prelude

• 1. Wordsworth focuses on sublime and transcendentalism
• 2. describes stillness of nature, confidence of sublime

  • "mountain-echoes"
  • "glittering idly"
  • "elfin pinnance"
  • "heaving through water like a swan"
• 3. realisation of morality, philosophical awakening

  • volta - "huge peak, black and huge"
  • "strode after me with trembling oars" "towered" - inferiority
• 4. crisis of self

  • "over my thoughts hung a darkness" - depression
  • "no pleasant images of trees" - no longer idealised perception of nature
  • realises he has no power and is mortal, inferior to immortality of nature