and as a child.