Poetry - Excerpt from The Prelude

Question 1

Who wrote The Prelude

Answer 1

William Wordsworth

Question 2

The Prelude context

Answer 2

William Wordsworth was one of the first and most influential of the Romantic era.
The Prelude is nostalgic in its thoughts about his childhood and the intense feelings of delight he experienced when as a child, he played in the countryside.
Believed that there were special moments or experiences known as spots of time where one can go beyond reality and appreciate the wider world of nature.
Poem written after Industrial Revolution.
Poem serves as a reminder of the complex and organic relationship between man and nature.

Question 3

The Prelude form

Answer 3

Blank verse used here to show childhood fade away.
Each line written in iambic pentameter.
Narrator tries to find happiness in the darkness of nature.

Question 4

The Prelude structure

Answer 4

Poem begins with the end of the day and the warm light of the setting sun reflecting in the cottage windows.
In the middle of the poem, the young Wordsworth ignores his carer’s calls to come in for his tea and instead delights at skating with the other children from the village.
They are playing tag and chasing each other across the ice and this reminds Wordsworth of a pack of hounds hunting a fox.
End of poem reflects the end of the day as the sun sets and the star appear, perhaps also the end of the childhood period.

Question 5

And in the frosty season when the sun
Was set and visible

Answer 5

Conjunction - poem begins with inmediares
Antithesis on frosty and sun represents duality of life
Set - atmospheric word used to set the scene

Question 6

Blaz’d

Answer 6

Powerful imagery of warmth

Question 7

Heeded not then summons - happy time

Answer 7

Ignores his orders and parental authority.
Happy time refers to the spots of time where one can go beyond reality and appreciate the wider world of nature.

Question 8

Rapture: clear and loud
Clock

Answer 8

Symbolises intense pleasure.
Noun “clock” symbolises time and directs to this time of intense happiness.

Question 9

Wheel’d about

Answer 9

Kinaesthetic verb for movement.
Shows natural flow of happiness.

Question 10

Proud and exulting
Horse
That cares not for his home

Answer 10

Connotations of self awareness and connection with his environment, and adventure.
Horse - animal imagery - his senses are running in all directions.

Question 11

All shod in steel

Answer 11

Steel has connotations of the Industrial Revolution and coldness.
Sibilance reinforces sheer happiness.

Question 12

Horn

Answer 12

Auditory language suggestive of childhood.

Question 13

Pack
Hunted hare

Answer 13

Animal imagery - insinuates animalistic characteristics in children seeking quintessential joy

Question 14

Darkness

Answer 14

Atmospheric word to show to what extent they feel childhood pleasure, children’s voices.

Question 15

Not a voice was idle

Answer 15

Reinforces happiness without bounds.
Not being idle symbolises togetherness.

Question 16

Precipices rang aloud

Answer 16

Deep valley to convey echo of childrens’ voices.

Question 17

Melancholy, not unnoticed, while the stars
Orange sky of evening dies away

Answer 17

Children retreating to darkness.
Powerful imagery of dusk, transition in nature from evening to dusk.
Poem ends with a note of melancholy.