Youth

Youth & Ode; Intimations of Immortality

Youth by Joseph Conrad and Ode; Intimations of Immortality by Williams Wordsworth are written about a similar topic. Both texts talk about the youth of the narrators. Even though they have different views of youth they also have some ideas that are very similar. Marlow, the narrator in Joseph Conrad’s Youth, remembers his youth as  “the feeling that will never come back any more- the feeling that he could last for ever, outlast the sea, the earth, and all men.” In William Wordsworth’s poem, the narrator believes that “The things which he has seen, he can see no more” now that his youth has passed.                                                                                                             

Williams uses a lot of imagery from nature. He thinks that what amazed him and saw differently when he was younger pass all passed and even though nature stays forever his appreciation for it. For him after his youth, “But yet I know, where’er I go, that there hath past away a glory from the earth.” For Marlow looking back at his youth makes him remember the glamour of it and the joy of it. He enjoys looking back at his youth because he like the point o view he had towards life itself as a twenty-two year old in his first experience as a second mate.      
                                           

But both narrators agree that there is something special, enchanting about youth, which made them feel like they were invincible, that they would live forever. For both of them how they view the world was different as they lived their youth. For Williams Wordsworth in youth, you have a deeper appreciation for nature because you come from heaven as a baby and therefore nature feels like going back to the place you came from.                                 
                                                                             

Marlow also feels the same way about how youth sees things differently than they are. What Marlow says about the ship is a good example for this. “O youth! The strength of it, the faith of it, the imagination of it! To me she was not an old rattle-trap carting about the world a lot of coal for a freight- to me she was the endeavour, the test, the trial of life.” Judea might be an old and rotten ship for anybody looking at him but as a young man, Marlow looked at “her” with affection and pleasure.