The Prelude

Last updated

The Prelude or, Growth of a Poet's Mind; An Autobiographical Poem is an autobiographical poem in blank verse by the English poet William Wordsworth. [1] Intended as the introduction to the more philosophical poem The Recluse, which Wordsworth never finished, The Prelude is an extremely personal work and reveals many details of Wordsworth's life.

Contents

Wordsworth began The Prelude in 1798, at the age of 28, and continued to work on it throughout his life. He never gave it a title, but called it the "Poem (title not yet fixed upon) to Coleridge" in his letters to his sister Dorothy Wordsworth. The poem was unknown to the general public until the final version was published three months after Wordsworth's death in 1850. Its present title was given to it by his widow Mary.

Version

There are three versions of the poem:

The Prelude was the product of a lifetime: for the last part of his life Wordsworth had been "polishing the style and qualifying some of its radical statements about the divine sufficiency of the human mind in its communion with nature". [2]

Structure: The Prelude and The Recluse

The poem was intended as the prologue to a long three-part epic and philosophical poem, The Recluse. Though Wordsworth planned this project when he was in his late 20s, he went to his grave at 80 years old having written to some completion only The Prelude and the second part ( The Excursion ), and leaving no more than fragments of the rest.

Wordsworth initially planned to write this work together with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, their joint intent being to surpass John Milton's Paradise Lost . [3] If The Recluse had been completed, it would have been about three times as long as Paradise Lost (33,000 lines versus 10,500). Wordsworth often commented in his letters that he was plagued with agony because he had failed to finish the work.[ citation needed ] In his introduction to the 1850 version, Wordsworth explains that the original idea, inspired by his "dear friend" Coleridge, was "to compose a philosophical Poem, containing views of Man, Nature, and Society, and to be entitled the Recluse; as having for its principal subject, the sensations and opinions of a poet living in retirement". [4]

Coleridge's inspiration and interest is evident in his letters. For instance, in 1799 he wrote to Wordsworth: "I am anxiously eager to have you steadily employed on 'The Recluse'... I wish you would write a poem, in blank verse, addressed to those who, in consequence of the complete failure of the French Revolution, have thrown up all hopes of amelioration of mankind, and are sinking into an almost Epicurean selfishness, disguising the same under the soft titles of domestic attachment and contempt for visionary philosophies. It would do great good, and might form a Part of 'The Recluse'." (STC to WW, Sept. 1799).

Wordsworth pays tribute to Coleridge in his introduction to the edition of 1850: "work [is] addressed to a dear friend, most distinguished for his knowledge and genius, and to whom the author's intellect is deeply indebted." [4]

Literary criticism of The Prelude

According to Monique R. Morgan's "Narrative Means to Lyric Ends in Wordsworth's Prelude," "Much of the poem consists of Wordsworth's interactions with nature that 'assure[d] him of his poetic mission.' The goal of the poem is to demonstrate his fitness to produce great poetry, and The Prelude itself becomes evidence of that fitness." [5] It traces the growth of the poet's mind by stressing the mutual consciousness and spiritual communion between the world of nature and man.

Books of the 14-book Prelude

  1. Introduction – Childhood and School-Time
  2. School-Time (Continued)
  3. Residence at Cambridge
  4. Summer Vacation
  5. Books
  6. Cambridge and the Alps
  7. Residence in London
  8. Retrospect – Love of Nature Leading to Love of Man
  9. Residence in France
  10. Residence in France (Continued)
  11. Residence in France (Concluded)
  12. Imagination and Taste, How Impaired and Restored
  13. Imagination and Taste, How Impaired and Restored (Concluded)
  14. Conclusion

Content

The work is a poetic reflection on Wordsworth's own sense of his poetic vocation as it developed over the course of his life. Its focus and mood present a sharp and fundamental fall away from the neoclassical and into the Romantic. Milton, who is mentioned by name in line 181 of Book One, rewrote God's creation and The Fall of Man in Paradise Lost in order to "justify the ways of God to men," Wordsworth chooses his own mind and imagination as a subject worthy of epic.

This spiritual autobiography evolves out of Wordsworth's "persistent metaphor [that life is] a circular journey whose end is 'to arrive where we started / And know the place for the first time' (T. S. Eliot, Little Gidding , lines 241-42). The Prelude opens with a literal journey [during his manhood] whose chosen goal [...] is the Vale of Grasmere. The Prelude narrates a number of later journeys, most notably the crossing of the Alps in Book VI and, in the beginning of the final book, the climactic ascent of Snowdon. In the course of the poem, such literal journeys become the metaphorical vehicle for a spiritual journey—the quest within the poet's memory [...]". [2]

See also

Related Research Articles

<i>Kubla Khan</i> Poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Kubla Khan: or A Vision in a Dream is a poem written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, completed in 1797 and published in 1816. It is sometimes given the subtitles "A Vision in a Dream" and "A Fragment." According to Coleridge's preface to Kubla Khan, the poem was composed one night after he experienced an opium-influenced dream after reading a work describing Shangdu, the summer capital of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty of China founded by Kublai Khan. Upon waking, he set about writing lines of poetry that came to him from the dream until he was interrupted by "a person on business from Porlock". The poem could not be completed according to its original 200–300 line plan as the interruption caused him to forget the lines. He left it unpublished and kept it for private readings for his friends until 1816 when, at the prompting of Lord Byron, it was published.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Samuel Taylor Coleridge</span> English poet, literary critic and philosopher (1772–1834)

Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, literary critic, philosopher, and theologian who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. He also shared volumes and collaborated with Charles Lamb, Robert Southey, and Charles Lloyd.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Wordsworth</span> English Romantic poet (1770–1850)

William Wordsworth was an English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication Lyrical Ballads (1798).

<i>The Rime of the Ancient Mariner</i> 1798 poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is the longest major poem by the English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, written in 1797–98 and published in 1798 in the first edition of Lyrical Ballads. Some modern editions use a revised version printed in 1817 that featured a gloss. Along with other poems in Lyrical Ballads, it is often considered a signal shift to modern poetry and the beginning of British Romantic literature.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud</span> Lyric poem by William Wordsworth

"I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" is a lyric poem by William Wordsworth. It is one of his most popular, and was inspired by a forest encounter on 15 April 1802 that included himself, his younger sister Dorothy and a "long belt" of daffodils. Written in 1804, this 24 line lyric was first published in 1807 in Poems, in Two Volumes, and revised in 1815.

The Biographia Literaria is a critical autobiography by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, published in 1817 in two volumes. Its working title was 'Autobiographia Literaria'. The formative influences on the work were William Wordsworth's theory of poetry, the Kantian view of imagination as a shaping power, various post-Kantian writers including F. W. J. von Schelling, and the earlier influences of the empiricist school, including David Hartley and the Associationist psychology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Romantic poetry</span> Artistic, literary, musical and intellectual genre and movement

Romantic poetry is the poetry of the Romantic era, an artistic, literary, musical and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century. It involved a reaction against prevailing Enlightenment ideas of the 18th century, and lasted approximately from 1800 to 1850. Romantic poets rebelled against the style of poetry from the eighteenth century which was based around epics, odes, satires, elegies, epistles and songs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Idiot Boy</span>

"The Idiot Boy" is a poem written by William Wordsworth, a representative of the Romantic movement in English literature. The poem was composed in spring 1798 and first published in the same year in Lyrical Ballads, a collection of poems written by Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, which is considered to be a turning point in the history of English literature and the Romantic movement. The poem investigates such themes as language, intellectual disability, maternity, emotionality, organisation of experience and "transgression of the natural."

The Lake Poets were a group of English poets who all lived in the Lake District of England, United Kingdom, in the first half of the nineteenth century. As a group, they followed no single "school" of thought or literary practice then known. They were named, only to be uniformly disparaged, by the Edinburgh Review. They are considered part of the Romantic Movement.

<i>Alastor, or The Spirit of Solitude</i> Poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Alastor, or The Spirit of Solitude is a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley, written from 10 September to 14 December in 1815 in Bishopsgate, near Windsor Great Park and first published in 1816. The poem was without a title when Shelley passed it along to his contemporary and friend Thomas Love Peacock. The poem is 720 lines long. It is considered to be one of the first of Shelley's major poems.

— From Cantos 27 and 56, In Memoriam A.H.H., by Alfred Tennyson, published this year

Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.

Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.

Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ode: Intimations of Immortality</span> Poem by William Wordsworth

"Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood" is a poem by William Wordsworth, completed in 1804 and published in Poems, in Two Volumes (1807). The poem was completed in two parts, with the first four stanzas written among a series of poems composed in 1802 about childhood. The first part of the poem was completed on 27 March 1802 and a copy was provided to Wordsworth's friend and fellow poet, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who responded with his own poem, "Dejection: An Ode", in April. The fourth stanza of the ode ends with a question, and Wordsworth was finally able to answer it with seven additional stanzas completed in early 1804. It was first printed as "Ode" in 1807, and it was not until 1815 that it was edited and reworked to the version that is currently known, "Ode: Intimations of Immortality".

<i>Mont Blanc</i> (poem) Ode by Percy Shelley

Mont Blanc: Lines Written in the Vale of Chamouni is an ode by the Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. The poem was composed between 22 July and 29 August 1816 during Shelley's journey to the Chamonix Valley, and intended to reflect the scenery through which he travelled. "Mont Blanc" was first published in 1817 in Percy Shelley and Mary Shelley's History of a Six Weeks' Tour through a Part of France, Switzerland, Germany and Holland, which some scholars believe to use "Mont Blanc" as its culmination.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Lucy poems</span> Five poems written by William Wordsworth

The Lucy poems are a series of five poems composed by the English Romantic poet William Wordsworth (1770–1850) between 1798 and 1801. All but one were first published during 1800 in the second edition of Lyrical Ballads, a collaboration between Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge that was both Wordsworth's first major publication and a milestone in the early English Romantic movement. In the series, Wordsworth sought to write unaffected English verse infused with abstract ideals of beauty, nature, love, longing, and death.

William Wordsworth was an English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their 1798 joint publication, Lyrical Ballads. His early years were dominated by his experience of old Trafford around the Lake District and the English moors. Dorothy Wordsworth, his sister, served as his early companion until their mother's death and their separation when he was sent to school.

To William Wordsworth is a poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge written in 1807 as a response to poet William Wordsworth's autobiographical poem The Prelude, called here "that prophetic lay". Wordsworth had recited that poem to his friend Coleridge personally. In his poem, Coleridge praises Wordsworth's understanding of both external and human nature, at the same time emphasizing Wordsworth's poetic achievement and downplaying his own.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Romantic literature in English</span> Era in English-language literature

Romanticism was an artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe toward the end of the 18th century. Scholars regard the publishing of William Wordsworth's and Samuel Coleridge's Lyrical Ballads in 1798 as probably the beginning of the movement in England, and the crowning of Queen Victoria in 1837 as its end. Romanticism arrived in other parts of the English-speaking world later; in the United States, about 1820.

References

  1. Wordsworth, William (1850), "The Prelude or, Growth of a Poet's Mind; An Autobiographical Poem", Internet Archive (1 ed.), London: Edward Moxon, Dover Street, retrieved 16 June 2016
  2. 1 2 The Norton Anthology of English Literature 323.
  3. Table Talk II.70–71; IG3[ full citation needed ]
  4. 1 2 The Poems of William Wordsworth 237.
  5. Morgan, Monique R. (2008). "Narrative Means to Lyric Ends in Wordsworth's Prelude". Narrative. 16 (3): 298–330. doi:10.1353/nar.0.0009. S2CID   170806680.