The Prelude

William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth

• 1770 – 1850• Known as the “father”

of Romantic Poetry• Revolutionized poetry• Wrote about ordinary

life and nature in common language

• By the time he was 13 he was an orphan

William Wordsworth

• Born and raised in the beautiful Lake District of England – this beautiful natural environment became the basis of many of his poems

• Entered Cambridge University in 1787 and after graduation he traveled Europe

• Spent time in France where he embraced the ideals of the French Revolution

William Wordsworth

• Fell in love and had an affair with Annette Vallon • Lack of funds forced his return to England in 1793• Shortly after England declared war on France and the

Revolution became more bloody and violent and Wordsworth became very depressed

• His sister Dorothy and fellow poet Coleridge helped him through it

• In his later years Wordsworth became more conservative

The Prelude

• Prelude – preceding something else (usually a longer or more important work)

• Wordsworth conceived the poem as preface for The Recluse

The Prelude

• The Recluse was to be his greatest work in which Wordsworth would discuss his philosophy

• The Recluse was never finished• He discusses the creation of “The Poet” • Autobiographical but not strictly

The Prelude

• This section is about his involvement with The French Revolution

• “meager, stale, forbidding ways/Of custom, law and statute…” were replaced by “The attraction of a country in romance”

• “Reason seemed to assert her rights” – personifies reason (logic, fairness) into a woman an “enchantress” who seduced the people into declaring her rights

The Prelude

• “The inert/Were roused…They who had fed their childhood upon dreams…they, too of gentle mood…”

• All the people were swept up in the revolution and the ideals of freedom

• “Not in Utopia” – they dared to dream of this land of equality and justice here on earth in their country

• “We find our happiness, or not at all!” – change in tone• From an idealist positive tone to one of pessimism and doom

The Prelude

• “But now become oppressors in their turn…changed a war of self-defense to one of conquest” – the war that began as a war of freedom has changed to one of greed and conquest – speaks to his disillusionment and realization that power corrupts

• “The scale of liberty[symbolism]. I read her doom[personification],/With anger vexed, with disappointment sore,…”- uses these poetic devices to help the reader visualize and experience the loss of the ideals of the revolution and the travesty of a people who were used and lied to

The Prelude

• “ To anatomize the frame of social life,/ Yea, the whole body of society/ Searched to its heart,…”

• He personifies society – he studies the body of it • “Dragging all precepts…Like culprits to the bar” –

personification – “to the bar” refers to being brought before a judge

• After analyzing society and making judgments all he is left with is “Sick, wearied out with contrarieties,/ Yielded up moral questions in despair.”

• Speaks to his disillusionment, confusion and despair after the French Revolution