The Prelude, part II

In The Prelude, many themes are introduced and expounded upon, all in an attempt to explain the development of Wordsworth’s poetic vocation over the course of his life. Yet even though many are introduced, the work is mostly concerned with themes of ever-present nature and its effect on fickle mankind. Whether it was the poet’s opinion that this subject was worthy of the remainder of his epic, we will never know, but the Prelude does a masterful job of exploring the subject. In the second part of the piece, Wordsworth focuses on his early adolescence, and the memories that he has of various outings into nature’s magnificent beauty, which serve as metaphorical vehicles for the spiritual journey that he experiences as a whole during the epic.

One such outing or memory that Wordsworth (as the narrator) has of nature is a scene in which he interacts with the sun and the moon, which are both personified in the passage. He speaks of loving the sun and watching it “lay [its] beauty on the morning hills… in many a thoughtless hour” and of how his “blood appeared to flow with its own pleasure”. He speaks of the moon in similar fashion, of dreaming away his purposes while looking upon it with a sense of belonging. The anthropomorphism associated with the celestial spheres is common in all poetry throughout, and especially works of the romantic era, but Wordsworth displays a rare mastery of the technique in this section of the Prelude.

Another interesting aspect of this particular segment is that it can almost stand alone as its own poem. If one only alters the beginning, it takes on its own independent emotional arc and thematic repetition. This only further argues Wordsworth’s mastery of the English language, and causes us to truly mourn the incompletion of the latter parts of his epic masterpiece.