The Prelude

Question 1

I heeded not their summons

Answer 1

• Wordsworth relays how he rebelled – did not listen to the callings of his parents – so ‘happy’ a time that he did not want it to end
• Also perhaps ignoring the ‘twilight’ as a sine of the day ending and a cue for him to return home

Question 2

It was a time of rapture

Answer 2

• “Rapture” connotes feelings of immense ecsctacy and happiness, which he associates with the memory
• “Rapture” = intense pleasure or joy, but also employs Biblical connotations – Evangelical Christians believe The Rapture is an end of time event, where believers will be resurrected and ascend into Heaven to meet God — so for others, this was simply a “happy time”, but for WW it was an ecstasy of Biblical proportions – already separating himself from his fellow skaters, not simply physically, but emotionally
• Power of memories – how the feelings provoked shaped his character and mindset
The almost religious feelings inspired by nature that Wordsworth describes are typical of Romantic poetry, of which WW was the pillar

Question 3

Like an untried horse

Answer 3

• “Proud” and “exulting” suggest feelings of power and vibrancy – linked with the idea that youth comes with an unobtainable energy
• A ‘horse’, like humans are energetic and magestic

Question 4

Not a voice was idle

Answer 4

Layering of sound – “none were idle” = a din, a loud chaotic sound, sound is layered further with the echoes of the sounds of the people

Question 5

Alien sound of melancholy, not unnoticed

Answer 5

• ‘Not unnoticed’ = litotes (double negative) emphasises important change in tone – indicates Wordsworth becoming aware of a more serious world outside his game – the loss of ignorance towards the “alien sound of melancholy” mirrors his loss of innocence and youth

The sounds of nature + the children are in harmony - they resonate together, something that adults cannot experience - to them it may be an ‘alien sound’

Question 6

The orange sky of evening died away

Answer 6

• Sense of finality – end of childhood/innocence
• Sense of transitioning into adolescence – similarity with DOAN
• Sense of negativity as childhood fades away

Question 7

Context

Answer 7

• Considered the pillar of the Romantic poet; Romanticism = an artistic movement described as a ‘reaction to the birth of the modern world’
o The Sublime: characterised by astonishment and terror; sublime images cause human beings to have moments of epiphany
• The Prelude = an autobiographical poem, epic in length, published posthumously – explains why it was so intensely personal
o His early life is a ‘prelude’ to adult reflection
• Born and raised in Cockermouth, in Cumberland, on the edge of the Lake District in 1770 – its picturesque scenery inspiring his poetry
• Second oldest of five children, very close to his brothers and sister, Dorothy, until their mother and then their father died young and the family was split up – values his childhood
• Keen skater: Esthwaite, small lake, perhaps where young William learned to skate
• Sympathised with French revolutionaries, where the Proletariat overthrew the monarchy, until they began to put the upper classes to death (relevant? No)

Question 8

Form and structure

Answer 8

• Blank verse (unrhymed iambic pentameter) = an ordered, calm meter: however dramatic the psychological events Wordsworth is describing, he is reminiscing and writing about them from an adult distance – WW: “Poetry is emotion recollected in tranquility” (Blank verse is a measured, calm form)
• Epic poem
• First person, autobiographical account of a childhood experience – sounds personal and gives the reader an insight into his innermost thoughts
• Narrative perspective – creates distance, giving the poem a sense of vibrancy – perspective of the participant of the event and not the mature Wordsworth recollecting the event
• Regular rhythm achieved through caesura and enjambment, mirrors natural speech