The Prelude; or, Growth of a Poet's Mind is an autobiographical, "philosophical" poem in
blank verseBlank verse is poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter. It has been described as "probably the most common and influential form that English poetry has taken since the sixteenth century" and Paul Fussell has claimed that "about three-quarters of all English poetry is in blank verse."The first...
by the
EnglishEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
poet
William WordsworthWilliam Wordsworth was a major English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with the 1798 joint publication Lyrical Ballads....
. Wordsworth wrote the first version of the poem when he was 28, and worked over the rest of it for his long life without publishing it. He never gave it a title; he called it the "Poem (title not yet fixed upon) to
ColeridgeSamuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, Romantic, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. He is probably best known for his poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla...
" and in his letters to
Dorothy WordsworthDorothy Mae Ann Wordsworth was an English author, poet and diarist. She was the sister of the Romantic poet William Wordsworth, and the two were close for all of their lives...
referred to it as "the poem on the growth of my own mind." The poem was unknown to the general public until published three months after Wordsworth's death in 1850, its final name given to it by his widow Mary.
Versions
There are three versions of the poem:
- The 1799 Prelude, called the Two-Part Prelude, composed 1798-99, containing the first two parts of the later poem.
- The 1805 Prelude, which was found and printed by Ernest de Sélincourt
Ernest de Sélincourt was a British literary scholar and critic. He is best known as an editor of William Wordsworth and Dorothy Wordsworth. He was Oxford Professor of Poetry from 1928 to 1933 and a Fellow of University College, Oxford...
in 1926, in 13 books.
- The 1850 Prelude, published shortly after Wordsworth's death, in 14 books.
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".
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 ExcursionThe Excursion: Being a portion of The Recluse, a poem is a long poem by Romantic poet William Wordsworth and was first published in 1814 . It was intended to be the second part of The Recluse, an unfinished larger work that was also meant to include The Prelude, Wordsworth's other long poem, which...
), leaving no more than fragments of the rest.
Wordsworth planned to write this work together with
Samuel Taylor ColeridgeSamuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, Romantic, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. He is probably best known for his poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla...
, their joint intent being to surpass
John MiltonJohn Milton was an English poet, polemicist, a scholarly man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell...
's
Paradise LostParadise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton. It was originally published in 1667 in ten books, with a total of over ten thousand individual lines of verse...
(
Table Talk II.70-71; IG3). Had
The Recluse been completed, it would have been approximately three times longer than Paradise Lost (33,000 lines versus 10,500); often, in his letters, Wordsworth commented that he was plagued with agony because he failed to finish the work. In the 1850 introduction, Wordsworth explains what 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."
Coleridge's inspiration and interest is evidenced in his letters. For instance, in 1799 he writes 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 for a Part of 'The Recluse'." (STC to WW, Sept. 1799).
In the 1850 edition, Wordsworth pays tribute to Coleridge in his introduction, saying that the "work [is] addressed to a dear friend, most distinguished for his knowledge and genius, and to whom the author’s intellect is deeply indebted."
Literary Critic on 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.". It portrays the specific stages of the development of the poet's mind by emphasizing a mutual consciousness and spiritual communion between the world of nature and man.
Books of "The Prelude"
- Introduction - Childhood and School-Time
- School-Time (Continued)
- Residence at Cambridge
- Summer Vacation
- Books
- Cambridge and the Alps
- Residence in London
- Retrospect - Love of Nature Leading to Love of Man
- Residence in France
- Residence in France (Continued)
- Residence in France (Concluded)
- Imagination and Taste, How Impaired and Restored
- Imagination and Taste, How Impaired and Restored (Concluded)
- Conclusion
Content
The work is a poetic reflection on Wordsworth's own sense of his poetic
vocationA vocation , is a term for an occupation to which a person is specially drawn or for which they are suited, trained or qualified. Though now often used in non-religious contexts, the meanings of the term originated in Christianity.-Senses:...
as it developed over the course of his life. But its focus and mood present a sharp fundamental fall away from the neoclassical and into the Romantic. Whilst
MiltonJohn Milton was an English poet, polemicist, a scholarly man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell...
(mentioned by name in line 181 of Book One) in
Paradise LostParadise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton. It was originally published in 1667 in ten books, with a total of over ten thousand individual lines of verse...
rewrites God's creation and
The Fall of ManIn Christian doctrine, the Fall of Man, or simply the Fall, refers to the transition of the first humans from a state of innocent obedience to God to a state of guilty disobedience to God. In Genesis chapter 2, Adam and Eve live at first with God in a paradise, but the serpent tempts them into...
so as to "justify the ways of God to man," Wordsworth chooses his own mind and imagination as a subject worthy of epic.
This
spiritualSpirituality can refer to an ultimate or an alleged immaterial reality; an inner path enabling a person to discover the essence of his/her being; or the “deepest values and meanings by which people live.” Spiritual practices, including meditation, prayer and contemplation, are intended to develop...
autobiographyAn autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...
evolves out of Wordsworth's "persistent
metaphorA metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...
[that life is] a circular journey whose end is 'to arrive where we started / And know that place for the first time' (
T. S. EliotThomas Stearns "T. S." Eliot OM was a playwright, literary critic, and arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century. Although he was born an American he moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 and was naturalised as a British subject in 1927 at age 39.The poem that made his...
,
Little Gidding"Little Gidding" is the fourth and final poem of T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets, a series of poems that discuss time, perspective, humanity, and salvation. It was first published in September 1942 after being delayed for over a year because of the air-raids on Great Britain during World War II and...
, lines 241-42). Wordsworth's
Prelude opens with a literal journey [during his manhood] whose chosen goal [...] is the Vale of
GrasmereGrasmere is a village, and popular tourist destination, in the centre of the English Lake District. It takes its name from the adjacent lake, and is associated with the Lake Poets...
.
The Prelude narrates a number of later journeys, most notably the crossing of the
AlpsThe Alps is one of the great mountain range systems of Europe, stretching from Austria and Slovenia in the east through Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Germany to France in the west....
in Book VI and, in the beginning of the final book, the climactic ascent of
SnowdonSnowdon is the highest mountain in Wales, at an altitude of above sea level, and the highest point in the British Isles outside Scotland. It is located in Snowdonia National Park in Gwynedd, and has been described as "probably the busiest mountain in Britain"...
. In the course of the poem, such literal journeys become the metaphorical vehicle for a spiritual journey—the quest within the poet's memory [...]".
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