Extract from, The Prelude

“A little boat tied to a willow tree

Within a rocky cove,”

• He has stolen the boat, the adjective ‘little’ reduces his crime.

• From Book 1 of The Prelude (early childhood), young Wordsworth steals the boat.

• Willow tree symbolises death and mourning - future trials of life?

• Willow tree - flowing branches - cover and protect the young narrator?

• Iambic pentameter used to mimic speech of the common man and foreshadow their feelings.

“She was an elfin pinnace, Justily I dipped my oars into the silent lake,”

• ‘pinnace’ = small boat, elfin = magical - feels like he is in a fantasy story and finds it magical.

• Full of energy = youth of nature’s impact on him?

• Calm and peaceful or eerie - foreshadowing?

“a huge peak, black and huge”

• ‘huge’ = diacope - repetition with few words between to emphasise power and impact on nature.

• Caesura in line and stresses fall on ‘huge’, ‘black’ and again ‘huge’ to highlight power.

• 11 syllables in line, not 10 like the others - impact of the mountain so great it displaces meter.

“As if with voluntary power instinct, Upreared its head”

• Simile emphasises power of the mountain - like a monster or beast.

• The mountain can move with a mind of it’s own to attack - terrifies the narrator.

“measured notion like a living thing”

• Simile - it can move after the young narrator, like a monster in a nightmare.

• ‘measured’ - not just large and frightening, but can choose when it attacks.

“o’er my thoughts

There hung a darkness”

• Shadow of the mountain - literal and metaphorical.

• Haunted by darkness - the mountain’s impact on him but metaphor for deeper feelings?

• Darkness symbolic of guilt.

“no pleasant images of trees,

Of sea or sky, no colours of green fields,”

• Positive aspects of nature have been taken from him - ‘pleasant’ - nature cannot comfort him

“huge and mighty forms”

• Imagination needed as a poet has gone from him to be replaced by darkness ‘forms’ - mountain becomes more menacing and adopts fantasy/otherworldly qualities.

• Poem ends with nightmarish quality - evil/darkness within nature? God’s judgement for stealing the boat and moral theft is wrong?

• Too much for a young boy but older Wordsworth looks back with hindsight.

“By day, and were a trouble to my dreams.”

• Fancy = associating something scary to a moment.

• Imagination = power to make that frightening.

• Is Wordsworth exaggerating power for effect or is his imagination ‘dreams’ troubled by this mountain so much he cannot think/write?