Why is there no article in “The Child is father of the man”?

Question

The Rainbow by William Wordsworth:

My heart leaps up when I behold
A Rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the man;
And I wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.

I am trying to understand, why there is no "the" before "father" in this poem? Would you please explain the reason?

Answer 1

It’s nothing to do with metre or with the fact that it’s a poem or with 'poetic licence'. The same construction can be found in prose in examples such as ‘The Prime Minister is owner of all the biggest companies’ or ‘He was re-elected Chairman of the Board for a further five years.’ ‘When a predicative noun phrase names a unique role or job, either a zero article or the is used’ (‘Longman Student Grammar of Spoken and Written English’).

Answer 2

Most of the poem is iambic; da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM, until it uses dactyls at the end. While it would be more usual to say "X is the father of Y", keeping the iambic meter makes the line work better with the rest of the poem (conversely, the switch to dactylic meter at the end makes the ends stand apart from the rest in conclusion).

The less usual phrasing also helps the word to stand out (even without your emphasis), and hence the entire line, where the poem makes an argument. (It has a statement of fact, argument, conclusion structure that is common in writing that aims to persuade whether a poem or a motion for a political or union meeting).

Answer 3

It is an example of "poetic license," (poets don't need rules!) and it is likely to be either for the purpose of altering meter or it is an example of an abused "zero article", which is typically reserved for mass nouns (e.g. happiness) or plural nouns (e.g. dolphins) for which there is indefinite reference.

Personally, I believe the primary purpose is the latter, as it creates a sense of oneness with the world, and it makes the statement a universal truth — instead of applying specifically to him, it applies to all of us. It is an indefinite phrase.

Answer 4

The obvious answer is that the writer considered it superfluous - which it clearly is.

Perhaps he felt that using the word three times in a single line disturbed the rhythm and flow, or that it was aesthetically unattractive.

Edit: I removed the reference to 'poetic licence' after Barrie England pointed out, correctly in my view, that the writer was grammatically entitled to leave it out the the.