an extract from 'The Prelude' -- william wandsworth

context

he was a romantic poet

had a bad relationship with his family so spent most of his time outside in the Lake district

poem is based off an event that happened in his childhood

synopsis

a boy steals a small boat and takes it out onto a lake

initially he is happy and enjoying the moment

a mountain appears in the horizon and the speakers gets scared

he turns his boat around and goes home, his view on natured changed

‘one summer evening (led by her)’

personifies either the nature or the boat:

nature, being ‘her’, is powerful and is leading the boy to come and explore. or the boat is ‘her’ and the boat leads his path through nature, showing he has little control over where he is going but letting the natural guide him.

‘Straight i unloosed her chain.’

‘straight’ shows how the speaker is initially confident about going out into nature

the boat is now personified as ‘her’

‘small circles glittering idly in the moon, until they melted all into one track of sparkling light’

‘glittering’ + ‘sparkling’ shows celestial imagery = nature is greater than humans.

‘when, from behind that craggy steep…

a huge peak, black and huge’

shatter previous delicate description with ‘craggy’

repetition of huge shows fear.

last line is also monosyllabic

‘upreared its head // strode after me’

personifies mountain making it seem animalistic and is now defending itself’

‘no familiar shapes remained’

view of nature has been altered / tainted due to scary experience

‘but huge and mighty forms, that do not live like living men…

…were a trouble to my dreams’

‘forms’ — vague = unable to compare to anything else, highlighting the power of nature

‘trouble to my dreams’ — unsettling image makes reader empathise with him. contrasting to start of the poem