The Prelude

• Context - Wordsworth background

  Both of his parents died and so he lived with relatives, however, he had a bad relationship with them. He mostly spent his time outside and he developed a deep affection for the Lake District because he felt like he could escape from his problems. He was a romantic poet
• The poem is about Wordsworth childhood memory where he steals a boat and rows it into the middle of a lake. A mountain by the lake grows bigger than he thought and then he gets scared and has a different view on nature
• "It was an act of stealth"


  The word "stealth" ha a connotation of being sneaky and sly. The speaker feels like he has done nothing wrong but he is being selfish, taking whatever he wants with no thought of the consequences
• The poet's use of positive imagery presents his sense of power whilst rowing: 'circles glittering' and 'sparkling light' give a magical, almost celestial quality to the moment
• There is a massive shift suddenly in the poem as there is a 'huge peak, black and huge, As if with voluntary power instinct, Upreared its head'. The poet is now in a state of shock. There is a repetition of 'huge' is notable. The repetition means it's clunky and doesn't read or flow well like the previous parts of the poem did. The mountain has drained him of sense of power. He's realised that humans are not powerful: nature is powerful
• The structure is written in one stanza because when readers look at this they get overwhelmed as there is no pauses or breaks. It's overwhelming because of the immensity of the poem. This overwhelming aspect reflects on young Wordsworth himself was overwhelmed by his experience with nature
• The structure also has enjambment. Enjambment is the continuation of a sentence beyond the end of a line. The first sentence of the poem flows over the first three lines. Enjambment can be suggested as an overpowering urge to communicate. The enjambment adds to the sense of the overwhelming effect nature has upon on the speaker
• There is a repetition of 'no' in this poem and this shows how the speaker's pride from the opening lines has vanished