The Prelude - William Wordsworth Flashcards
Structure
One long stanza with enjambed line endings.
No regular rhyme scheme
Themes
Power of nature
Passing of time
Context
Romantic poet - obsessed with nature
Grew up in the Lake District and extract is about his childood
And in the frosty season, when the sun
Was set, and visible for many a mile
The cottage windows through the twilight blaz’d,
The extremely dark time of day and the cold weather are crucial to this excerpt and dominate the poet’s recounting of his memory. The “frosty season” is contrasted with the cottage windows which “blaz’d” with the effect of the setting sun. The poem begins In Media Res, with the connective ‘and’
I heeded not the summons: – happy time
It was, indeed, for all of us; to me
It was a time of rapture:
As an adult, the poet remembers his childhood as a time of freedom and innocence (ideas Romantics were obsessed with). The following semi-colons/colons after each line provide a caesura to emphasise his joy.
Clear and loud
The village clock toll’d six; I wheel’d about,
Proud and exulting, like an untir’d horse,
That cares not for his home. – All shod with steel,
The clarity of light in the opening with the sun was “visible for many a mile” becomes clarity of sound; the “clear and loud” village clock. The next sense is movement; the young poet “wheel’d about proud and exulting, like an untir’d horse”. The simile suggests energy and confidence as everyone was shouting and giggling. Note that the humans are represented as animals — a horse; the hunting dogs, the hare, highlighting his obsession with nature.
We hiss’d along the polish’d ice, in games
Confederate, imitative of the chace
And woodland pleasures, the resounding horn,
The Pack loud bellowing, and the hunted hare.
Note the sibilant “s” sounds in “hiss’d” and “ice”, making the poem sound more cohesive. All the sounds blend together overtaking the quietness. As in the simile of the “untir’d horse”, the humans become identified with animals — the dogs and hare of the hunt. The phrase “games/Confederate” suggest other children joining in and therefore companionship.
So through the darkness and the cold we flew,
And not a voice was idle; with the din,
Meanwhile, the precipices rang aloud,
The leafless trees, and every icy crag
Tinkled like iron, while the distant hills
The description of movement reaches its climax with “we flew”. The sounds also reach a climax with “not a voice was idle; with the din …”. The natural world joins in with the “precipices rang aloud”, and begins overpowering the people in the poem. The boys and their natural surroundings have become one. Percussive, hard consonants match the noise and cold with the “icy crag” that “Tinkled like iron”. The volta is line 16 as the poet now in adulthood beings to notice something more sinister in his surrondings
Into the tumult sent an alien sound
Of melancholy, not unnoticed, while the stars,
Eastward, were sparkling clear, and in the west
The orange sky of evening died away.
The final three lines represent the inevitable progress of the day into night. Just as the passing of time is unstoppable, so is the fact that childhood pleasures mutate into adult awareness and responsibility, and therefore melancholy.
Whys
Wordsworth heralds the immense power and beauty of the natural world, which transcends all human constructs.
The poem serves as a reminder of the complex and organic relationship between man and nature, which Wordsworth strongly felt had its own knowledge to offer humanity.
Wordsworth hoped to inspire his readers to revert back to a more pure and childlike appreciation of the natural world.
