Excerpt from The Prelude - analysis

Question 1

‘in the frosty season’

Answer 1

• looks through window at wintry sunset
• imagery to do with winter + end of the year as well as end of the day

Question 2

‘cottage windows….twilight blaz’d’

Answer 2

‘cottage’ = rural setting. sense of coziness
‘blaz’d’ images of warmth, contrasting wintry scene + images of darkness. verb suggests fire/comfort. Warmth reflects Wordsworth warm feelings when looking back on his childhood

Question 3

‘I needed not the summons: - happy time’

Answer 3

censure shows child’s eagerness
joyous time, noun phrase

Question 4

‘time of rapture’

Answer 4

noun suggests a joyous ecstasy and time of celebration

Question 5

‘for all of us’

Answer 5

• pronoun collective, emotion of many children
• communal/shared happiness

Question 6

“like an untir’d horse,’

Answer 6

• simile compares to energetic untamed horse not wanting to go to bed
• gives idea boys have no fear. discover the world

Question 7

‘We hiss’s along’

Answer 7

• sibilance
• verbs ‘flew’ + ‘hissed’ show movements and sounds of boys, emphasising their skilful speed and sense of freedom

Question 8

‘woodland pleasures, the resounding horn’

Answer 8

• boys chase each other across ice. vivid imagery due to his use of senses
• ‘resounding horn’ + ‘Pack loud bellowing’ = metaphor. children pretended to be wild packs of hunting dogs. noisy

Question 9

‘so through the darkness and the cold….

Answer 9

volta

Question 10

‘not a voice was idle; with the din’

Answer 10

‘din’ = noise. it suggests a constant hum of noise from the masses of boys
scene filled with energy and excitement as boys revel in winter activities.

Question 11

‘precipices rang aloud’

Answer 11

• natural world drawn as hard and frozen but has its own voice. verbs ‘rang’ and ‘tinkled’ suggest a countryside is alive, almost with music

Question 12

‘Tinkled like iron’

Answer 12

winter y image. shows how cold evening is. simile emphasises how frozen the countryside is yet seems to make its own

Question 13

‘melancholy, not unoticed’

Answer 13

‘meloncholdy’ introduces sense of sadness and an insight to Wordsworth’s nostalgia of these happier days of innocence which are now long passed. Tone seems almost wistful here, poet yearning for those simpler times of youth

Question 14

‘orange sky’

Answer 14

final image reminds us the day is ending and so is the year and so did his childhood when he became an adult. intensity of orange sky reflects the energy + vibrancy of youth, something that declines with the aging process