EXTRACT FROM THE PRELUDE by WILLIAM WANDSWORTH

Conflict

Conflict between man and nature, nature proving it is more powerful

Power

The power and beauty of nature to make man feel insignificant(not important)

one summer evening (led by her) I found

respect for Mother nature. Use of personal pronoun (her) personifies mother nature.

troubled pleasure

guilty pleasure implies the speaker felt excitement from stealing the boat but the guilness from doing it .

huge ,peak black and huge

sematic field of fear , conveys threatening dominance of nature

with trembling oars I turned

use of personification implies how the speaker is frightened and terrified of the mountain

went heaving through the water like a swan

The speaker is self obsessed, wandsworth may be emphasising power of nature , nothing is more superior

stucture

non ryhming lines and no stanzas, written in a conversational style in which the speaker confronts the difference between the human and non human world

context

a romantic poet who believed in the power and beauty of nature and it capacity to overpower man's power

key themes

power of humans(man) ,power of nature

comparison poems

storm on the Island , ozymandias , tissue , emigree