Dejection: An Ode ( Basics)
(only for students) Composition: Written in 1802. Originally drafted as a letter to Sara Hutchinson. First published in ‘The Morning Post’. Why to Sara Hutchinson? Because to him, Sara Hutchinson was a pure and virtuous soul capable of experiencing joy. Theme 1. The poem expresses the poet’s profound sense of loss and inability to experience joy, particularly in nature due to a decline in his creative imagination. 2. Contrast with the past as a result of his personal crisis – opium addiction, emotional struggles 3. Theme of loss and hope – loss of creative imagination and hope that the lost joy may one day return Note on the Epigraph The story of Sir Patrick Spence to which the poet alludes in the first stanza is an ancient Scottish ballad about a sailor who drowns with a boat load of Scottish noblemen, sailing on orders from the king but against his own better judgement. It contains lines that refer to the moon as a predator of st...