The Prelude by William Wordsworth

1187 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Romantic period influence

Man's journey through life is poignantly influenced by the perspective he embraces. A perspective acts as a lens to view the world, swaying one's way of thinking and decision making. This perspective is constantly tested by the prolonged process of maturation that continues with age. The Romantic period ceded a break from intellectual conformity towards emancipation; it marked a radical shift in popular thinking, resulting in the growth in the value of literature, art and nature. Young Wordsworth's life during this inquisitive time establishes a unique context in which to describe the relation between one's experiences and one's developing views. Wordsworth's life work, The Prelude, articulates his perspective on life as he engages in the culture of his era.

Undoubtedly, the underlying theme of the Romantic Movement – consisting of artists such as Wordsworth – resonates in their emphasis on nature. The first book of The Prelude immediately introduces the value Wordsworth himself places on nature. Conveying his opinion from a mature point of view, he expresses a sense of relief and peace in returning to the nature of the Lake District. Sentiments of freedom and relaxation surround Wordsworth as he enjoys the quiet of nature, free from the tumult of civilization. Similar to other Romantics, Wordsworth discovers great understanding from his experiences in nature, which ultimately shape his maturation. Wordsworth's connection to nature births the optimism and creativity attributed to his character, which remain throughout the epic. For example, he characterizes the breeze by articulating his observations in saying,

Oh there is blessing in this gentle breeze,

A visitant that while it fans my cheek

Doth seem half-consci...

... middle of paper ...

...tion. Wordsworth’s thinking in regard to the Revolution influences his views on political philosophy as he battles to discover a balance between the radicalism of the revolutionaries in France, and the slow humanitarian reform in England.

Wordsworth’s primordial experiences as a child in nature instill tenets of Romanticism into his view of the world. As Wordsworth ages and matures, his experiences in London and France contribute to the evolution of his perspective on nature and humanity. From his retrospective analysis of nature and humanity in the peaceful garden, to his emotional experiences in the violence of the Revolution, Wordsworth clings to Romantic thought. Despite his experiences with the disarray of urban London and the terror of violence in France, Wordsworth retains the optimism and love of humanity that is central to the Romantic perspective.

Show More
Related

  • Comparison: Frankenstein & The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

    1670 Words  | 4 Pages

    In the late eighteenth century arose in literature a period of social, political and religious confusion, the Romantic Movement, a movement that emphasized the emotional and the personal in reaction to classical values of order and objectivity. English poets like William Blake or Percy Bysshe Shelley seen themselves with the capacity of not only write about usual life, but also of man’s ultimate fate in an uncertain world. Furthermore, they all declared their belief in the natural goodness of man and his future. Mary Shelley is a good example, since she questioned the redemption through the union of the human consciousness with the supernatural. Even though this movement was well known, none of the British writers in fact acknowledged belonging to it; “.”1 But the main theme of assignment is the narrative voice in this Romantic works. The narrator is the person chosen by the author to tell the story to the readers. Traditionally, the person who narrated the tale was the author. But this was changing; the concept of unreliable narrator was starting to get used to provide the story with an atmosphere of suspense.

    Read More

  • Friendship in Wordsworth's Tintern Abbey

    1052 Words  | 3 Pages

    Rebecca Wordsworth was, as many writers have pointed out, distressed at Wordsworth’s refusal to hold a full-time job—like many a youth after him, Wordsworth was living the carefree life of the artist. Rebecca wanted him put to rights. He should become an adult now. “Tintern Abbey” is Wordsworth’s attempt to explain himself to Rebecca, but also, in crucial ways, to himself.

    Read More

  • Identity in James Baldwin’s Stranger in the Village and Zora Neale Hurston’s How it Feels to be Colored Me

    1733 Words  | 4 Pages

    stories holds a large impact on how they later develop as individuals. While Baldwin’s piece demonstrates the ignorance from society which is projected onto him from Swiss villagers, it shares both similarities and differences to the attitudes demonstrated in Hurston’s piece influenced by her surroundings. Being that it is difficult to escape the past and the events that have brought strength through triumph, it is important to focus one’s attention on the present and into the future. Although the past determines who an individual is, the future determines who an individual will become.

    Read More

  • The Romantic Period: An Important Characteristics Of The Romantic Period

    710 Words  | 2 Pages

    Since the French Revolution was going on during the Romantic Period, a lot of writers would show nonconformity in their writings. They would write how things should be different and need to change. A good example of this would be “The Chimney Sweeper” from Songs of Experience by William Blake. In it he writes, “Where are thy father & mother? say?/ They are both gone up to the church to pray.” Parents would make their kids work to make money for them. A lot of kids were sent to work as chimney sweepers by their parents even though it was a very dangerous job. Blake writes this poem for people to be able to see what they are putting the children through. Wordsworth also quotes, “It moves us not.- Great God! I’d rather be/ A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;/ So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,” (lines 9-10) He says he would rather be Pagan then conform to different ways. He is referencing here about people moving away from nature. He believes it is a horrible mistake and refuses to conform to how they

    Read More

  • Analysis Of 'Why I Went To The Woods' By Henry David Thoreau

    1404 Words  | 3 Pages

    Wordsworth visualized scenes while he was away, a way for him to feel a spiritual connection until he was able to return. Wordsworth states, “As a landscape to a blind man’s eye: But opt, in lonely rooms, and mid the din Of towns and cities, I have owed to them” (Wordsworth 25-27). Wordsworth gives a sense of conformity and loneliness while being in the towns and cities. That he had his memories of when he was younger to keep him hopeful to return to nature and all the memories he had grasped the memories of. As the society today focuses merely on what they can profit from cities, Wordsworth understood the true meaning of memories. Memories today are mostly captured through social media, and in return being taken for granted. Wordsworth had nostalgic bliss as he replayed his memories, and knowing that in the future he could look back on that day and have the same feeling again. Social media today is destroying our memories and what we can relive in our minds as memories. We can know that when things are posted within social media it will get likes and be shared. However, there are not many people in society today that will remember the true essence of what nature has given to

    Read More

  • Analyzing The Idiot Boy

    1056 Words  | 3 Pages

    Stephen Gill, editor. The Oxford Authors: William Wordsworth, pp. 67-80. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986.

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud By William Wordsworth

    889 Words  | 2 Pages

    William Wordsworth is a British poet who is associated with the Romantic movement of the early 19th century. Wordsworth was born on April 7, 1770, in Cockermouth, Cumberland, England. Wordsworth’s mother died when he was seven years old, and he was an orphan at 13. This experience shapes much of his later work. Despite Wordsworth’s losses, he did well at Hawkshead Grammar School, where he firmly established his love of poetry. After Hawkshead, Wordsworth studied at St. John’s College in Cambridge and before his final semester, he set out on a walking tour of Europe, an experience that influenced both his poetry.

    Read More

  • William Wordsworth's Lucy Gray

    948 Words  | 2 Pages

    William Wordsworth. “Lucy Gray.” English Romantic Poetry .Ed. Stanley Appelbaum. New York: Dover Publications, 1996. 33 – 4.

    Read More

  • Comparison of the Use of Nature by Shelley and Wordsworth

    1194 Words  | 3 Pages

    When a man becomes old and has nothing to look forward to he will always look back, back to what are called the good old days. These days were full of young innocence, and no worries. Wordsworth describes these childhood days by saying that "A single Field which I have looked upon, / Both of them speak of something that is gone: The Pansy at my feet Doth the same tale repeat: Whither is fled the visionary gleam? Where is it now, the glory and the dream?"(190) Another example of how Wordsworth uses nature as a way of dwelling on his past childhood experiences is when he writes "O joy! That in our embers / Is something that doth live, / That nature yet remembers / What was so fugitive!" (192) Here an ember represents our fading years through life and nature is remembering the childhood that has escaped over the years. As far as Wordsworth and his moods go I think he is very touched by nature. I can picture him seeing life and feeling it in every flower, ant, and piece of grass that crosses his path. The emotion he feels is strongly suggested in this line "To me the meanest flower that blows can give / Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears." (193) Not only is this showi...

    Read More

  • The Role of Nature in the poetry of William Wordsworth

    1355 Words  | 3 Pages

    In William Wordsworth’s poems, the role of nature plays a more reassuring and pivotal r ole within them. To Wordsworth’s poetry, interacting with nature represents the forces of the natural world. Throughout the three poems, Resolution and Independence, Tintern Abbey, and Michael, which will be discussed in this essay, nature is seen prominently as an everlasting- individual figure, which gives his audience as well as Wordsworth, himself, a sense of console. In all three poems, Wordsworth views nature and human beings as complementary elements of a sum of a whole, recognizing that humans are a sum of nature. Therefore, looking at the world as a soothing being of which he is a part of, Wordsworth looks at nature and sees the benevolence of the divinity aspects behind them. For Wordsworth, the world itself, in all its glory, can be a place of suffering, which surely occurs within the world; Wordsworth is still comforted with the belief that all things happen by the hands of the divinity and the just and divine order of nature, itself.

    Read More

  • The Influence of Nature in Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey by William Wordsworth

    675 Words  | 2 Pages

    In "Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey," William Wordsworth explains the impact of Nature from Tintern Abbey in his every day life. "Tintern Abbey" shows the great importance of nature to Wordsworth in his writings, love for life, and religion. The memories he has of Tintern Abbey make even the darkest days full of light.

    Read More

  • Nature in "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" by William Wordsworth

    867 Words  | 2 Pages

    To conclude, William Wordsworth uses form and syntax and figurative language to stress on his mental journey, and to symbolize the importance of the beauty and peace of nature. In my opinion, the poet might have written this poem to show his appreciation towards nature. The poem has a happy mood especially when the poet is discussing the daffodils. In this poem the daffodils are characterized as more than flowers, but as humans “fluttering and dancing in the breeze” (line 6). In addition, the poet mentioned himself to be part of nature since nature inspires him to write and think. Therefore, the reason that the poet wrote this poem was to express the feeling of happiness in his mental journey in nature.

    Read More

  • 18th and 19th century view on nature

    359 Words  | 1 Pages

    Through the poems of Blake and Wordsworth, the meaning of nature expands far beyond the earlier century's definition of nature. "The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom." The passion and imagination portrayal manifest this period unquestionably, as the Romantic Era. Nature is a place of solace where the imagination is free to roam. Wordsworth contrasts the material world to the innocent beauty of nature that is easily forgotten, or overlooked due to our insensitivities by our complete devotion to the trivial world. “But yet I know, where’er I go, that there hath passed away a glory from the earth.

    Read More

  • William Wordsworth's Use of Nature

    1393 Words  | 3 Pages

    Hirsch, E. D. Jr. Wordsworth and Schelling a Typical Study of Romanticism. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1960.

    Read More

  • Wordsworth’s Romantic Style Present in Tintern Abbey

    1116 Words  | 3 Pages

    ... emotion, nature, and imagination which he used as effective tools in an exploration of humanity and memory, in hopes to reveal the true temperament of the human individual, or the search for the definitive nature, man, and so goes the quest of the romantics, and their focus on the individual; and thus “Nature will not stop writing” (Bloom 131).

    Read More

More about The Prelude by William Wordsworth

Open Document