Exerpt from "The Prelude" by William Wordsworth

The ice skating scene.

“was set”

Enjambment emphasise “was set” which could foreshadow the idea of things ending.

“frosty”, “blaz’d”

• Juxtaposition between cold and heat suggest that nature and the domestic are incompatible.

• Relates to how Wordsworth felt severally unhappy at his maternal grandparents house but felt immense happiness out and about in nature

"I heeded not the summons”

• The first-person persona is presented as rebellious

• Suggest a negative relationship with the domestic, which is what Wordsworth had when his mother died

Lines 4-9

Use of caesura could represent the persona’s passion, excitement, and breathlessness Wordsworth had for nature

“like an unti’d horse”

• By comparing themselves to an “unti’d horse” the persona feels confident, strong and free

• By comparing themselves to a horse it suggests the persona not only likes nature, but feel they’re a part of it

“happy time”, “time of rapture”, “exulting”

• The positive tone reflects the persona’s love for and enjoyment of nature

• He is no longer in his grandparents house but with nature

• Viewed nature as a teacher or parent like figure

“All shod with steel, We hiss’d along the polish’d ice”

• Sibilance reflects the sound of ice-skating

• Wordsworth loved ice skating

“din”

• Negative connotations: too loud, too long, too unpleasant

• Poem’s volta from the shift in tone

“Alien sound”

• Suggests a strangeness and unfamiliarity

• The persona no longer feels comfortable in nature

“Of melancholy”

• Made to stand out by the enjambment, similarly to “was set”

• Reflects how the persona’s new feeling

“Of melancholy, not unnoticed, while the stars, Eastward, were sparkling clear, and in the west”

Use of caesura slows down poem assisting with the melancholy tone

“The orange sky of evening died away.”

• Could represent a loss of innocence

• Could represent there death of love for nature

• Could symbolise the death of Wordsworth mother that caused him to move with his maternal grandparents