Prelude by Words Worth
Prelude by Words Worth
William Wordsworth
In The Prelude, or, Growth of a Poet's Mind, England's greatest Romantic poet, William Wordsworth,
recounts his own intellectual, artistic, and philosophical growth from his youthful days in the Lake Country
through his experiences with the French Revolution and the English government's reactions to it.
Wordsworth's epic autobiographical poem embodies a romantic philosophy of nature — tempered by reason
— that treats Mother Nature as man's greatest teacher and trusts in the Good within man.
Poem Summary
The Prelude affords one of the best approaches to Wordsworth's poetry in general and to
the philosophy of nature it contains. However, the apparent simplicity of the poem is
deceptive; comprehension is seldom immediate. Many passages can tolerate two or more
readings and afford new meaning at each reading. Wordsworth, it will be recalled, likened
explained (in the Preface to The Excursian) that The Prelude was like an antechapel
through which the reader might pass to gain access to the main body of the structure.
The poem begins in his boyhood and continues to 1798. By the latter date, he felt that
his formative years had passed, that his poetic powers were mature, and that he was
ready to begin constructing the huge parent work. Alternating with his almost religious
conviction, there is an unremitting strain of dark doubt through the poem. The poem
itself therefore may be considered an attempt to stall for time before going on to what
the poet imagined would be far more difficult composition. As he tells the reader
It was actually finished in 1805 but was carefully and constantly revised until 1850, when
it was published posthumously. It had been remarked that Wordsworth had the good
sense to hold back an introductory piece until he was certain that what it was to
introduce had some chance of being realized. Moreover, The Prelude contained passages
which promised to threaten the sensibilities of others, as well as himself, during the
rapidly changing course of events after 1805. The year 1805 is the approximate date of
his conversion to a more conservative outlook. However, his later-year recollection was
that this change occurred some ten years earlier, and he tries in his revisions to push the
date back.
The 1805 original draft was resurrected by Ernest de Selincourt and first published in
1926. A comparison of it with the 1850 (and final) version shows the vast change the
work underwent. Some passages in the earlier version do not appear at all in the later;
others are altered almost beyond recognition. The 1805 draft contains the clearest
statement of Wordsworth's philosophy and is fresher and more vigorously written. The
toned-down work as published in 1850 represents the shift of his thought toward
conservatism and orthodoxy during the intervening years. The student is likely to find the
1850 version much more accessible for the purpose of reading the whole poem. Yet on
the whole, critics tend to prefer the 1805 version when citing actual lines from the poem.
The only action in the entire poem is an action of ideas. Similarly, it would be inaccurate
to speak of the poem has having a plot in any standard sense. Its "story" is easily
summarized. The poem falls rather naturally into three consecutive sections: Books 1-7
Book 8 is a kind of reprise. Books 9-11, in a more fluid and narrative style, depict his
exciting adventures in France and London. Books 12-14 are mostly metaphysical and are
devoted to an attempt at a philosophy of art, with the end of the last book giving a little
summary.
development and to a period in his life. The first dates from the time of his intuitive
reliance on nature, when he wrote simple and graceful lyrics. The second represents his
days of hope for, and then disappointment with, the Revolution, and his adoption of
Godwinian rationalism, during which he wrote the strong and inspiring sonnets and odes.
The last coincides with his later years of reaction and orthodoxy, when he wrote dull and
proper works such as The Excursion and Ecclesiastical Sonnets. The Prelude is critically
central to his life work because it contains passages representing all three styles.
In the last analysis, The Prelude is valuable because it does precisely what its subtitle
implies: It describes the creation of a poet, and one who was pivotal in English letters. In
fact, The Prelude was so successful in its attempt that there was nothing left to deal with
in The Recluse. Wordsworth could reach the high level of abstraction needed for a true
philosophical epic only sporadically, in some of the shorter lyrics and odes, and could not
It is a magnificent autumn day. The poet has, by his own account, been too long pent-up
in London and only now has managed to return to the beloved Lake District where he
spent his childhood and adolescence. It is difficult to fix his age as the poem opens
because time constantly shifts backward and forward throughout the narrative. The start
of Book 1 finds Wordsworth speaking from a mature point of view. The body of the poem
employs flashbacks to describe the development of the poetic mind during youth. This
material is amalgamated with the poet's adult views of philosophy and art (those views
held during the writing and endless revision of The Prelude, roughly from 1799 until
1850).
irresponsible freedom and lack of purpose quickly give way to a prevision of an impending
period of optimism and creativity. In the delicious quiet, Wordsworth suddenly sees in his
mind's eye the cottage of the landlady with whom he stayed as a schoolboy. He recalls
His wish to create some profound work of art calls for a re-disciplining of his mind, which
has recently been dulled by the artificiality of society. He mentions in passing the typical
moodiness of the poet in likening him to a lover. In assessing his faculties, Wordsworth
finds he has the three necessary ingredients for creativity: a vital soul; knowledge of the
phenomena. He rejects historical and martial themes, as well as mere anecdotes from his
personal history. He is searching instead for "some philosophic song that cherishes our
daily life." He is next assailed by doubts about the maturity of his views. If such views
change radically after he has recorded them, his analysis of them will be worthless. In his
indecision, he feels that if he reviews the ideas he formed in childhood and traces their
history up until early manhood, he will find whether they have had any lasting truth and
permanence.
He recollects some of his childhood activities, among them river-bathing (he sported like
a naked savage) and climbing and robbing of birds' nests while wandering at night. In a
discussion of simple education, he stresses the importance of reaction on the part of the
child to every action upon it by its natural environment. In this way, nature develops
morality in the child. Wordsworth sets the tone of the poem by speaking religiously of
In a celebrated passage filled with much color, the poet describes how as a youth he stole
a boat and rowed one night across Ullswater Lake. At the climax of this experience, he
imagined that a peak beyond the lake became a presence which reared up and menaced
him because of his misdeed in taking the boat. He confides that for some time thereafter
he struggled to clarify a conception of pantheism which had been teasing his brain. He
addresses what he terms the spirit of the universe. He decries the artifacts of civilization
In a more literal section, he tells of his youthful pastimes and mentions winter ice games
with a group of companions and games of cards and tick-tack-toe in front of the peat fire.
But above all, he tried to be outdoors at all times of the year so that nature could be
certain vistas in Westmoreland — particularly the sea — brought him great pleasure,
though he had no prior experience of the same kind of joy. Since beauty is eternal, he
may have learned to love such sights during a previous existence of his soul. He then
create great art because, in the midst of mundane events, they sense the magical
urgency in everyday objects. Insignificant things take on a critical meaning over and
above their common and instrumental role. They suggest to the practitioner of the fine
arts, the clergyman, and the idealistic philosopher that the universe is of vast and
harmonious design. The layman, on the other hand, is insensible to this oneness of all
Critical Essays
Analysis of The Prelude
"The Prelude is the greatest long poem in our language after Paradise Lost," says one
critic. Its comparison with the great seventeenth-century epic is in some respects a
happy one since Milton was (after Coleridge) Wordsworth's greatest idol.
The Prelude may be classed somewhat loosely as an epic; it does not satisfy all the
traditional qualifications of that genre. The epic is customarily defined as a long narrative
poem which recounts heroic actions, commonly legendary or historical, and usually of one
principal hero (from whence it derives its unity). The Prelude takes its unity from the fact
The poem is written in blank verse, unrhymed lines of iambic pentameter with certain
permissible substitutions of trochees and anapests to relieve the monotony of the iambic
foot and with total disregard for the stanza form. In the middle of the eighteenth century,
there was an eclipse of interest in the rhymed heroic couplet. A revival of interest in
Milton led to the establishment of Miltonic blank verse as the standard medium for
lengthy philosophical or didactic poetical works. The resulting form came to be called the
"literary" epic as opposed to heroic and folk epics. To this type, Wordsworth, with his
The general procedure in The Prelude is to record an experience from the poet's past and
then to examine its philosophical and psychological significance and relate it to nature
and society at large. Unfortunately, this results in a certain definite unevenness in the
development of the narrative. At times, particularly in the latter half of the work, the
narrative dries up altogether, and the reader must pick his way through a welter of
disconnected disquisitions. Frequently verbose, diffuse, and bathetic, the verse is carried
by those rare moments when it flashes fire or reaches a resounding note of rich poetic
song. The unwavering strength and unity of purpose which underlie it also help it to soar.
Only a mere fraction of the whole poem may be said to be great, but it is this fraction
Another drawback of the verse is its blatant repetition. Wordsworth will describe an
intellectual experience again and again with only minor variations. Much of this repetition
may be due to the poet's episodic efforts to show his shifting point of view in connection
Most of the imagery, as well as the diction, reflects the natural environment, especially
the English countryside, and manages to capture much of the wildness and beauty of that
terrain. The influence of the English character may be traced in many of the ideas behind
the poem. Just as Wordsworth never got far or was long from his native regions
physically, so they continued to color his emotional reactions throughout his life. It is
doubtful that he would have created an inimitable philosophy of nature had he been
reared in London's slums. In his lifetime, his mental outlook swung from youthful
admired in the yeoman of the North Country came to be symbolized by the French
patriot; later he felt that conservative British institutions were the bulwark of true
freedom. Artistically and religiously, he found youthful inspiration in the hills and vales of
the Lake District; he responded to them with his simple ballads and a joyous mysticism.
In maturity, it was the high Anglican Church tradition to which he turned, for a personal
faith and as a source for many of his later poetical ideas. Of course, we do not witness
the entire spectrum in The Prelude. That poem is basically democratic in spirit. Only at
The work seems deceptively free of learned allusions, but the reader is sure to find many
obscure classical references. In addition, there are quite a few local place names which
are difficult to trace. The poem employs symbols in a somewhat unsophisticated way so
that language and feeling tend to be indistinguishable. When Wordsworth puts aside his
tendency to pamphleteer, mood and form tend to merge in highest harmony; the words
perfectly evoke feeling. In the best instances, there is such mastery of the medium that
that the language as a vehicle is forgotten. From this harmony, a great poetic power
emerges; with the very simplest of words and images, Wordsworth creates the
For many readers, the aesthetic problem may be solved by adopting the fragmentary
approach of picking favorite passages singular for their strength or beauty. But the
reputation of The Prelude does not stand or fall as measured against the canon of
uninterrupted beauty alone. Fortunately, it is the thematic framework behind the poem
that holds the greatest lasting reward for the reader. The outstanding virtue of The
Prelude is its imaginative interpretation of nature. For Wordsworth, nature forms a cosmic
order of which the material world is one manifestation and the moral world is another.
Usually, in such a view, either mind or matter must have the upper hand. From the
provided the ultimate motivation for all things, as exemplified in universal, natural law.
This is as close as he comes to building a philosophical system. And it is just this long
and painful transition that is related in The Prelude. What Wordsworth offers is not a
great philosophical system. He presents an emancipatory attitude toward life and toward
that it cannot be a stimulus for the mind. No thought, no matter how pedestrian or
Even the very earliest of Wordsworth's poetic efforts were addressed to his "dear native
regions." They remained a lifelong source of inspiration for him even though, in his later
years, he tended to forsake nature as a direct source for subject matter. Perhaps his
favorite pursuit at Cambridge was the reading of contemporary poetry, so much so that
he learned modern languages so that he was able to read such poetry in the original. His
Italian master was professedly fond of Gray, and we find many echoes of Gray in the
early poems. Indeed, the Juvenilia smacked of much of the somewhat sterile poetry
The impetus toward this type of poetry that would come to be uniquely Wordsworth's
during the ambitious walking tours he began while in college and continued long after. On
jaunts at home and abroad, he derived inspiration for some of his lofty lyrics. Descriptive
Sketches of a Pedestrian Tour in the Alps, his first collection, commemorates the summer
walking tour through France and Switzerland in 1790. It was published in 1793, along
with An Evening Walk. The latter volume was written in the eighteenth-century manner
and was dedicated to his sister Dorothy. The former work contained crude expressions of
moral dejection and even moods of religious disbelief. There was considerable haste in
getting both these early volumes printed, and as a consequence quite a few errors
appeared, which were, of course, rectified in future editions. Unfortunately, much of the
youthful fire that animated the earlier volume was at the same time edited out because of
the change in the poet's political thinking during the intervening years.
As for the quality of this early poetry, it was somewhat uncertain. There was much of the
plain language that Wordsworth was to become famous for, but it was used awkwardly
and self-consciously. There was great borrowing, both of poetic device and of image. In
all, clearly the rambling phrase was meant to be a departure from the snug couplet in
vogue at the time, an intention which indicated the independence and daring of the poet.
Lastly, the poems definitely did not please Wordsworth's guardian; in fact, they pleased
By the autumn of 1793, amid the menace of war, Wordsworth had settled in southwest
England, explored (as was his wont) the countryside on foot, and composed as he went.
Salisbury Plain. In 1794, this effort was amalgamated with a poem called "The Female
Vagrant" (the latter was to appear alone in Lyrical Ballads in 1798). As Guilt and Sorrow,
this volume was much revised and finally published in 1842. The poetry reflected the
strong grip which the rationalistic philosophy of Godwin had on the poet's mind in the
early 1790s. As poetry, Guilt and Sorrow marked a great and momentous change in style
and featured chiefly a sophisticated attempt at narration which replaced the naive
versification — not so many liberties were taken as earlier — and the Spenserian stanza
appear. Amid this evenness and control are the visions of humble life couched in plain
The early poems had been published by one Joseph Johnson. His shop was a favorite
meeting place for republicans and freethinkers, such as Thomas Paine and Godwin, with
whom Wordsworth mingled and conversed. The Bishop of Llandaff (Wales), a former
liberal turned conservative, had recently delivered a strong anti-republican attack and a
defense of the constitution. Wordsworth undertook a long written rebuttal which justified
the Reign of Terror and seizure of Church property in France, and extolled the superiority
of popular sovereignty over monarchy. The poet was twenty-three at the time. The
treatise was not published until 1876, after which it was ranked as one of the best
philosophical works to come out of England at the time of the revolutionary movement.
In 1795-96, in the midst of his deepest period of depression, he wrote his only verse
play, the gloomy tragedy, The Borderers. The play attempted to demonstrate the
impotence of common sense in the face of life's great mishaps and signifies Wordsworth's
both of whom constantly reassured him as to his promise as a poet. He started in earnest
to write splendid little lyrics of homely wisdom and simple tragedy which, through
arousing strong compassion, would inculcate in readers a yearning to see the reform of
all social injustice. His first truly characteristic piece, beginning "Nay, traveller, rest,"
marked his victory over Godwinism. From the highly stimulating association with
Between 1798 and 1807, he wrote some of his finest and most successful lyrics; many
found their way into later editions of Lyrical Ballads. For the most part, these took their
departure from English rural scenery; native flora and fauna were treated in the poet's
By way of understanding and appraisal, it must first be asked what Wordsworth set out to
do and then to what degree he succeeded. It has been remarked that he was one of the
giants; almost single-handedly he revivified English poetry from its threatened death
from emotional starvation. What Burns, Blake, and Cowper, his contemporaries, wanted
The neo-classically oriented writers of the so-called Augustan Age (1701 to about 1750),
Swift, Gay, Addison and Steele, Pope, and to a lesser extent Richardson and Fielding,
chose Latin authors of the time of the Pax Romana (hence the name Augustan) as their
models. They admired Virgil and Horace for correctness of phrase and polished urbanity
and grace. By contrast, Shakespeare they found crude. They wrote and criticized
according to what they considered the proper and acceptable rules of taste. Their
relationship to the natural environment was one of cautious imitation. They did not hold
with simple tutelage at the hands of nature; reason and good sense had to intervene.
Reason, indeed, was the prime source of inspiration; emotion had to be subordinated to
thought. Thematically, conditions in "high" society furnished many of the plots and
Johnson. Johnson, while no romanticist, was, like Voltaire in France, scornful of neo-
classicism's aims and methods and, through ridicule, hastened its undoing. New forces
were at work in England; change and vitality were coming to the front. The full
emergence of the party system and cabinet government had taken place; the empire
grew, trade increased, and the middle class asserted new power. But the rules and fetters
of neoclassicism still bound literature. For Johnson, reason and common sense still
prevailed over imagination and sentiment. His violent and neat literary opinions and his
didactic prose and verse came to symbolize the retrenchment of reactionary forces and
the kind of literary creation which amounted to a kind of "apology" for the old ways. In
poetry, a break with traditionalism had begun. The so-called proto-romantics (transition
poets), Cowper, Gray, Blake, and Burns, among others, balked at merely copying
classical subjects and forms once more. They wrote instead about simple, natural things
in plain language, though they retained many of the older poetic structures. And they still
subscribed to the notion that poetry had to be "fancier" than prose — an idea Wordsworth
was to denounce.
Poetic language was devitalized, and so was the thematic province of poetry: Neither any
longer evoked feeling. The Romantics were compelled to look about for new ways of
saying things. Before their arrival on the literary scene, the amount of jargon was
astonishing: It was vulgar to call a man a man; he was commonly a swain. The elaborate
and absurd similes and images had to be banished, and fresh and incisive poetic insights
would have to replace the stereotyped and labored abstractions of their predecessors.
One of Wordsworth's finest achievements was that his simple childhood readied his mind
to the value of the non-artificial, and he was not slow to appreciate the need for a reform
of "poetic" language. Poetry became an immediate and intimate experience told by the
experiencer. Beauty was to be admired for its own sake. Wordsworth's reliance on
unaffected speech and action and his deep conviction that simplicity of living was a
His Preface to the Lyrical Ballads became the symbol and the instrument of romantic
revolt.
Wordsworth's philosophy of life, his theory of poetry, and his political credo were all
relatives, embittered by the excesses of the Revolution in France, and beset by personal
fears and uncertainties. He became a member of the so-called Godwin circle in London.
William Godwin, the political philosopher and novelist, deplored the role of emotion in
human affairs and claimed salvation lay only in reason perfected by education.
Wordsworth began a serious reading of Godwin and soon determined to abandon his early
naive reliance on intuition and subject all his beliefs to close scrutiny. For four years, he
clung tenaciously to his Godwinian outlook until he nearly suffered a nervous breakdown.
And his poetry suffered as a result of his philosophy. He said of some of Guilt and Sorrow
that its diction was "vicious" and the descriptions "often false." The Borderers, from the
By 1798, Wordsworth turned back to nature and her wholesome teachings. "The Tables
Turned" and "Expostulation and Reply" (both 1798) are both anti-intellectual in tone and
mood, and signal the final break with Godwinism. It chanced that David Hartley, founder
of the associationist school in psychology — his views were adapted afterward in the
social philosophy of the Utilitarians — who at the moment absorbed Coleridge's attention,
had expounded views which Wordsworth fancied matched his very own. Hartley put
in the tradition of Locke. He had won vogue for his skill in translating the theory of the
association of ideas into a psychology of learning. Wordsworth had been looking for a
satisfactory psychology, and this was it. Hartley taught that sensations (elemental ideas)
produced vibrations in the nervous system. He held (with Locke) that the mind was a
"blank slate" until sensation introduced simple ideas into it; hence, sensation was the
The debt to Hartley is apparent throughout Lyrical Ballads. Nature, Wordsworth reasoned,
teaches the only knowledge important to humanity. The human beings who possessed
this vital knowledge would be those closest to nature — the farmers and shepherds of the
countryside. So it was to describing the visions of people like this that he turned in
Lyrical Ballads. The critics immediately pounced upon him, saying, in effect, he did not
know poetry from agronomy, whereupon he reissued the poems and added his notorious
Preface, which informed the critics (though not in certain terms) that it was they who
In late 1797, Coleridge, Wordsworth, and his sister Dorothy planned a trip from Alfoxden,
where they lived, to the Valley of Stones, near Lynmouth, in Devon. They proposed
meeting expenses for the modest trip by writing a poem, "The Rime of the Ancyent
Marinere," and submitting it to the Monthly Magazine in the hope of getting five pounds.
Wordsworth early had misgivings and withdrew from authorship because he feared that
he would botch the poem. He was in the process of writing his own poems, and the two
men constantly aired their views on the nature of poetry and the poetic faculty.
The two men complemented each other. Coleridge thought in terms of quick and brilliant
devotion to detail. Jointly, they conceived the romantic formula which was to enliven
poetry from that day to this, Coleridge with his vast knowledge of German transcendental
philosophy in which traces of romanticism were already evident, and Wordsworth with his
cunning awareness of the magic of the commonplace. They induced a mutual flood of
creativity. It was Coleridge who afterward urged Wordsworth on with The Prelude and
impossible not to plan on a vast and abstract scale while under his influence.
Out of the discussions between the two men about what poetry ought to be and how it
should affect its audience came a growing desire on the part of the two poets to
would endeavor through poetic means to make the uncommon (supernatural) credible;
Wordsworth would attempt to make the common uncommon — through simple but
meticulous descriptions of everyday things. The decision to be guided by these tenets
amounted to the fanfare announcing the romantic revolt in English literature. Lyrical
Ballads became both the symbol and instrument of that revolution. Thus was disclosed
the prescription which was to carry poetry and prose through romantic, realist, and
modern phases, and which invests them to this very day; the evocation of emotion and
experience.
The spearhead and chief mechanism for this process was going to be a revolutionary type
of poetic diction for which Wordsworth was to become famous. The original formulation
was rather crude, and it underwent transformation at the hands of the poets as they
proceeded. Coleridge became less and less convinced of its power as an artistic tool and
finally disclaimed it altogether, saying that he and Wordsworth might have subscribed to
it in theory but fell far short of exploiting it in actuality. Wordsworth himself felt that his
work was a shining embodiment of the doctrine — as well as a vindication — and never
The second edition of Lyrical Ballads appeared in two volumes in 1800 in Wordsworth's
name alone. In the anonymous 1798 edition, there had been a mere "advertisement" to
orient the reader to the poems; in 1800, the famous "Preface" took its place. Wordsworth
notes that friends had urged him to write a defense of the collection, but he preferred to
write instead a "simple" introduction. This turned out to be a somewhat long explanation
upon rhetorical and literary devices, but is the free expression of the poet's thought and
feeling. The poet is a teacher and must strive to reveal truth, not through scientific
analysis and abstraction, but through an imaginative awareness of persons and things. He
may broaden and enrich our human sympathies and our enjoyment of nature in this way.
He must communicate his ideas and emotions through a powerful re-creation of the
original experience. For this, he must have a sensibility far beyond that of the ordinary
individual. He tells how he weeded out the dead expressions from the older poetic
vocabulary and substituted the flesh-and-blood language of the common person. Poetry
and prose, he says, differ only as to presence or absence of rhyme; they do not differ as
to language. For Wordsworth, the important thing was the emotion aroused by the poem,
not the poem itself (hence his lukewarm regard for form). In the last analysis, a poem re-
stimulated past emotion in the reader and promoted learning by using pleasure as a
vehicle.
Coleridge remarked that half the Preface was in fact the child of his own brain. Yet, he
felt that there was much that was inadequate in the document. He felt that Wordsworth's
conception of poetry relied too much on Hartley's theories and did not adequately explain
Wordsworth's poems. Coleridge says in the Biographia Literaria 1814) that he was
convinced Wordsworth's work was not the product of simple fancy, but of imagination — a
creative, and not a mere associative, faculty. Furthermore, he thought the difference
between poetry and prose was substantial, and it lay in the different ways they treated
the same subject. He agreed with Wordsworth's idea of plain poetic diction but felt his
colleague had not given enough thought to selecting from the language of everyday life.
He thought Wordsworth's poetry reached a true sublimity when he most forgot his own
ideas.
Wordsworth's position in his later work grew closer to that of Coleridge. But the poetic
doctrines elaborated in the Preface solidly underlay Lyrical Ballads and were the