The Prelude

Question 1

Who wrote The Prelude?

Answer 1

William Wordsworth `

Question 2

What were William Wordsworth’s life dates?

Answer 2

1770-1850

Question 3

What is Wordsworth hailed as?

Answer 3

One of most influential Romantic poets

Question 4

What literary era does Wordsworth’s work fit into?

Answer 4

Romanticisism

Question 5

What was Wordsworth’s background?

Answer 5

Orphan at 5
4 siblings
unusually live w/ is sister in adulthood
Moved around different parts of English countryside
Spent lot of time in Lake District
Supported social change and French Revolution
Turn of the century:
became increasingly disenfranchised and right-wing

Question 6

How did Wordsworth’s views change through the course of his life?

Answer 6

Became increasingly disenfranchised w/ politics after Napoleon took power
Political transformation:
increasingly right wing

Question 7

When during Wordsworth’s life was The Prelude written?

Answer 7

Throughout-never finished

• -> almost like autobiographical diary
• ->never intended to be published?

Question 8

What is the structure of The Prelude?

Answer 8

Iambic pentameter
Free verse
First person

=Personal, exciteable tone

Question 9

What tone does the conversation connective ‘And’ at the start of the excerpt create?

Answer 9

Breathless, excited tone

Question 10

What are the themes of The Prelude?

Answer 10

Childhood
Innocence
Joy
Nature

Question 11

What does the use of the fricative adverb ‘frosty’ in the first line ‘And in the frosty season, when the sun’ create?

Answer 11

Audible, aural appeal
–>Reader can hear the crisp air and crunch of frost

Creates buccolic, nostalgic scene of cosy winter days

Question 12

What does the alliteration in the second line ‘Was set, and visible for many a mile’ emphasise?

Answer 12

Never ending beauty of buccolic scene

Question 13

What effect does the enjambered lines ‘I heeded not the summons- happy time/It was, indeed, for all of us;to me/it was a time of rapture’ suggest?

Answer 13

Suggests powerful emotions overflowing one another

–>Time of consuming joy

Question 14

What is suggested by the enjambered simile ‘Proud and exulting, like an untir’d horse,/That cares not for his home…’?

LINK WITH CONTEXT

Answer 14

Connection of young narrator with nature
(TROPE OF ROMANTICISM)
and
Wordsworth’s childhood as orphan w/ four siblings
–>Found an escape/ happiness through this connection with nature?

Question 15

What does the sibilant, onomatopoeic verb ‘hiss’d’ in line 10 accentuate?

Answer 15

Speed of the skating

–>Joy of children celebrating turning of the seasons

Question 16

What do the references to nature in lines 13-14 such as ‘The Pack loud bellowing’ convey?

Answer 16

The fascination the children have with nature

How integrated it is into their imaginative games- despite harsh conditions

Question 17

What does the unusual simile ‘Tinkled like iron’ in line 18 evoke?

Answer 17

Musical, onomatopoeic verb evokes sense of joyful innocence

-Paired w/ harsh noun conveys rush of overwhelming feelings that confuse the senses

Question 18

What does the enjambered personification ‘…while the distant hills/Into the tumult sent an alien sound/OF melancholy, not unnoticed’ foreshadow?

LINK W/ CONTEXT

Answer 18

Emotions of adult reminiscing about past joy that is unreachable

• ->Could foreshadow political disenfranchisement that Wordsworth experienced towards the end of his life (following leadership of Napoleon)
• -> Lost his once childlike hope for social change/revolution

Question 19

What does the vigorous verb ‘flew’ in line 14 metaphorically imply?

How does this affect the tone of the poem?

Answer 19

Excitement and youth of a child
-as they experience in hyperbolic manner
=CHILDLIKE TONE

Question 20

How does The Prelude carry tropes of Romantic poetry?

Answer 20

Recognition of influence of senses
–>constant expression of joy

Sensuous imagery evokes sense of the sublime

Question 21

What do the first 15 lines of The Prelude act as?

Answer 21

Joyful description of bucolic sense

>as Wordsworth reminiscises through a childlike perspective

Question 22

What happens on line 15: ‘Meanwhile’

Answer 22

Signals end of excited playing

>invites melancholic tone to interrupt childish fun

Question 23

What can link to The Prelude?

Answer 23

Death of a Naturalist
London
Living Space