Extract from, the Prelude

• Context

  both parents died, lived with relatives, spend most time outside, Lake District, romantic poet, look to beauty and simplicity of nature/past
• Structure

  • Blank Verse:

  No breaks makes the audience overwhelmed

  Shows how young Wordsworth was overwhelmed with his experience in nature

  • Enjambment

  Reflects Wordsworth's desire to communicate and tell the story

  Shows his eagerness

  • Written in Iambic Pentameter(Lines of 10 syllables with alternating stressed and unstressed sylablles.
• Themes

  1. Views of Man
  2. Power of Nature
  3. Dominance and pride
• Quote: 'It was an act of stealth And Troubled Pleasure':


  Connotes sneakiness and slyness- it is morally wrong

  Shows how he is selfish, there is no thought for consequences
• Quote: 'Troubled Pleasure':


  Oxymoron, which hints at his inner guilt
• Quote: ' nor without the voice Of Mountain-echoes':


  Litotes and anthropomorphism

  gives an unsettling feeling
• Quote: ' The grim shape towered up between me and the starts' :


  Personification of the mountain implies that nature is dangerous and uncontrollable

  Wordsworth's confidence has disappeared and he no longer has power

  Portrays man's inability to escape nature's power and influence
• Quote: ' And Through the meadows homeward went, in grave and serious mood' :


  The peaceful meadows juxtaposes the serious mood
• Quote: ' There hung a darkness':


  Represents Wordsworth's change to a darker and melancholy mood at the end of the journey

  The Juxtaposition of the calm/peaceful start and symbolises the cruel extremeness of nature