Extract from, The Prelude

• Who wrote the Prelude?

  William Wordsworth
• The power and sublimity of nature exceeds human understanding
• Children are especially open to the beauty, terror and adventure of the natural world
• Discovering we are not mastered of nature can lead to a stronger understanding of our place in the world
• "one summer evening(lead by her) I found a little boat tied to a willow tree"
• "one summer evening (lead by her) I found a little boat tied to a willow tree"

  • "Her": throughout the whole autobiographical poem, nature is personified and feminised as a maternal figure teaching lessons
  • The boat is a symbol of the innocent, magical and naive attitude towards nature
  • Child's seamless link to natural world
• "my boat went heaving through the water like a swan"
• "my boat went heaving through the water like a swan"

  • "Heaving" - self perception of mighty and strength
  • Simile: boat transforms (from epic heros ship) into a majestic aspect of the natural world.
  • Oneness with surrounding world as swan belongs to the lake rather than intruding
• "a huge peak, black and huge, as if with voluntary power instinct, upreared it's head."
• "a huge peak, black and huge, as if with voluntary power instinct, upreared it's head."

  • Beastly simile conscious will of mountain - suggesting divinity? God in nature? Impression of child's imagination
  • VOLTA
  • "Huge": failure of language after transcendent poetic imagery, symbolises vastness of natures independence from the Human mind(frightening speaker)
  • "It's" (pronoun) contrasts feminisation of nature + cannot familiarise/ subdue with imagination -NOT HUMAN
• "no pleasant images of trees, of sea or sky, no colours of green fields; but huge and mighty and forms"
• "no pleasant images of trees, of sea or sky, no colours of green fields; but huge and mighty and forms"

  • Echoes/ parallels loss of eden or 'paradise' suggesting divine correction
  • Deliberately vague= incomprehensible and untamable power of nature
  • Glimpse ot divinity & sublime - Wordsworth could be seen as a pantheist (god exists in nature)