DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LITERATURE

AND APPLIED LINGUISTICS

THE PRELUDE-BOOK I
• WORDSWORTH AS A POET OF NATURE
• THE PRELUDE AS A SPIRITUAL AUTOBIOGRAPHY
• ROLE OF BEAUTY AND FEAR
• CHARACTERISTICS OF ROMANTIC POETRY

Submitted to:
Prof. Imran Hussain
On: 26-06-2021

Mujahid Jalil
MA English (Evening)
Roll.# 68
 (01)
WORDSWORTH AS A POET OF NATURE
William Wordsworth has been considered as the pioneer of English Romanticism and he can
be called as an interpreter of Nature. He published the "Lyrical Ballads" in collaboration with
his friend S.T. Coleridge in 1798. The poet achieved the acme of popularity due to his lyrics
which dealt with the relationship of man with Nature. Wordsworth looked at man through
Nature's kind eye and he has recorded his lovely experiences from his childhood to adulthood
in his famous autobiographical poem "The Prelude" in 1805 and it was published in 1850.
According to some critics, he is the most egotistical poet in the arena of English poetry.

Wordsworth has a peculiar view to look at the beauty of Nature and human life. This can be
viewed in his poem "The Stolen Boat" which is actually an extract of "The Prelude". He feels
the presence of God in Nature. He believes that there is a living element in Nature, which is
capable of arousing the feeling of pity and fear. In many of his poems, Wordsworth has
described the profound influence of Nature on him which moulded his personality. As a 'sage
poet', he finds the spiritual force in Nature which brings solace and comfort to the troubled and
disturbed minds and the dejected and disillusioned hearts. Arthur Compton-Rickett states –
"Wordsworth is not merely a poet of Nature, he is a prophet of Nature. He spiritualises
Nature whereas Shelley intellectualizes her."

William Wordsworth believes that the spiritual force in Nature imparts "a sense sublime" and
the Divine Spirit" in Nature is omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent. In his famous
autobiographical poem "Tintern Abbey", the poet feels and experiences -
“A motion and spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thoughts, And rolls through all things.”

For Wordsworth, Nature is not merely a thing to be relished, praised and appreciated and
forgotten. It is an inseparable part of his life and works as an elixir to him. For Wordsworth,
Nature is - “The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, The guide, the guardian of
my heart and soul of all my moral being."

Wordsworth says that in his childhood, every earthly sight appeared to him in heavenly glory.
But as he grew older, the fadining and withering beauty of earth disturbed him. The poem tells
us the difference between the poet's love of Nature as a child and his love for Nature as a man.
His love for Nature became more meditative, sober and reflective as he grew older. The poet
was highly inspired even by the ordinary objects in Nature and he could feel the deepness and
profundity in his thought. His thoughts became more philosophic and more mature. The
influence of nature also developed in the poet compassion and love for the humanity.

In his poem, "Table Turned", the poet expresses his pantheism and asks his friend to leave
books aside and invites him –
“Books, its dull and endless strife, come hear the woodland and linnet. How sweet his
music!”

Wordsworth was more optimistic of the principles of the French Revolution (1789), so his poems
were hued by the ideals and the revolutionary zeal of the revolutionists of France. Rousseau's
teachings - Liberty, Equality and Fraternity and his message 'Go back to Nature' had greatly
inspired the poet. He found resonance between his cherished ideals of fraternity and equality
and Rousseau's message. In his Prelude he says -
“We were brothers all in honour as in one community scholars and good gentlemen.”

Wordsworth’s attitude to Nature can be clearly differentiated from that of the other great poets
of Nature. He did not prefer the wild and stormy aspects of Nature like Byron, or the shifting and
changeful aspects of Nature and the scenery of the sea and sky like Shelley, or the purely
sensuous in Nature like Keats. It was his special characteristic to concern himself, not with the
strange and remote aspects of the earth, and sky, but Nature in her ordinary, familiar, everyday
moods. He did not recognize the ugly side of Nature ‘red in tooth and claw’ as Tennyson did.
Wordsworth stressed upon the moral influence of Nature and the need of man’s spiritual
discourse with her.
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 (02)
THE PRELUDE AS A SPIRITUAL AUTOBIOGRAPHY
The Prelude, a kind of ‘semi-autobiography’ is only a record of the meaningful experiences of
Wordsworth’s life. He tells the story of his inner life from earliest childhood up to 1798, the year
of the Lyrical Ballads. It is not a self-portrait. In it, Wordsworth makes no attempt to bring his
personality before the reader. It actually offers us a record of his mental and spiritual growth
which starts from his very infant days. As it is concerned with the development of the poet’s
sensibilities, only those aspects and events of his life which affected them are included. He
selects only those of his actions and experiences which are significant for the evolution of his
soul. It is the Nature inspired life which he lived through his childhood and youth that he tries to
recapture and record.
The introduction to The Prelude ends with a brief account of the paradisiacal state of childhood
described as a golden age of poetic radiance and spontaneous creativity. The child is shown
as undergoing the baptism of sun and water in Nature, in which he feels utterly secure. How
such a state of innocent joy is lost, and how with the help of poetic imagination it may be
restored, is the theme of The Prelude. The introduction in the Book I leads immediately to the
account of Wordsworth’s childhood and school-time, and from the five year old child to the boy
of ten. The seed of his soul that has been implanted in the world begins to take roots and grow
under the influence of the ‘inscrutable workmanship’ which reconciles ‘discordant elements’.
Fair seed-time had my soul, and I grew up
Fostered alike by beauty and by fear

In fact, Nature affected her discipline on the growing boy by providing occasions to evoke the
emotions of pleasure and fear. We can divide these experiences into three degrees of emotions:

1. PURE JOY (INNOCENT DELIGHT)

We find the boy of five enjoying long spells of bath:
In a small mill-race severed from the stream
Made one long bathing of a summer’s day

Sometimes Wordsworth would run about in the sandy fields leaping through flowery fraves of
yellow ragwort bush. Then the frosty season was perhaps the happiest time of rapture for the
poet. The most delightful experiences recalled by Wordsworth is he exciting game of skating in
the company of other young friends. The ringing sounds of their moving skates would be echoed
by the leafless trees and the surrounding hills and Wordsworth
………………wheeled about
Proud and exulting like an untired horse
That cares not for his home.

He would even stand aloof watching the earth and rocks turning round and round when they
stopped their playful whirling movements on the smooth surface of the ice.

2. TROUBLED PLEASURE
By the word ‘fear’ Wordsworth implies fear associated with a feeling of wonder. The bird-nesting
episode nicely illustrates the experience of such pleasure of fear mixed with astonishment.
Wordsworth and his companions used to move about just like robbers in quest of high places
to snatch away the nests and eggs of birds. Sometimes he hung alone above the nest of a
raven at a high altitude in a very precarious position and then his delight and excitement was
much tempered by a sense of great amount of peril.
While on the perilous ridge I hung alone
With what strange utterance did the loud dry wind
Bow through my ears
3. PURE FEAR
In the bird snaring episode Wordsworth has nicely described his first experience of pure fear.
During their night wanderings sometimes he would catch hold of a bird that happened to be
trapped in the snare of some other boy and then came Nature’s severer intervention:
And when the deed was done
I heard among the solitary hills
Low breathing coming after me, and sounds

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 Of undistinguishable motion, steps
Almost as silent as the turf they trod.

Wordsworth’s boyhood is dominated by beauty and fear of Nature. While snaring birds or
robbing nests the boy experiences exultation as well as terror. Here his feeling of joy and guilt
are inseparable. These experiences remain in the boy’s mind, transforming the world for him
and haunting his dreams. It is from such experiences that Wordsworth’s poetic imagination is
formed.

A third interprets motions, looks and eyes

At every word a reputation dies.

Then the time comes when Wordsworth is chastened by Nature so that the meanest flower that
blows gives him thoughts that do often live too deep for tears. Humanity and humility stand now
gifted to him. Realizing the power of Nature to teach, elevate and soothe, his mission is to
spread his philosophy of love and joy through his poetry.

So, we can say that he traces the details of the mind with extreme care. He holds a microscope
over the small, almost invisible links that build up into principles, morals and characters. He
makes an attempt to show that he and his poetry are made of, and they are not made only of
great events and emotions, but of small things that a less observant mind would have
forgotten—of boating expeditions, of dreams, of the noise of the wind in the mountains, of the
sight of the ash tree outside his bedroom window. These small apparently disconnected
incidents are to Wordsworth neither small nor disconnected. In the poem we see him tracing
the links, joining them together, and working out their meanings.

(03)
CHARACTERISTICS OF ROMANTIC POETRY
BACK FROM SET RULES
The poetry of the Romantic Revival is in direct contrast to that of Neoclassical. In the 18th
century, poetry was governed by set rules and regulations. There were well-prepared lines of
poetic composition.
And any deviation from the rules was disliked by the teachers of poetic thought. The first thing
that we notice in the poetry Romantic age is the break from the slavery of rules and regulations.
The poets of the Romantic Age wrote poetry in freestyle without following any rules and
regulations.
THE SUBLIME
One of the most important concepts in Romantic poetry. The sublime in literature refers to use
of language and description that excites thoughts and emotions beyond ordinary experience.
Though often associated with grandeur, the sublime may also refer to the grotesque or other
extraordinary experiences that "take us beyond ourselves.”
The literary concept of the sublime became important in the eighteenth century. It is associated
with the 1757 treatise by Edmund Burke, though it has earlier roots. The idea of the sublime
was taken up by Immanuel Kant and the Romantic poets including especially William
Wordsworth.
INTEREST IN RURAL LIFE
The poetry of the 18th century was concerned with clubs and coffee houses, drawing rooms
and the social and political life of London. It was essentially the poetry of town life.

Nature had practically no place in Neo-classical Poetry. In the poetry of Romantic Revival, the
interest of poets was transferred from town to rural life and from artificial decorations of drawing
rooms to the natural beauty and loveliness of nature.

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Nature began to have its own importance in the poetry of this age. Wordsworth was the greatest
poet who revealed the physical and spiritual beauty of nature to those who could not see any
charm in the wildflowers, green fields and the chirping birds.
COMMON LIFE
Romantic Poets started taking interest in the lives of the common people, the shepherds, and
the cottages and left the gallant lords and gay butterflies of fashion to the care of novelists.
A renewed interest in the simple life marked the poetry of the poets of the Romantic Age. A
feeling of humanitarianism colored the poetry of Wordsworth, Shelley, and Byron. Thus
Romantic Poetry was marked by intense human sympathy and a consequent understanding of
the human heart.
ESCAPE TO THE MIDDLE AGES
Some Romantic poets felt irritated with the tyranny and ugliness of materialistic life of their age
and to avoid the life of uneasy restlessness, they escaped from the problems of the world to a
world of beauty and joy which their poetic definitions had pictured.
In many ways, Romantic Poetry proved to be the poetry of escape from the sorrows and
sufferings of worldly life and their times to the Middle Ages, where they found the eternal bliss.
The enthusiasm for the Middle Ages satisfied the emotional sense of wonder on the one hand
and the intellectual sense of curiosity on the other hand.
PREDOMINANCE OF IMAGINATIONS & EMOTIONS
In Romantic Poetry, reason and intellect were subdued and their place was taken by
imaginations, emotions, and passion. In the poetry of all the Romantic Poets, we find
heightened emotional sensibilities and imaginative flights of genius bordering on heavenly
heights uncrossed by the poets of the previous age.
SUPERNATURALISM
Supernaturalism is another outstanding quality of Romantic Poetry. Poets like Coleridge and
Scott gave a sense of wonder and mystery to poetry. It was this supernaturalism that gave the
atmosphere of wonder and mystery to the Romantic Poetry.
ENDLESS VARIETY
In Romantic Poetry, we come across an endless variety. The poetry of this age is as varied as
the character and moods of different writers.
SUBJECTIVITY
Subjectivity began to have its full play in the poetry of this age. The poets of this period were in
favor of giving a subjective interpretation of the objective realities of life. “The Romantic
Movement”, says William J. Long “was the expression of individual genius rather than of the
established rules.”
LYRICISM
In Romantic Poetry, lyricism predominates, and the poets of this school have, to their credit, a
number of fine lyrics excelling the heroic couplet of the Neoclassical Age in melody and
sweetness of tone.
SIMPLICITY IN STYLE

The style of the Romantic Poets is varied but the stress was laid on simplicity. Instead of an
artificial model of the expression of classical poets, we have a natural diction and
spontaneous way of expressing thoughts in Romantic Poetry.

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 (04)
ROLE OF BEAUTY AND FEAR
I have chosen to explore paragraphs 8, 9 and 11 to interpret what Wordsworth might have
meant by this quote. The use of 'fostered' creates the impression of a parent or guardian, and
with such a high regard for nature I wonder whether this quote is aimed at her and her so called
actions that only Wordsworth seems to feel and encounter.
Episode 8 begins with the lines; he seems at one with where he used to live in 'that beloved
Vale' and the cold language Wordsworth includes such as 'frost', 'the breath of frosty wind' and
'snapped' reflect how he feels now. Things aren't as happy and pleasant as they were in his
'much favoured' birthplace Cockermouth. There is a sudden change of mood as he describes
the freedom of the woodcocks, Wordsworth illustrates his love for solitude 'to range the open
heights' and adds an excited tone 'twas my joy' whilst catching them.
But the use of 'night' is a stereotypical technique to suddenly indicate bad happenings, there is
a constant awareness of the universe by Wordsworth that heightens the fear that follows with
'moon and stars were shining o'er my head. I was alone.' Wordsworth usually seeks solitude as
he loves to be alone with nature to let his imagination get the better of him, but in this instance,
he seems frightened due to the eerie tone created. He knows he's been doing wrong by catching
the birds 'I piled' shows he was sneaking as if hiding from nature herself, Wordsworth says he
'seemed to be a trouble to the peace' like he had disturbed her by doing this act.
This is reinforced when he goes on to say, 'when the deed was done, I heard among the solitary
hills low breathings coming after me,' presenting nature as a moral educator evoking fear as he
has done wrong. Nature acts like a parent at the beginning when Wordsworth states, 'I grew up
fostered alike by beauty' and also at the end of this passage 'low breathings coming after me'
when we get the image of an angry parent. He feels this overwhelming presence due to the
power of his imagination, the romantic poets which Wordsworth was part of believed that you
needed solitude to express and find your individuality and imagination.
Wordsworth conveys his imagination again in the 9th passage where he again is up to no good
stealing eggs or perhaps to encounter the experience again see if nature reacts, It's clear he
knows he's doing wrong 'though mean our object and inglorious,'. In the short paragraph
Wordsworth gives the impression that the wind had a purpose there as he struggled through
the difficulties of the 'slippery rock', he says 'and almost (so it seemed) suspended by the blast
that blew', adding wonder with the sounds 'oh', 'hung alone' and 'blow' through assonance. He
hangs alone but is in the company of the wind and doesn't in this passage seem to mind even
though it is uttering he's wrong.
Wordsworth goes on to say and end with 'the sky seemed not the sky of earth-and with what
motion moved the clouds!' the exclamation mark emphasises his wonder of the difference he
feels. This paragraph is easy to imagine due to Wordsworth's good use of alliteration 'motion
moved' and assonance that assist in reflecting his experience. There is a calm tone at the very
end with a soft use of 'clouds' to show his height and closeness he feels to nature at this point.
Wordsworth was worrying in passage 5, he thought he wouldn't be able to express his
experiences so the reader can relate to them and re-live his encounters 'Lofty, but unsubstantial
structure melts', he felt he couldn't see a way through it but here he has proved he can do it.
Throughout paragraph 11 Wordsworth personifies nature highlighting the relationship he seems
to have with her for instance he says 'One summer evening (led by her)' when he steals a boat.
He again feels guilty like all the other instances, showing he has got a conscience which
possibly was helped put there by nature, 'It was an act of stealth and troubled pleasure,' but it
doesn't seem to stop him. It's a very descriptive passage 'small circles glittering idly on the
moon,' showing his love of his surroundings, it's in a beautiful setting and seems perfect
reflected in the 'summers evening' which begins the story, his senses were alive! But this is
soon contrasted.
There is again this constant theme of Wordsworth being aware of how small he is 'for above
was nothing but the stars and the grey sky' In comparison to the universe. He fixes his view on
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a 'craggy ridge,' we then have this beautiful image, created through the simile 'went heaving
through the water like a swan;' we feel the freedom he enjoys. But it is contrasted suddenly with
'a huge peak, black and huge,' the repetition of 'huge' increases the fear, due to Wordsworth's
heightened perception suddenly we get this frightening description perhaps due to his own guilt,
when he refers to his chosen point with monster imagery.
He says this creature 'up reared its head' personifying nature again to make this monster more
vivid and realistic. This sense of fear enhances as he 'struck and struck' at his oars trying to get
away and Wordsworth's use of language with 'grim shape', 'towered' and 'trembling' reinforces
the tone, 'silent water' adds to the terror because in certain situations as we saw in the 8th
passage can add to the unease. The passage ends negatively, there seems there's nothing
attractive left 'hung a darkness', 'No familiar shapes', 'no pleasant images of trees' and 'no
colours of green fields;' the repetition of 'no' shows his mood now nature seems more like an
enemy shown also in the way Wordsworth used monster imagery earlier on. In the passage
Wordsworth's feelings take over from reason which is what most romantic poets tended to do,
he sees where he's heading as a 'craggy ridge' but then it turns into some live, scary creature
as his sensibility takes over.
Through these three paragraphs there is a noticeable connection between when Wordsworth
is doing wrong and the mood in nature suddenly changing because of this. He seems to sense
when nature changes, even if others don't like he states in passage 13 'Of melancholy not
unnoticed'. The personification frequently used by Wordsworth shows how highly he regards
his beautiful surroundings and the relationship he has with nature. Nature in a way acts like a
parent in Wordsworth's mind 'Fostered alike by beauty and by fear', where beauty seems to
refer to nature and fear in the change and punishment because he's done wrong. Wordsworth
can appreciate and relate to the beauty of nature and her changes having grown up with her
when very young in Cockermouth and still in it's presence in Hawkshead.

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