The Prelude Flashcards
‘glittering idly… sparkling light’
positive adjective ‘sparkling’ creates beautiful light imagery and shows he appreciates nature - calm and positive tone
romantics poem (poetry that often focuses on nature and feels dreamlike) and much of his work was inspired by the English Lake District.
semantic field of light
the circles which were sparkling were once individual yet became unified - shows how the nature can come together to create something magnificent - foreshadows later fear
autobiographical first person narrative makes it sound personal and gives insight into the speaker’s thoughts
present participles mix with past - he is still affected by it
‘A huge people, black and huge’
threatening adjectives and repetition of ‘huge’ implies that he is overwhelmed and scared
black symbolises darkness and evil and following the volta, the tone becomes more negative as he is scared
could link to theme of childhood into adulthood and he cannot stop this evolution
romantic’s writers believed that nature has control over mankind
regular rhythm makes it sound like natural speech and lack of stanzas make it sound like a story, yet also emphasises life’s continuous nature and how there can be no breaks from life - considered suicide due to how he was treated by his mother and is based on his childhood - realism - based on work of Milton
motif of mountain
‘Like a living thing, strode after me’
simile makes the mountain sound more threatening, as though it is deliberately coming for him as he was stolen the boat which is added to by the personification of stride as it makes nature sound to be something more powerful than humanity
link to first sexual experience and could imply rape - humanity is the scariest thing about growing up?
could also be a warning of movement into industrialism
epic poem - nature is the hero
