the prelude

“troubled pleasure”

• links to themes: HUMAN POWER AND CORRUPTION, POWER OF NATURE

• Oxymoronic statement connoting the paradoxical natures of pain and pleasure

  • The statement demonstrates that although the poet knows the gravity of his transgressions, he reconciles this criminality with his overwhelming feelings of entitlement to experiencing nature, despite the constricting societal conventions of legal legislation (criminalising burglary)

“I fixed my view”

• links to themes: HUMAN POWER AND CORRUPTION

• Wordsworth's overarching view of the world is still "fixed"

  • This links to the blinding nature of youthful arrogance to the harsh reality of humanity's insignificance

  • Wordsworth acts as representation of humanity's hubris and arrogance

  • Wordsworth demonstrates how he believes he holds control over nature, eluding to his youthful ambition

“heaving through the water”

• links to themes: HUMAN POWER AND CORRUPTION, POWER OF NATURE

• present participle verb "heaving" connotes the sustained intense physical struggle of man against nature

  • The illusion of humanity's control over nature is broken as the mountain rises from the water, emphasising the superior power of nature through its immense size

“towered up between me and the stars”

• links to themes: HUMAN POWER AND CORRUPTION, POWER OF NATURE

• Could link to the Biblical teaching of the epistemic gap - the unity of humanity and divinity within Jesus' incarnation

• Connotes nature's link to the divine? - inherently stating that nature is more worthy of God? - human corruption has led humanity to fall short of divinity (“all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” - Romans 3:23)

  • AO3 - Protestantism was prevalent within Victorian England

“covert of the willow tree”

• links to themes: HUMAN POWER AND CORRUPTION

• Demonstrates how the poet is traumatised by the overwhelming power of nature

  • Could be an allegory for the revelation of humanity's insignificance within the world to the youth

• Willow trees symbolise spring and rebirth - connotes the revelation of nature's power and humanity's ignorance in the latter half of the poem and how the prolocutor is effectively ‘reborn’

“no familiar shapes”

• links to themes: HUMAN POWER AND CORRUPTION

• Links to the revelation of humanity's solitude and vulnerability within the world

  • allegorically signals to the prolocutor's shift from childhood to adulthood

structure

• IAMBIC PENTAMETER

  • the constant rhythm of the iambic pentameter is dichotomous to the vast shifts in attitudes that the revelations cause in the prolocutor’s world perspective

• BLANK VERSE

AO3

• written in 1850

• Wordsworth was the part of the Romantic movement

  • Romantic movement aimed for poets to use a more emotional subjective view and to highlight the beauty of nature