The Prelude Flashcards
Form
- It was one single stanza, it is about freedom and is expressing freedom without any rigid form to put boundaries on it
- Written with some rhythm. iambic and trochaic rhythm which is potentially unsettling, like the experience he is describing in the poem.
nature is eventually shown to be more powerful in the end.
Context/ Structure
- Written during the industrial revolution
- As the poem progresses the journey the poet is on becomes rougher and words like ‘and’ are repeated to give it a breathless pace and feel.
- Pantheism - god is found in all things, celebration of nature and god being found in all of nature, links with romanticism as Wordsworth was romantic poet
- Written in free verse, poets do that when they are trying to recreate the natural rhythms of speech, which fits with the idea that he speaking to himself and describing his most intimate thoughts.
First quote
” My boat heaving through the water like a swan”
First quote analysis
Simile:
- Shows that he thinks that he and his boat are in control when in reality they aren’t
- moving powerfully but gracefully through the water as if he is a swan
- He thinks he belongs there, which shows his arrogance which will later punish him
Second quote
“Towered between me and the stars”
Second quote analysis
Personification and symbolism:
- Shows that the mountains are blocking out all the good and light which is represented as the stars
- Makes him feel trapped and as if the mountain has became the universe and that its all he can see
- Emphasises size of mountains and creates intimidation
Third quote:
“There hung darkness, call it solitude”
Third quote analysis
Metaphor - Juxtaposition:
- The darkness is something that is sticking with him and represents his change to a darker mood
- Juxtaposing the peace of nature and the terrifying thoughts of the sheer size
First quote
“One summer evening (led by her) I found A little boat tied to a willow tree
First quote analysis
PERSONIFICATION: Nature is personified as “her”, and has led him to steal the boat. He doesn’t blame himself here, he thinks that nature has deliberately set him up in order for hi to steal the boat. So theft here is natural act that fits with what nature wants
SYMBOLISM: The use of a willow tree is a symbol of sadness, which FORESHADOWS his experience being sad, which is juxtaposed with the bright “summer” setting, which is symbolically happy. Which could be alluding to the fact that later in the play he may possibly feel sadness, possibly even fear as a consequence of nature setting him up to steal the boat
Second quote
“The horizon’s utmost boundary; far above was nothing but the stars and the grey sky.”
Second quote analysis
METAPHOR: He focuses on the horizon and describes it as a “boundary”, as it creates an image of a straight line stopping you from seeing the distance, but actually it is an allusion because you can reach that boundary and your horizon change’s because the earth is a sphere. Wordsworth does this symbolically to show that all the boundaries that we put on ourselves in society are all an allusion. romantic poets view, throwing away the idea of “The Enlightenment”, and saying there is so much more to life than that kind of view, lets live a new kind of life with no mental boundary placed on us by society and a life based on our experiences.
SYMBOLISM: He turns his gaze to the sky. Where we would normally find god, but because this is a pantheistic poem. There was “nothing but the stars and the grey sky” the concrete noun “nothing” emphasises that god is not up there in the sky, because Christianity is another type of boundary, as a way of telling us what we can and can not do, which he is rejecting and is saying that we set our own morals based on our own natures.
SYMBOLISM: The sky is a symbol for endless possibilities which juxtaposes the boundaries created by society, the stars are possibly another boundary in the form of the fates, as stars generally are used to symbolise our destiny.
- Because this is an auto biographical poem about him when he was younger, at this point he now making the decision whether society’s boundary is something he will accept or reject whether he will follow the norm of society and the morn of morals set by society and follow his fate in “the stars” or will he do an immoral act against society. He makes, what for society is the immoral decision and steals the boat and begins to row.
Third quote
“And growing still in stature the grim shape Towered up between me and the stars, and still,”
Third quote analysis
PERSONIFICATION: The mountains are blocking his vision from the sky, that image of freedom. Its also now blocking out the idea of destiny and his fate, “the stars”
Fourth quote
“my brain worked with a dim and undetermined sense of unknown modes of being
