Book XI (1805)

One of the most interesting passages of Book XI of The Prelude comes in lines 346 to about 383. Here the reader is presented with the death of Wordsworth’s father. In very typical “Prelude” fashion, Wordsworth looks back on a particular event, this time the death of his father, and remembers all that came with the event in his life. He gives a detailed account of his sensual perceptions as well as his philosophical or moral renderings of the situation.

The sensual perceptions of the funeral day are very specific and haunting. He describes the “wind and sleety rain,” “the single sheep and the one blasted tree,” and “the bleak music of that old stone wall.” The words sleety, single, blasted and bleak all help present imagery that agrees with the mourning and devastation of losing his father. There is no sunshine, or pleasant days in this description. We are told that he was “straining” his eyes, and it was a “stormy, and rough, and wild” day. The climate sets up perfectly the bitter end to his father’s life and allows a time for Wordsworth to reflect.

We receive this lofty imagery experience in lines 368 to 374. We find a struggle for Wordsworth that he at one point felt the death was maybe a chastisement, and produced an “anxiety of hope.” Maybe he tried to reason that his father was in a better place by the line “with trite reflections of morality.” I could see this meaning he told himself that his father was a good person and probably was in heaven. But then we see that in his “deepest passion,” God “corrected his desires.” I am not sure as to what his desires are corrected towards, and maybe that is intentional. But nevertheless we are presented with this image of God helping him deal with the loss of his father in the midst of a dim and depressing scene.

This follows Wordsworth’s pattern of looking back on things that happened earlier in life, and adding meaning to them by mulling over them using his current perspective.